The Hedge

Week 4, Term 2 | Thursday 23 May 2024 A weekly snippet of what’s happening ‘behind the hedge’ at Mercedes College...

Thank you to our Volunteers

It's National Volunteer Week and we want to acknowledge and thank the many volunteers in our community who share their time, energy, and expertise to enrich College life for our students.

Whether it’s helping at a school event, mentoring a student, offering skills and knowledge for student learning, or sending a batch of muffins along for a bake sale – we celebrate and thank our volunteers – thank you for all you do!

We also acknowledge staff member Stephen Heuzenroeder, who last night attended the South Australian Volunteer Awards as a nominee for Excellence in Volunteer Management for his coordination of our Student Mentoring Programme. Congratulations, Stephen!

Nurturing talent

Do you ever wonder if children are born with an aptitude for a particular activity? Is their talent inherent, or something that is learned?

Whilst we are all born with certain predispositions, we know that having the right conditions are vital to foster the growth of skills and knowledge, particularly through music. Dr Anita Collins, a leading neuromusic educator, tackles this topic in this short video.

Our bands, choirs, dance teams, and theatre sports activities offer the right environment to nurture the development of students from simple participation to high performance. The College has opportunities within several music ensembles and performing arts groups for students of all ages and stages to take part.

For more information, please contact Lauren Vilanova via SEQTA.

Reconciliation Round Design

Next week is National Reconciliation Week, which will be the focus of our College Assembly tomorrow. The week will commence with a series of Reconciliation Rounds across various sports on the weekend.

Year 11 student, Zedekiah, who is from Mimili in the APY Lands, has created a design for a football guernsey and netball dress that our students will wear on Saturday. As a footy player himself, Zed chose to apply his design to our guernseys, and it was then reconfigured for our netball dresses, as our Open 1 and 2 teams play against St Mary’s during Reconciliation Round each year.

On Saturday we welcome David Booth, an Indigenous artist, to perform an Acknowledgment of Country in our Yitpi Centre before the Open 1 netball game at 8.45am, and our First and Second XVIII football teams will be playing at CBC Oval from 12.30pm. Come out to support our teams as they proudly wear our new Reconciliation Round, student-designed uniforms!

Pictured: sunset at Mimili, one inspiration for the final design, which we'll share next week.

The Countdown is On!

Excitement is through the roof for our Emerald Ball, which is now a mere week away – Saturday 1 June.

Being held at the Adelaide Convention Centre, guests will enjoy a three-course dinner and five-hour drinks package, plus entertainment, DJ Ruby Chew, the Hill Street Distillers Gin Bar thanks to old scholar Bree Hargraves and her partner Chris Ryan, a Glam Photo Booth, Silent Auction, and Table Lottery to win a $1,000 package at Adelaide Oval and the Oval Hotel … and we've still got a few surprises up our sleeves!

Tickets will close on Tuesday 28 May, so make sure you snap yours up… you won’t want to miss this special event which celebrates 70 years of Mercedes College.

Buggin’ Out

Our Year 4s conduct regular service learning at nearby Brownhill Creek, monitoring water and plant health, and this week they used a tool called a ‘dichotomous key’ to identify and classify bugs.

Some of the bugs they found were quite rare, indicating that the water quality was very clean – great work everyone!

Special Celebrations for Catholicism

Over the weekend, Christians celebrated Pentecost Sunday and the descent of the Holy Spirit to the 12 disciples of Jesus, who were blessed with the ability to spread the word of God in different languages. To remind our community that we, too, can keep the word and flame of God alive, students and staff were gifted red apples and flame-adorned mini cupcakes on Monday morning.

Following on from Pentecost, the Catholic Church marks the anniversary of Pope Francis’ landmark 2015 encyclical Laudato Si, which this year focuses on ‘seeds of hope’. In acknowledgement of this, all classes received a potted plant, and seeds to plant and nurture across the year.

Coming together

Tomorrow, Friday 24 May, we will hold our very first whole-of-College Assembly in the Yitpi Centre. Student-run, and featuring presentations from our Junior, Middle, and Senior Schools, it is an exciting milestone for the College, so please ensure students arrive on time as we move over 1,000 students into the new space!

Students must wear their formal winter uniform and, if necessary, bring their PE uniform to change into after the Assembly.

Whilst this event is limited to students and staff, we acknowledge that our families are equally excited to see our new spaces. An opportunity for you to see this state-of-the-art facility is coming up on the calendar – watch this space!

Coming up…

Friday 24 May | Whole-of-College Assembly (formal uniform required)
Sunday 26 May | National Sorry Day
Monday 27 to Friday 31 May | National Reconciliation Week
Tuesday 28 May | Tickets for Emerald Ball close
Friday 31 May | Year 12 Halfway Day
Saturday 1 June | Emerald Ball
Thursday 6 June | Year 4 to Year 12 SAPSASA Cross Country
Friday 7 June | Year 12 Seminar Day
Monday 10 June | King’s Birthday Public Holiday
Wednesday 12 June | Year 6 ‘Sticks and Stones’ Programme