Sacrament of Reconciliation Parent - Child Workshop

This Wednesday, 20 March, students who are enroled in the Sacrament of Reconciliation are required to attend a Parent-Child Interactive Workshop. This compulsory session is a vital part of the preparation process for both parents and students. Sessions are being held at 4.00pm and 6.00pm. 

Upon arrival, students are required to sign in with the staff on the Boulevard and from there, they will be directed to the required building. For further information, please contact the Parish Sacramental Coordinator, Mrs Hannah Wager. sh.sacraments@holycross.wa.edu.au  

Mrs Kylie Day
Assistant Principal, Junior School

Salvado Feast Day

Salvado Feast Day was a great way to start the year with a sense of community and companionship amongst all staff, students and parents involved. As part of the tradition, students were asked to donate a gold coin as a fundraiser for the Benedictine Monks of New Norcia. With the special focus for the year being the life and times of Rosendo Salvado, it was an extra special and reverent experience for students to have the opportunity to attend mass in the morning to celebrate. The day was followed on with a pizza lunch across Pre-Primary to Year 12 and was thoroughly enjoyed by all Salvadorians.

Mr Simon Falcone

Salvado House Co-ordinator

Recording Studio Up and Running

Our new Music Recording Studio is up and running in the New Norcia building and will give students a large range of options in terms of working with recording equipment and experimenting with composition and songwriting. A feed to the music studio to allow full band recording is now being finalised. Students have already begun to use the studio and we are excited at the learning and enrichment opportunities it will bring our Music students.

Mr Chris McRae
Learning Area Coordinator (The Arts)

Going Beyond the Classroom in Humanities and Social Sciences

Summer Term has already seen students engaging in a wide range of exciting activities in the Humanities and Social Sciences Learning Area.  Students in Year 7 were immersed in the world of Archaeology during our Archaeology Incursion on Tuesday, 26 February. The Year 7s were introduced to the work of an archaeologist by ex-Holy Cross student and current UWA Archaeology student Jarrod Van der Weide. Students then engaged in a range of hands-on activities including making their own model artefact, observing an archaeological dig and predicting the use for a range of artefacts from a number of different historical time periods.

The Year 11 ATAR Geography students participated in a Geographical Fieldwork excursion to the Department of Fire and Emergency Services in Perth City where they had the opportunity to learn about the hazards and responses to cyclones in Western Australia and apply their fieldwork learning to their Geographical inquiry.

On Friday next week, Year 10 HASS students will be visiting the Eric Singleton Bird Sanctuary in Bayswater to undertake fieldwork on river systems for the Geography component of their course.

Ms Karen Taylor
Learning Area Coordinator – Humanities and Social Sciences
7 March 2018

Junior School Update

Kindergarten

In Kindergarten we have been having lots of fun getting to know each other, our learning spaces, our playground and our school. This term our Big Ideas question is, What makes me special? This includes what do I look like? What does my name look like? What am I good at? Who is in my family? We look forward to sharing what we have learned about ourselves with you as the term continues. In Religious Education, we have learned that we are all a part of God’s family.

Mrs Natalie Pecherczyk and Mrs Jo Borg

Kindergarten Teachers

Camp Australia's First Day Free Promotion

Junior School Assembly

The next Junior School Assembly will be held on Tuesday, 12 March in the New Norcia Undercroft. The assembly will commence at 2pm and will be hosted by Year 5. We look forward to seeing you there.

Mrs Kylie Day 
Assistant Principal, Junior School

Year 12 WACE Exams - Special Exam Arrangements

6 March 2019

Applications are now available for any ATAR students who need special exam arrangements for the end of year external WACE exams. Applications must be received by SCSA by Thursday, 4 April 2019. A link to the application form is below and hard copies are available from the school. Please make contact with Mr Murphy if you intend to make an application or if you are unsure if this applies to your child.

Please see below for information provided by SCSA as to what is catered for under special exam arrangements:

Students who have a permanent or temporary disability, illness and/or specific learning disability that could disadvantage them in demonstrating their knowledge, skills and understandings in standard assessments may have their school apply to the School Curriculum and Standards Authority to sit ATAR course examinations under special arrangements. Applications can be made for the written and/or practical examinations. Application forms must be completed by the school, with supporting information supplied by external consultants where relevant. The granting of special examination arrangements is not automatic, but takes into account medical and/or psychometric evidence plus supporting school-based information related to the student's ability to access the examination. The role of special examination arrangements is to provide reasonable access to an examination.

SCSA - Application Form

Mr Paul Murphy

Deputy Principal

Clean Up Australia Day

Holy Cross College is looking cleaner than ever after the entire school took part in the Clean Up Australia Campaign on Friday, 1 March. 

