Do You Want to Become a Catholic?

St. Helena of the Holy Cross Parish in Ellenbrook will be beginning the next course for adults who wish to become Catholic in May of this year. The course is open to adults who have never been baptised as well as adults who have been already baptised as Catholics or into another religion. Meetings will be monthly and we look forward to welcoming any candidates who are interested.

Please contact Claire Merry on sh.sacraments@holycross.wa.edu.au for more information or to register your interest.

Director of Faith

Mr Ryan Shelton 

ACC Hockey

This term has seen the start of ACC Hockey Training in the lead up to the Boys and Girls Hockey Challenge Carnivals in June at the Perth Hockey stadium. It has been great to see such good numbers turning up to training with those who have played before lending a hand to our beginners. We are looking forward to some good training sessions next term in the lead up to the Girls carnival in Week 7 and the Boys Carnival in Week 8.

Mr Chris McRae

Inter House Cross Country Carnival

Thursday 5th April saw the 2018 Inter House Cross Carnival take place under sunny skies and hot conditions. The morning session was filled with the Junior School divisions which have effectively doubled in size in 2018. The students coped with a large increase in distances due to structured training within Physical Education and extra training in their classes. The spirit and effort from students to push themselves and celebrate each others success was fantastic. 

The parent support and atmosphere was also brilliant and we would like to encourage this presence and enthusiasm from our parent group to continue in carnivals moving forward.

The final tally for the Junior School Cross Country Carnival read;

Salvado                306

Frayne                  278

Ozanam                268

McCormack         228

The afternoon saw the focus shift to the Middle and Senior School Carnival with our growth in numbers meaning over 100 students competing in each race. Students attacked the 3.1km course with great effort and the level of House Spirit was easily recognisable with the colour and sounds coming from the House Bays being impossible to miss.

The final tally for the Middle and Senior School Cross Country Carnival read;

McCormack          600

Ozanam                 536

Frayne                   516

Salvado                 436

Congratulations to McCormack and Salvado as the winning Houses and to all students who challenged themselves on the day. Our focus now turns to the Cross Country Carnivals at Inter School level in the ACC for the Middle and Senior School students and in the CPSSA for the Junior School Students.

Special thanks to entire staff for their work in making the day run as smoothly as possible.

Learning Conversations - Have you booked yours yet?

A reminder that Learning Conversations are taking place this week:
- Wednesday from 3.30pm for Junior School students only and
- Thursday from 12.30pm for Junior, Middle and Senior School students.

Students need to be present at the Learning Conversation and must be in full College uniform.

In order to book a time with the relevant teacher/s, please use PTO.  Each family's log in details for PTO were emailed last week but if you are having difficulties accessing the portal, please contact administration.

All students will be dismissed at 12.00pm on Thursday so please ensure you have made appropriate arrangements.

Year 9 and Year 10 Italian Excursion "Corsini Collection".

The Corsini Art Collection is an assembly of Renaissance-period paintings owned by the Corsini family, which my Italian class had the privilege to see. Honestly, this was an amazing opportunity for me, personally, as I am very interested in art, but it was truly amazing to see my friends, who are not in the least interested in art, engaging themselves in the history and culture of these painting. 

We were all completely immersed in every aspect of the excursion, from learning about the modern antiquity of the art to actually looking at the paintings. The most amazing part for me was that no matter how much we stared at the artwork, there was always more to see and more stories to be told. I would love to see the whole collection again one day.

Eva Ladyman, Year 9

On Wednesday the 28th of March, the year 9 and year 10 Italian students traveled to Perth City, we traveled by bus and train to the Art Gallery of Western Australia. When we first walked into the Art Gallery it was amazing to see all the souvenirs and all of the different exhibitions on display. As Italian students we visited the Corsini exhibition, The Corsini exhibition was full of portraits, landscapes, decorative objects and even furniture. In my opinion the most fascinating aspect of the whole collection, is that the pantings have been preserved for hundreds of years, and that only one painting out of the whole collection had been damaged (from a gun shot in The Second World War). The paintings did not leave Italy for 500 years and have now been brought to Australia for showing. I believe that the most shocking thing about the whole Corsini Collection is, that they survived the devastation of the Second World War and the paintings also survived The Great Flood of Florence. These paintings have such prestigious detail and in a certain lighting the frames and colours used in the paintings beam off and really grab your attention. I really enjoyed my time at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, and I will definitely visit again soon.

Nicole Picado, Year 9.

The Year 10 Italian students went to see “A window on Italy: The Corsini Collection”. We saw various paintings by well known artists such as Botticelli. It was amazing to see them because they are famous worldwide. There were also displayed objects from the Corsini family’s household and treasures. Our favourite was a beautiful green silk dress embroiled with golden bees.

It has been a very interesting visit and a beautiful excursion!

Mei-Yen McGown and Yolanda Lopez Year 10

Production Camp a VILE Success

Over the weekend of the 6-8 April, the Cast of the 2018 College Production of Villain School headed off on Production Camp to the Swan Valley Adventure Centre. Intensive rehearsals, character workshops and team building activities gave the students a great opportunity to get to grips with their quirky and zany characters. We were also lucky enough to have former student Max Hughes attend the camp on the Saturday to work with the students in their workshops and give some insight into building a successful character and performance. 

