Middle Moments

Much to celebrate in Middle School

By Ben Dray Email this article

We’ve reached the end of Week 7, Term 1 already! There’s much to celebrate with our Middle School students maintaining their great start to the year.

National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence (Friday 18 March)

Today, is the National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence, and an important opportunity to come together and demonstrate #kindnessCulture for bullying prevention for Australian school communities.

Our students engaged in various teacher-led activities throughout the week, culminating with our Middle School Assembly where all of our students signed a pledge in support of this initiative. Thank you to our Middle School teachers for providing important learning opportunities for our students in their GPS lesson’s. Topics of discussion included:

- promoting bullying prevention initiatives

- raising awareness of how to prevent and respond to bullying

- highlighting steps to create inclusive school communities that are safe from bullying

- sharing how students can take action and empower young people, staff, families and the community to be part of the solution

- sending a clear message that bullying is not accepted within the school gates or beyond.

The students showed maturity, empathy and understanding in these discussions and are to be congratulated for their support of this important event.

Middle School Leadership

Congratulations to all students who nominated for 2022 leaderships positions. I particularly would like to acknowledge our Middle School Leaders Kai Randall, Millie Park, Samuel Glasson and Gina Barreto. They have already participated with Middle School events and demonstrated their excellent leadership skills with outstanding service to the Mercedes community. They recently attended Young Leaders Day Conference, here are their reflections:

On Wednesday of Week 6, the Middle School Leaders attended the Young Leaders Day Conference at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre. During this experience we were spoken to by some amazing modern-day leaders such as Lachy Smart, the current world record holder for youngest male to fly around the world solo, Alex Ross from the Sydney Thunder BBL side, South Australian Marathon Olympian and mother Jess Stenson (Trengove) as well as Guy Edmond, Author, and the creator of Emmy award winning TV show series Hard Ball.

All these people were brilliant leaders and role models. They shared with us their incredible stories and explained to us how they got to where they are now and what they had to do and why they did it. Halogen did an excellent job of introducing themselves and the speakers, getting the crowd involved with some Q&A and hosting the event. The speakers seem all very different but, they have a lot in common in the way they go about it! All the speakers had worked hard to get to where they are today, to achieve their goals and all were very wise and had inspiring advice.

The main lessons that were learnt from this experience were: Being persistent, not giving up hope on dreams and goals, doing what you love and being yourself, hard work pays off, good thing take time and to believe in yourself and your dreams. Being a leader doesn’t just mean pleasing everyone it's about making the right discissions and being confident in yourself.
Kai Randall, Millie Park, Samuel Glasson and Gina Barreto

Student Representative Council

I would also like to acknowledge the following Student Representative Council (SRC) members who will work with Mr Lachlan Jones, our Middle School SRC Coordinator.
6TB Marco Russo
6BZ Mabel Hille
6CO Lucy Glasson
7LH Alice Lee, Charles Lawlor
7BG Harvey Chapman, Briana Telford
7JA Lucy McConnochie, Darby Burvill
7EM Edie Davies, Lucas Grigg
7JP Evie Wright, Alice Thompson
8SK Thomas Stirling
8DC Samuel Doan
8KY Hunter Wood
8LT Annabelle Phillips
8TN Claudia Paterson
9 SRC Charlotte Kroeger, Lily Gosnell, Annabelle Keane, Tess Gallagher

Year 7 Reflection Day

Last week our Year 7 Students participated in Reflection Day. Below is a snippet of their feedback:

"It was fun – I particularly enjoyed learning about the school and it’s rich history on the College tour.” – Chelsea Bence (7EM)
“Catherine McAuley is very inspiring, she sacrificed a lot in her time and she is a pillar of strength in our community” – Giselle Gray (7EM)
“It was fun and enjoyable to be able to have the opportunity to reflect on the great opportunities that we have at Mercedes College.” – Ned Whiting (7BG)“I liked learning about the school and how it came to be” – Ethan Hinora (7BG)

“It was fun, my favourite activity was learning about Catherine McAuley, she was an inspiring lady.” – Charlotte Tibbot (7LH)
“Catherine McAuley was a wonderful human.” – Logan Hill (Yr 7 Teaching Staff Member).

Thank you to Therese Wilson, Director of Mission, Mr Matthew Andrigo our Year 7 Leader and to all our staff involved in planning and delivering a positive day for our learners. It was a great opportunity for our new and continuing students to re-engage with the Mercy spirit.

Year 7 Bike Education Programme

Our Year 7 students participated in a Bike Education Programme to prepare for their Camp in Term 2. Students had the opportunity to build their confidence and abilities in mountain biking as well as develop key skills in technique, along with understanding safety and responsibility. Thank you to Mr Peter Thornton, our Camp Program Coordinator and Matthew Andrigo for leading this piece of work.

Middle School Assembly

Today we held our first Middle School Assembly, a great occasion to gather and share in a positive celebration that showcased some great achievements for an encouraging start to the year. Thank you to the class of 9LJ for organizing our Assembly. The strength of coming together was evident and the Mercy spirit of our students was truly on show.

Middle School Welcome BBQ

I look forward to meeting families at the Middle School BBQ this evening. Our Middle School Leadership Team will be there, and we’re all looking forward to chatting with you.
As always, feel free to contact me at any time to talk about matters related to our Middle School.

Ben Dray
Head of Middle School