A weekly snippet of what’s happening ‘behind the hedge’ at Mercedes College.
As we head into our last week of Term 2, I wanted to share some highlights and achievements from across our Campus.
It has been a busy Term, full of learning, performing, friendships, and adventure; all a part of our rich College life.
We enjoyed five different shows from our Performing Arts students – drama, dance, singing and instrumental – from the Junior through to Senior School, showcasing a broad range of talents and skills.
We launched our Winter Sports season and have celebrated many great success stories within our many teams across the season so far. A number of teams remain undefeated, and we thank our Sport coaches for their commitment to developing our athletes.
Our co-curricular activities bring an important balance to study and learning, and the growth in the number of students involved in these, from sport, to the arts and our clubs and societies is very encouraging.
The Innovation Hub is open and students are settling into this new learning space with our educators engaging classes in future focused design thinking with incredible new-age tech.
Camps and excursions have seen students hiking, kayaking, biking and seeking adventure all over the State – another wonderful part of a Mercedes College education.
Our parents and families are an important part of our community with both the Mother’s Day Lunch and Quiz Night a complete sell out success! The creativity, connection and camaraderie that exists across our College is not taken for granted and we continue to seek opportunities for authentic parent engagement. Thank you to our families for your continued partnership in education.
Community Prayers, Eucharistic Celebrations, and social justice initiatives continue to grow and expand with our many Faith-in-Action and Service-Learning initiatives providing opportunities for us to live the gospel values in ‘The Mercy Way’ having positive impact where it is needed in our world. In this year of the Mercy Key of Integrity, students are learning to be true to themselves and walk with honesty in life.
We look forward to welcoming everyone back in Term 3, including our new Mid-Year Reception class. We will be hosting Intercol in Week 5 – this is always a highlight for our whole community – and we look forward to another Term of learning and growing together.
Narelle Sandercock
Acting Principal
On Friday night, more than 200 members of our Mercedes College community gathered in Gleeson Theatre ready to show off their commitment to being green at this year’s Quiz Night.
Representing families from all three sub-schools, team creativity was abundantly on show. There were golfers and leprechauns, Christmas trees and tennis players, Dubliners and the Absinthe crew. It was a brilliant display of good humour, clever sewing skills, creative interpretation and the odd green tracksuit or 10!
The final tally saw team Green and (G)old take out the winner’s trophy, with the Grass Grand Slammers awarded Best Dressed Table, and Absinthe Minded named Best Dressed Team. All were deserving winners.
With generous Round Sponsors, and a successful raffle on the night, this group of trivia fans helped us to raise more than $5,000 towards our Greening the Plaza initiative!
We are already planning Quiz Night 2027!
Last Friday, our community officially entered this year’s season of supporting the Vinnies Winter Appeal with Beanie and Scarf Day.
Students and staff were rugged up against the chill in colourful choices across our Campus, with their gold coin or canned good donations kicking off our collections for this annual appeal.
Tonight, many of our Year 12 students will be sleeping overnight on our Campus in a show of solidarity with the many people who find themselves homeless – donate to their cause here – we’ll be collecting non-perishable food, warm clothing and blankets in Home Groups, reception areas, and the Library until early August…
So dig deep and support this important annual appeal.
Our Year 10 STEP students recently took their learning to the Yorke Peninsula for a hands and knees-on experience in the Corra Lynn Cave System.
After studying the ways in which risk can be reframed as valuable when assessed for suitability, students put their theories into action by crawling, climbing and squeezing their way through the caves.
All emerged with a little more self-confidence and importantly a sense of achievement. A great out-of-classroom experience that puts everyday skills to the test.
Last week, our Year 8 and 9 Drama and Music students took to the stage as part of their curriculum studies, demonstrating their Semester 1 learning to family and friends.
Under the statement of inquiry “Artists transform established performance styles by analysing their foundational techniques to create innovative work that engages contemporary audiences”, Year 8 Drama students worked in groups to create different versions of scenes from the same script, whilst Music students demonstrated how individual pieces can be brought together to form a group performance.
In Year 9, Music students created unique versions of popular songs as a band and in Drama, students established their own company to create a page to stage experience that challenged gender stereotypes, demonstrating how theatre can be used to question, provoke and explore real-world topics.
This was a great opportunity for our Year 8 and 9 students to put their classroom learning into a different context.
Mercedes College recently took to the courts against schools from around the State, in Knockout Basketball and Netball, delivering strong performances in both.
Our Open A Basketball Team were successful in both their Round 1 matches and will face Prince Alfred College early in Term 3.
In Netball, it was our Year 9/10 girls who took to the court, winning a tight contest against St Mary’s College 40-35 in Round 1. They missed out on progressing past Round 2 – but showed great skills in both games.
Our Junior School STEM Extension students have recently been applying their creativity, critical thinking and problem-solving skills to a range of exciting engineering challenges.
Students in Years 2 and 3 have been designing and testing balloon-powered cars, Year 4s have been constructing marble runs and Year 5 students have been developing disaster relief parachutes.
More than simple model-building, these projects allow students to engage in the engineering process as they design, test, analyse, evaluate and refine their creations.
Along the way, they’re applying mathematical skills while developing their understanding of key physics concepts, including forces, motion, energy and gravity.
A great way for our young students to tackle realistic challenges through hands-on learning.
Our Uniform Shop on Campus will be open during the holiday break, so drop in if you need to stock up on uniform items:
Families are encouraged to start discussing summer sports with students before the nomination period opens on Monday 27 July (Week 2, Term 3).
Nominations must be submitted by Sunday 9 August (Week 4) on Clipboard to ensure we meet the nomination deadlines of the various associations we compete in.
No late nominations cannot be accepted after this date, as team numbers and allocations need to be finalised with SA Sporting Associations, and they can’t make changes after this time. Please have a think about which Summer sports you want to be involved with and nominate early so you don’t miss out!
Check out the options available in our Sport Handbook.
Our Year 7 Digital Technologies students have recently been exploring the LEGO SPIKE Prime Challenge, designing prototypes capable of navigating a course, crossing a bridge and safely “rescuing” a disaster survivor.
Using the MYP Design Cycle and a strong focus on developing ideas and solutions, students generated innovative designs and functional prototypes in small teams, troubleshooting challenges and improving performance through continuous feedback – a great example of their Approaches to Learning skills.
The future of innovation is looking bright!
Next Semester, students are invited to take advantage of free tuition of a new instrument!
All students from Year 5 to Year 11 are invited to ‘Come and Try’ the Flute, Trombone, Trumpet or Clarinet, with students from Year 7 to 11 also able to try Cello.
Students who can already read music and play an instrument are also invited to take part, to open up greater opportunities to join different College ensembles and bands.
Tuition costs and instrumental hire is covered by this College-funded initiative.
Students who are interested in taking up this opportunity should contact our Director of Performing Arts, Ms Jayan Mace, by Thursday 2 July to allow time to arrange hire instruments ready to get started in Week 1!
The 2026 Girls’ Football season has wrapped up for the year and our Camels have come out on top!
Having been dominant competitors all year, our girls finished strong, defeating St Ignatius’ College 38-0… Well done girls!
We look forward to the rematch at Intercol next term!
We’re also delighted to celebrate three of our Open Girls’ Footballers, who recently made their SANFLW league debuts – Poppy (Year 12 House Leader, Fitzpatrick) and Ava (Year 12 College Captain, Dalton) with West Adelaide and Saskia (Year 11, Dalton) with Sturt FC.
Brilliant achievement all round girls!
More upcoming activities can be found on the College Calendar.