Students kicked things off on Friday night with the first of their team building workshops in which they worked in their 'orders' (Convicts, Geniuses, Witches, Monsters, Misfits and Adults) in a musical game of Giant Jenga. The competitive nature was high as was the energy in the room! In the end it was the witches who sent the Jenga stack for a tumble and lost their points. Students were then given the challenge of an order lip sync battle in which everything from Imagine Dragons to Beyonce's Single Ladies was tackled. Full of adrenaline, the first rehearsal of Act 1 that night was a great chance for students to really get some character energy happening and their orders began to click.

Saturday began bright an early with a game of freeze tag in the beautiful sunshine in the grounds of the Swan Valley Adventure Centre before the traditional 'ten fast feet' production warm up lead into a run of Act 2. Students picked up from where they left off the previous evening, exploring the quirks, traits and eccentricities of their characters. Miss Pratt then led students through the choreography for what is set to be a colourful and energetic final dance number! All students had a go and did a fantastic job in learning the choreography and giving 100% to the rehearsal process.

After morning tea, former student and six time HCC production member Max Hughes visited camp to run the students through some characterisation workshops as the cast broke up into groups. Max worked with the Geniuses, Mr McRae with the Monsters, Miss Lester with the Convicts and Adults, Mr Jackson with the Witches and Misfits and Miss Pratt with the characters of Quasi and Garbage. This was a great chance for the orders to connect and students to really experiment with the evil nature of their characters and orders. A full run through followed lunch as students put into practice what they had worked on in their character workshops.

That evening, it was time for some down time and what better way to chill out after a long day at one magical and mystical school than by enjoying some time at another. Students and staff settled in for a movie night featuring 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' with consistent quoting and commentary from the Potter obsessed teachers.

Before departing camp for another year, it was time for one last team challenge as students worked in their orders to compose and create an inventive order chant. What resulted were some truly phenomenal and creative performances which just went to show the talent across the cast. Finally, one final run of Act 1 concluded the camp for 2018.

Lasting friendships were formed and the cast grew in confidence in themselves as well as in each other. It was a truly fantastic experience and one which cast members will cherish as part of the 2018 production process.

Mr Chris McRae
Learning Area Coordinator (The Arts)

Villain School Updates!

The 2018 College Production of Villain School is coming together at a rapid pace. The following developments have taken place over the last couple of weeks:

- Students are beginning to put their scripts away and start experimenting with characteristics and expression with some awesome results. We are very lucky to have such a creative cast. 

- Chloe Ryan (Year 12) along with Mrs Azzopardi and Miss Pratt have done a fantastic job in sourcing our colourful costumes, many of which have arrived already. We will be doing a character photo shoot next week! 

- Plans have been put in place for our most technically ambitious production yet with new lighting and effects as well as a re-worked staging concept.

- Mr Matt Smyth will be hard at work next week putting our set pieces together, giving us the chance to rehearse with full set and props from Week 1 next Term.

Cast and Staff will be heading off to the Swan Valley Adventure Centre for Production Camp this weekend for an intensive two days of rehearsals and team building activities. This was a fantastic experience for students during the last whole College production and we look forward to what is set to be a fun and rewarding weekend. We will be very lucky to have former student and current Australian Performing Arts Network student Max Hughes joining us on the camp to run character and performance workshops with the students.

Mr Chris McRae

Learning Area Coordinator (The Arts)

Harmony Day 2018

On Wednesday 21 March, the College celebrated our students diversity by holding our annual Harmony Day Festival. The event is getting bigger and better every year!

In 2018, we had numerous food stalls selling international delights such as pizza, pasta, bubble tea and fried rice. There were table tennis games happening under San Salvador, cultural dancing in New Norcia, the senior school band playing outside the Cafe and Italian bocce outside the art room. The day had a great festival atmosphere with something for everyone to get involved with. Thank you very much to the Yr.10/11 Hospitality students with Mrs Croxford for cooking some delicious food and thank you to the student leaders for all their help with the day.

This year we raised a massive $1800 for Catholic Missions Australia. Amazing effort by everyone in the HCC community.

Thanks Ms Kelly Bond

YEAR 9 STUDENTS BRING LUNCHTIME TO LIFE

As a culmination of their work in this term’s Big Ideas project, Year 9 students brought lunchtime to life on Thursday, 29 March. Exploring their big question How can we bring lunchtimes to LIFE?’, the Year 9s investigated how they can make lunchtimes more active and engaging for students of Holy Cross College, while connecting them more closely with one or more of the LIFE pillars. Students developed their collaboration, citizenship, creative thinking and communication skills to develop a business prototype to offer active engagement for students of other year groups.

As part of the preparation for the day, students undertook market research to establish needs and areas of interest amongst the student body. They designed and presented a proposal for a business idea and they engaged teachers to support them in resourcing and supervising their activity.

Running their businesses at lunchtime truly brought the College to life, with students across year levels engaging with a wide range of activities such as ping-pong, hop scotch, skipping, basketball and dodgeball tournaments, dance competitions, karaoke and planting. The Year 9s showed professionalism and skill in engaging students and truly did bring lunchtime to LIFE. They will collect customer feedback and refine their business prototype in order to present another active lunchtime early in Autumn term.

Ms Karen Taylor

Year 9 Learning Innovator

4 April 2018