Assistant Principal - Learning and Teaching

Year 7-10 Awards and Academic Reports

This week saw Year 7-10 celebrate their awards ceremonies where the College acknowledged the academic and pastoral achievements of students throughout the year. The majority of these awards recognise:

• Academic Achievement in class
• Effort and Application in class
• KLA Honours in course

Year 7-10 Semester 2 Academic Reports were published this week via Compass for families to access. An email was be sent to parents explaining how to access their son/daughters Academic Report with an email link to our IT Staff, should there be any technical issues. 

2022 Christmas Message from Jesuit online resource - Loyola Press

Encanto - A Christmas Movie

(Cartoon Network Studios photo/Disney)

By Eric A. Clayton - Loyola Press

Here’s a new take: “Encanto” is a Christmas movie.

A young family is forced to leave their home, threatened by violence and death, and bearing children that will be literal miracles to the community that welcomes them. Average people living normal lives become refugees overnight. And out of heart-wrenching sacrifice is born a life-giving miracle — and a chance at new life.

“Encanto” takes place in a fantastical corner of the Colombian countryside. It’s a colorful story about family and sacrifice, about coming of age and coming to know yourself. And it’s sprinkled liberally with catchy tunes – thanks, Lin-Manuel Miranda. 

It won’t spoil anything to say that our young protagonist, Mirabel Madrigal — voiced by Stephanie Beatriz — stands out in her family. Unlike her mother, aunt and uncle, her sisters and cousins, she is the only descendant of Abuela Alma who didn’t receive a magical gift: super-strength, the ability to talk to animals, healing powers or something else equally exciting. She’s just regular old Mirabel.

This tension between preserving the magic of the Madrigal family — magic they have put to wonderful use in serving their community — and seeing past the magic to the real people — family members with their own unique needs and struggles — is at the heart of the movie’s plot.

Abuela Alma becomes so obsessed with living up to the responsibility of the miracle of her family’s powers that she overlooks the good of her family. Haunted by her husband’s sacrifice, she can’t move on — she lives each day as though paying off an impossible debt.

And here, I think, is the Christmas story at work. Because we, too, can fall prey to the same temptation as Abuela Alma. God enters our lives — our unique stories — as a gift; nothing more, nothing less. The sacrifice has been made out of love. And we don’t have to earn it; it’s already ours.

We live our lives and our gifts as a grateful response to this act of love – not as payment.

What we can do, though, is make life miserable for those around us, those we observe as falling short of God’s great gift. We can judge too harshly or put too much pressure on those we see as not living up to what God expects. And in so doing, we cause our human family to rupture, to crack, to crumble.

In “Encanto,” it’s Mirabel — the one who is seemingly without any obvious magical gifts — who saves the day, who helps those who do have noticeable gifts realize what really matters. She brings the family together — and saves it.

In one of the final songs, “All of You,” Abuela Alma sings: “A miracle is not some magic that you got, the miracle is you. Not some gift, just you.”

And it’s the same for you. No matter what your gifts are, no matter how fantastic or challenging your life is at this moment, God delights in you.

Not for what you’ve got. Not because of some gift. Just because of you. So, look in the mirror. And see what God sees: someone beautiful worth infinite delight.

Thank you to all students for their efforts in 2022 and I wish all families a safe and holy Christmas and summer break. 

AMDG