Monday was Remembrance Day and at OLMC our community paused to recognise those who have fought in World Wars and in particular those who did not return. A team of students very ably and reverently led prayer and our remembrance service.

For OLMC 11 November is also a very significant date for us as a Mercy community because it is the anniversary of the passing of Catherine McAuley, the founder of the Sisters of Mercy.

On Tuesday we welcomed the parents of our Year 7 2025 students. It was wonderful to see parents excited about the next stage in their child’s educational journey. The night also marks the beginning of our transition to the 2025 year.

The Year 12 students are reaching the end of the exam period and are finding ways to celebrate while they await results. Year 10 and 11 students are in exam mode. At OLMC we introduce exams at Year 10 in line with the view that this is the beginning of the Senior years at secondary school and VCE exams are not too far away. As such, this is an important time for students to learn about how they work in preparation for exams and during the exam itself. Following exams, both year levels will have an opportunity to do some preparation work for 2025 during the Orientation Program.

The year is rapidly coming to an end and we will soon move into the season of Advent where we begin our preparations for Christmas. However, we still have some work to do and I encourage all of our students to make the most of the next few weeks, and to continue to strive to achieve their best.

The Leadership Team and College Advisory Council are continuing the work finalising the Strategic Directions 2025-2029. I am grateful to the parents, staff and students who have participated in forums and workshops, deliberating about the key strategic objectives for OLMC into the future.

As I do each year, I share this prayer for exams in the hope that you might also share it with your child. In a small way it may help to bring calm in the exam room.

Prayer For Exam
Come still my heart, O Lord.
Calm my nerves and focus my mind.
Father, I lay before you everything I have studied.
May I channel all I have learnt into this exam.
Please give me the faith to believe I can pass this test,
Yet the peace to know that all is well.
Thank you that you are with me no matter what the result,
Thank you that your friendship is eternal.
Amen.

(a prayer for students taking an exam from www.lords-prayer-words.com)

Monday 11 November is unique to our community as it marks two profound commemorations: Remembrance Day and the Feast Day of Venerable Catherine McAuley. On this day, we honour those who have sacrificed for peace and freedom while also celebrating the life and legacy of Catherine McAuley, the founder of the Sisters of Mercy, who dedicated her life to God in living compassion, education, and service to others.

Remembrance Day invites us to pause, reflect, and pay tribute to the courage and sacrifice of men and women who served in times of war and conflict. Through prayer, silence, and tradition, we express gratitude and a collective hope for a peaceful future.

On the same day, Catherine McAuley's Feast Day reminds us of her unwavering commitment to society's most vulnerable. Her vision and faith gift us the values of Mercy, justice, and service that inspire and guide us today. As a Mercy community, we draw strength from her legacy, seeking to live out her mission of compassion in all that we do. So we pray…

Loving God,

Today, we remember those who sacrificed for a better world. May their bravery inspire us to be peacemakers in our communities and to build a world of justice and unity.

We also celebrate Catherine McAuley, who taught us the power of compassion and Mercy. Let her example guide us to care for those around us with open hearts and to bring hope wherever we go.

Give us the strength to live with kindness, honour the dignity of all, and be compassionate in our actions.

Amen.

Acknowledgement: Catherine McAuley - Sculptor: Christine Sage, Hullabaloo Studio(2019): Mercedes College, Springfield, SA

On Thursday 31 October, OLMC teamed up with eight other Mercy Schools in Victoria to create the inaugural Seeds of Justice Conference for Junior Students (Years 7 and 8).

We took six fabulous students, who have been active in Social Justice initiatives already at the College, to this Conference at the Mercy Hub in North Carlton.

The main focus of Seeds of Justice is to create transformative experiences for students and staff by fostering engagement with Mercy Schools across Victoria and deepening connections and strengthened relationships and a sense of unity among Mercy Students.

This Junior Conference was created to provide an introduction to Seeds of Justice for these younger students and inspire them to become agents for change and young people of Mercy.

The theme of this conference was Homelessness, not simply as a problem to fix, but as a discussion about how we make assumptions and judgements about people experiencing homelessness, and how challenging our prejudices is an important first step in moving from charity to creating justice.

We were blessed to be able to take along a huge collection of non-perishable goods and food donated by Year 9 Pastoral Groups during Term 3.

As part of the conference, the students learned about St Mary’s House of Welcome and then sorted the products and put together hamper bags with a range of the products collected.