Since the national event started, Australians have given up more than 28.2 million hours taking to their streets, bushland, parks and waterways on Clean Up Australia Day, removing an estimated 302,213 tonnes of rubbish from 151,909 sites across the country.  Clean Up Australia Day was an insightful experience for students which provided them with a sense of pride and achievement by contributing positively to their school and acknowledging the importance of keeping our school grounds clean.

All staff and students were involved in collecting and removing rubbish in our school grounds as part of our contribution towards cleaning up Australia. In the lead up to the event, teachers educated their students by informing them about the impact that rubbish has on our environment and the importance of working together as a team to ensure our school and community stays clean.

Each class/ HTG was allocated a specific area to clean and the end result was a spotless school for all to enjoy and be proud of. As we continue to aim towards being an increasingly environmentally friendly, waste-wise school and community, let's work together to ensure that it stays this way for the remainder of the year. A big thank you to all the staff and students involved, it was great to see you all working together in a great community initiative.

Mrs Hayley Sheppard

McCormack House Representative

March Munch Madness for Junior School Crunch & Sip

This month is March Munch Madness for Crunch & Sip. For this, students are encouraged to eat as many vegetables during Crunch & Sip time as possible. Each time a child has a vegetable, they will be able to record it on a sticker graph.  There are so many vegetables to choose from!  Snow peas, celery, cucumber, capsicum, cauliflower florets or carrots... the list goes on! 

By participating in March Munch Madness, classes will go in the draw to win some wonderful prizes. 

For more information, head over to the Crunch&Sip website:

http://www.crunchandsip.com.au/events/march-munch-2019/

Miss Hannah Sibbald

Crunch & Sip Co-ordinator

Hotel Sorrento Poster Reveal

We are pleased to reveal the stunning poster which will be used to promote the Senior Class Play this year. The design which beautifully captures the connection between the Moynihan sisters and the coastal surrounds of Sorrento has been designed by talented Year 12 student Mya Ubalde. Tickets will go on sale for the show at the end of May.

Mr Chris McRae
Learning Area Coordinator (The Arts)

OLNA Assessments - First Round 2019

1 March 2019


The OLNA is an online literacy and numeracy assessment. It is designed to enable students to successfully meet the Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE) requirement of demonstrating the minimum standard of literacy and numeracy. OLNA is available for students to sit twice a year from Year 10-12. Students who received Band 8 or above in Year 9 NAPLAN in the domains of Writing, Numeracy or Reading, pre-qualify for the OLNA assessment and do not need to sit OLNA for that particular domain.
OLNA Assessment Dates:
Writing - 6-7 March
Numeracy - 26 march
Reading - 28 March

Mr Paul Murphy
Deputy Principal

Photography Club

After School Photography Club is a new club open to students enrolled in Certificate II Visual Arts - Photography. Photography Club focuses on developing good photo composition practice and students’ processing and editing skills. 

Our very first session was held on Tuesday and it was a huge success! Students assisted in setting up studio style lighting in the Dublin da Vinci Space for their Magazine Front Cover project. They experimented with a variety of camera angles, lighting props and lighting settings. The students organised their own student “models” for the photoshoot and carefully planned and prepared their outfits, hair and makeup styles prior to the day. Well done girls!

Miss Jessica Vaini

Photography Teacher 

DigIT Residential Camp 2019

During the Christmas holidays Riley Keating (Current Year 9) attended a camp at the University of Western Australia. Students that performed well in the Australian Mathematics Competition were invited to apply for a place on the course. Only 50% of those that applied were accepted. We were very proud to have a representative from Holy Cross College.

Students broke the ice at this year’s summer camp with a circus workshop, building new friendships and then building towers with new friends.

While at camp students participated in practical tutorials that broadened their skills in coding, web-design, gaming and robotics. They also participated in seminars on algorithmic and computational thinking and received motivational talks delivered by ICT experts. Students were also introduced to  Programming (Python) and Introduction to HTML/CSS, with many students making tremendous progress and already completing some courses. The robotics workshop was a student favourite, with campers programming MakerBots (mBots) using mBlock software to control different components to achieve specific tasks.

Riley’s favourite was the website workshop and he chose to specialise in this area on his last day. This included designing web pages and some coding for styling. He also enjoyed designing robots to be entered for a competition by the university. The camp involved sixty students from across Western Australia and South Australia. Moving forward, students have been paired with an ICT mentor and they will work together over the coming months. The mentors will support students with their ICT learning and help encourage the students to complete a project. Riley will return back to The University of Western Australia in July for the second part of the program. Good luck Riley and Congratulations!

Mrs Sam Thompson

Learning Area Coordinator – Mathematics