Welcome to all our Junior families to Term 2. I hope you all had a Happy Easter and were able to spend quality time with your loved ones both family and friends. We ended term one with our annual Welcome BBQ. It was lovely to see so many of our current and new families gathering together to celebrate our Year 7 class captains and to share a meal and participate in some fun activities together. It was a pleasure to spend this time getting to know our new families.
Our Year 7 students have completed their first term of secondary school. They have had lots of opportunities to form new friendships and build lasting relationships with their new teachers. Such opportunities involved their first Year 7 Reflection Day attending the Hope Centre in Glenroy for the day. Students had the opportunity to take part in workshops that involved exploring what it means to be part of a Josephite community. This term we are excited to see our Year 7 students participate in their first Premier League Competition as Penola students. We have teams in AFL, Soccer, Netball, Basketball, and Volleyball participating in the competition for 2025. We wish all teams the best of luck. Go Penola!
Our Year 8 students have also been busy participating in a number of curricular programs including a swim safe program further developing students’ safety skills in and around water. This term the Year 8's will participate in a number of Senior immersion programs for the remainder of 2025. The first visit to the Senior campus was yesterday where the Year 8's spent the afternoon watching the VCE Theatre Students perform in our auditorium. Later in the term the Year 8's will also be involved in spending a day at the Senior campus where they will participate in workshops that expose them to specialist subjects offered from Years 9 – 12. These experiences play a vital role as the beginning of the transition process for Year 8's to the Senior campus in 2026.
On Monday 28 April a number of our Year 8 Student Ambassadors represented our Junior campus alongside our Year 10 students in an Anzac Commemoration Ceremony at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne. The following junior students attended the ceremony; Sebastian A 8V, Ava C 8V, Kai H 8I, Lucy M 8B, Luke R 8V, and Grace W 8V. Thank you to Mrs Quiriconi who accompanied our junior students to this special annual event.
I would also like to publicly thank our Year 8 student ambassadors that have assisted with our school tours of the Junior campus so far this year. They have represented the College with pride demonstrating truly what it means to be a member of the Penola community. The students who came to participate in our tour on Tuesday night were professional in their presentation and social interactions with prospective families. The following students are to be commended on their commitment to the leadership program Grace W 8V, Kai H 8I, Laura B 8B, Jaydon G 8B, and Luke R 8V.
As a Catholic community we pray for our beloved Pope St Francis who died on Easter Monday may he rest in peace eternally with our loving God. Our Holy Father has left us with significant achievements including the papal encyclical Laudato si' addressing the climate crisis and promoting unity among different faiths both of these accomplishments aimed at enlightening humanity.