Our students travelled to St Mary’s House of Welcome in Fitzroy to deliver the hampers, where we were welcomed by the CEO Rubina who gave us a tour of the facility, and answered lots of brilliant questions by our students. They were so grateful and I think the students very clearly saw the difference that donations like this make.

Thank you to the Year 9 students, Pastoral Leaders and Year 9 Horizon for collecting these essential items.

Lauren Marquet
Social Justice Coordinator

Business Management Units 3 and 4 at Woolies

Our excursion to Woolworths Heidelberg, just across the road, was aimed at gaining a practical understanding of the grocery retail industry and how it connects with the concepts we’ve been exploring in our Business Management Units 3 and 4 course.

During our visit, we had the opportunity to speak with Ange, the Assistant Store Manager, who shared great insights into Woolworths' inner workings. She shared her experiences and highlighted several key areas that aligned with our coursework.

Woolworths uses key performance indicators (KPIs) such as the number of products sold per week and having a $1000 budget level for waste, something we were not aware of. Using these KPIs, Woolworths can make more informed decisions, develop strategic initiatives, and ultimately improve its performance across multiple sectors of the organisation.

We were also impressed with Woolworths' commitment to sustainability, which includes attempts to decrease waste, use renewable energy, and support local suppliers. We were informed about Woolworths' community involvement, such as giving grocery items to organisations like FareShare and farmers rather than allowing them to go to waste in landfill. The Assistant Store Manager discussed how these initiatives resonate with socially conscious customers, referring back to our corporate social responsibility unit.

Overall, the tour gave an excellent opportunity to put theory into practice, improving our understanding of the grocery retail sector and enriching our learning experience. The Assistant Store Manager's views proved particularly useful in bridging classroom principles to real-world applications.

Bianca C (11ASWU)

The Languages Learning Area has been busy with several activities. Firstly, the Year 12 students sat their external language oral exams at the beginning of this term. They are now busy with exams across all of their subjects. The Languages team would like to wish all of the Languages students sitting their language exams all the best. In addition, please find below reports about a Year 12 French excursion and a Year 9 Japanese Yukata/Kimono incursion.

Earlier in the year, several of our students participated in the Dante Alighieri Poetry Recitation Competition. I am pleased to announce that three of our students received Distinction Awards. They are Aprila D (10AJIN), Mikayla D (10MCMI), and Karina T (9LDA). Congratulations girls!

As we head into the final weeks of the school year, I would like to congratulate our Languages students on their efforts in learning a language this year. To these students, as you enjoy your holiday time, I encourage you to continue to seek opportunities to interact in your chosen language, whether that is ordering in the language at a restaurant, catching a foreign movie in the language, or having chats with native speakers.

Year 12 French Excursion

To celebrate six years of hard work learning French, the Year 12 French class dined at a French restaurant in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy (Bon Ap’) where they ordered in French and enjoyed French delicacies including ‘Croque Monsieur’, ‘Quiche Lorraine’ and for dessert, ‘Crème Brûlée’ and ‘Mousse au Chocolat’.

We then visited Fitzroy Primary – a French/English bilingual primary school in the heart of Fitzroy where our students chatted in French to some of the bilingual students and ran a mini–French Reading Club. It was a wonderful celebration of French culture and bilingualism in our city.

I wish our Year 12s all the very best for the upcoming exams and I hope that the French language brings adventure and opportunity to their lives after OLMC.

Lauren Marquet
Year 12 French Teacher

Year 9 Japanese Yukata/Kimono Experience

In Term 3, we had the opportunity to experience Japanese culture from our wonderful presenter Leanne, who taught us all about traditional Japanese clothing, the Yukata and Kimono. A Yukata is a simpler form of a Kimono, usually worn at festivals in Japan. The best part of the experience was being able to try the Yukata ourselves and experiencing what it was like for the Japanese to wear them. The experience gave us an insight into Japanese culture and customs. Though it was a little tricky initially putting them on, it was a really fun experience that we will never forget. There were lots of laughs to be had around the class and we all looked amazing in our traditional Japanese outfits!

Laura B (9MKY), Alexandra C (9MKY) and Katherine Z (9GTA)

As students finish up their Semester 2 projects in DAT, here is a selection of fantastic work across a range of DAT subjects. Well done to everyone!

Mark Jenkinson
Design, Art and Technology Learning Leader

It has been a very busy year for Debating and Public Speaking at OLMC! From House Debating to DAV competitions and the annual Frayne Speech Festival, many girls across all years have challenged themselves to compete against other schools in public speaking, debating and voice choir.

The DAV Competition finished in Term 3 and all of our teams were extremely successful. Three of our Junior debaters received commendations. Congratulations to Ellie T (8DDA), Emilia F (8BHO) and Eva D (8BFA).

This month we had both our Junior and Intermediate House Debating Competitions. These competitions encourage girls with a variety of skill levels to participate in a debate, sparking friendly competition between all Houses for the famed trophy.

Carmel won Junior House Debating for the first time in years, whilst McAuley won the Intermediate trophy! Carmel and Mercy Seniors went head-to-head in a speed debate for their final round, with Mercy finishing on top. Congratulations to everyone who was involved in planning, speaking, adjudicating and coming to cheer on their Houses and friends.

We also had the honour of hosting the Frayne Speech Festival in August. For the third year in a row our Year 9s and 10s placed first in Voice Choir, as well as our Senior Debating Team bringing home the trophy. A very successful day for OLMC!

DAV is one of OLMC’s main external competitions and we’re so proud of all our girls who continued their participation, or joined this year. We can’t wait to see them participate again next year.

Alana P (11CJSE) & Hannah H (11CTKI)
Debating and Public Speaking Captains

Dr Judith Locke, psychologist, author and presenter, recently spoke to OLMC staff and parents. During her presentation, Judith focused on practical strategies to help our young people develop attributes such as resilience and self-regulation. Judith’s books include more detail into the insights she has gained through her research of the impact of parenting styles. Her titles include The Bonsai Child, The Bonsai Student and most recently, Raising Anxiety. Please find below a recent column written by Judith regarding Gratitude:

Teach your child gratitude

Having gratitude for the good things in your life is a cornerstone of satisfaction and wellbeing. But in the age of excess, how do parents ensure their child is broadly appreciative of their pretty good life?

A few years ago, a lovely couple told me about their very difficult teenager who had made the family’s life very challenging. ‘He’s so demanding and complaining about what he doesn’t have’, they said. ‘He completely ruined our Christmas trip to Switzerland.’

Sorry, what? Your child got to be a pain in the neck last year and he got rewarded with a trip to Switzerland? And yet he still thought his life was hard done by?

I’d like to say that this story is unusual but increasingly I am hearing parents complain about their child’s lack of gratitude. And the terribly ironic thing is that often these children appear to have everything going for them and the sorts of childhoods that many would only dream of.

In some ways, it is the very fact that they get everything that makes them even more demanding. I call these kids ‘the 99ers’. 99% of their life is going well, but often they are livid about the 1% that is not exactly to their demands. This minor inconvenience often makes them angrier than the children who have got far less.

In some ways, the more you give your child the more you teach them to always expect things from you. If they typically receive everything they ask for, why wouldn’t they ask for more?

So, how to you turn it around?

We can’t underestimate the positive impact of a child being proud of something they feel their efforts have earned them. If they have worked hard to do extra chores to earn their spending money at a theme park or their candy purchasing power at the movies, then they are probably going to spend the money more wisely. But also, they are going to be more appreciative of the moment their hard work paid off, than the child who has been handed the money via request or demand only.

Think about the thing that you are proudest of. It is typically not something that came easily to you, but something that you worked hard for – the car you saved for, the business you put in hours to build, the long-term relationship you put your best into every day.

So, next time your child asks, give them two for the price of one, an opportunity to earn the item and the pride and satisfaction that come with their achievement.

Takeaway for parents

Start giving your child the chance to earn the good things in their life - doing chores to get screen time, taking in the washing to get a lift to their mate’s place. This will go a long way to making them more grateful for all you do for them and their many blessings in life.

© Judith Locke

Dr Judith Locke is a Clinical Psychologist and child wellbeing specialist who presents sessions for parents and teachers at schools around Australia and internationally. For more of Judith’s work read her parenting books, The Bonsai Child and The Bonsai Student (also available in Mandarin). Judith has recently co-authored the parenting book, Raising Anxiety, with Dr Danielle Einstein. You can also follow Judith’s Facebook page Confident and Capable.

This year, OLMC has engaged Challenge Success, a research-based organisation that has been established by Stanford University in the United States. We have joined the Raising Her Voice program that Challenge Success provides. This program has a focus on the pursuit of girls’ wellbeing, engagement and belonging and includes a survey that is administered to gain data about how students at OLMC experience these facets of life at the College.

This survey was completed by our students in Term 2 and has provided us with valuable data that will help us determine what we are doing well but also what areas we can make improvements in. Staff have had an opportunity to look at these survey results and during this term, focus groups of students from Year 7-11 will be having discussions with staff to further unpack some of this data.

One of the questions asked students to identify what elements of their life give them stress. Students nominated assessments, grades, managing workload and homework tasks as their top stresses. After this, the next big stress for students was not getting enough sleep, with 52% of students nominating this as a stressful part of their lives.

The Better Health Channel, a resource put together by the Victorian Government, provides a number of tips to improve sleep hygiene. Some of these tips include:

• Get up at the same time every day, even on weekends. Soon this strict routine will help to ‘set’ and maintain the timing of your body clock and you’ll find yourself getting sleepy at about the same time every night.
• Don’t ignore tiredness. Go to bed when your body tells you it’s ready.
• Don’t go to bed if you don’t feel tired. You will only reinforce bad habits such as lying awake.
• Get enough early morning sunshine. Exposure to light during early waking hours helps to set your body clock.
• Make sure the room is at the right temperature. For most people this is between 17 to 19°C.
• Use your bedroom only for sleeping. If you treat your bed like a second lounge room – for watching television or talking to friends on the phone, for example – your mind will associate your bedroom with activity.
• Aim to exercise every day, morning exercise is best as the morning light helps us to wake up. Evening exercise is also beneficial as long as it’s not too vigorous close to bedtime, as your body needs time to wind down.
• Try not to engage in mentally stimulating activities close to bedtime. Use the last hour or so before sleep to relax your mind. Some things that you might find relaxing include having a warm bath, reading quietly, or having a warm milky drink, since milk contains a sleep-enhancing amino acid.
• Avoid caffeinated drinks (like tea, coffee, cola or chocolate) close to bedtime.
• If you are a chronic bedtime worrier, try scheduling a half hour of ‘worry time’ well before bed. Once you retire, remind yourself that you’ve already done your worrying for the day.

https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/sleep-hygiene#bhc-content

Elevate Education will be hosting their next parent webinar on resilience on Wednesday 27 November.

Elevate works with our students, delivering high-impact workshops on study skills, motivation, wellbeing, and exam preparation. By tuning into their webinar series, you’ll learn how you can help support your child at home by reinforcing the skills they’re learning at school.

Sign up for the session below to learn how you can help your child to recover quickly from unexpected speedbumps and take control of their response to setbacks.

Here’s what Elevate will be covering on the night:

• Practical strategies to help your child manage their response to setbacks
• Building your child’s resilience both in and out of school
• How ‘fear of failure’ can impact your child’s resilience.

Live Parent Webinar: How You Can Build Resilience in Your Child

Wednesday 27 November 6:30-7:30 pm

Click here to register for free

Last week our Junior students shone alongside Marcellin students in the M² production of A Christmas Carol. Well done to everyone involved!

I loved A Christmas Carol this year, I had so much fun and met so many new people from Marcellin and from OLMC. The bonds I formed with the cast and crew were so strong, friendships that I will continue to pursue even after the Production. All of the rehearsals and shows had such a positive air and the whole play came together so well. Everyone helped out and did their best performance every time, and it made it so much better. I am so happy how it turned out and I had such a great time.

Mietta T (9ACH)

Each year the Parents’ Association run a Lucky Fees Raffle to raise funds that support and enhance educational opportunities and community life at OLMC. First prize is $4000 off your school fees for 2025 – wouldn’t that be amazing!

Tickets are $10 each, 10 for $70 or 15 for $100

To purchase the tickets please click here - https://www.trybooking.com/CVZPG

1st prize $4000 Voucher for 2025 School Fees

Or Shopping Vouchers to the value of $4000

2nd Prize Noone Uniform Voucher valued at $400

3rd Prize Adriatic Furniture Voucher valued at $350

4th Prize Ted Baker Clutch valued at $219

5th Prize Ted Baker Hand Bag Set valued at $199

6th Prize Chemist Warehouse Hamper

7^th Prize Excel Body & Health Assessment Voucher valued at $115

8^th Prize Excel Body & Health Assessment Voucher valued at $115

9th Prize Hugo Boss Voucher valued at $100

10th Prize Hugo Boss Voucher valued at $50

The raffle will be drawn on Friday 22 November at the College. Winners will be notified by phone or email and results published in the Newsletter.

Your support in the sale of the raffle tickets is gratefully appreciated.

OLMC Parents’ Association

Follow the official Our Lady of Mercy College accounts on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. We’ll be sharing regular news, student achievements and stories from around the College.