As our second week back concludes, it is important that each young man has, by now, settled into a form of routine. I am sure that the first week was quite a blur for our Year 5 students and other students who are new to the school. They also have had to get used to after school or before school training sessions, as well as learning about the physical lay-out of the College. During the next week, it would be a good time to sit with your son and start a conversation around the goals that he wants to set...
As our second week back concludes, it is important that each young man has, by now, settled into a form of routine. I am sure that the first week was quite a blur for our Year 5 students and other students who are new to the school. They also have had to get used to after school or before school training sessions, as well as learning about the physical lay-out of the College. During the next week, it would be a good time to sit with your son and start a conversation around the goals that he wants to set for himself over this first semester and across the entire year. This is easy to do with academic results in that he can specifically name a result that he would like to achieve. The more difficult part is ascertaining a goal that is realistic and achievable within that time. When having the conversation with your son around his goals, look over his past efforts and results and remind him that some goals might take longer than they would like to achieve and to start at a more realistic starting point. Of course, this activity is not really suited to our students in Year 5. In their case, their target should be considered more around how they have settled in and what they need to do to feel more comfortable at a new school. This is a much different conversation.
Next Monday, all the students in Years 6-10 will sit with their Tutor Group teachers to discuss this and set target results for each of their subjects. Students in Years 11 and 12 will sit with their academic mentors to discuss and reach these targets. Those meetings should have commenced during this week. The targets will be collated and forwarded to all the class teachers so that they will also have a record of the target set for each student in their class. They will also discuss the realistic nature of the target chosen. We are trying to get our young men to understand that this exercise assists them to plan and consider what they want to achieve over the semester.
Setting the target is really the easy part. It is the actions that are required to make sure that they give their best efforts to try and achieve them that counts most. Our students will be asked to write down what they need to do to get to the targets. I recommend that you spend some time talking to them about how to approach this and assist them to be quite specific. It is no sense saying that they will improve their study. They need to work out how many hours a night and week, which subjects need more time than others, which nights and at what times will they be studying. This can be done by drawing up a study timetable.
Next Monday morning, Mr Chris Campbell will meet with the Year 11 students and I will meet with the Year 12 students to assist them to draw up these timetables and what they can do whilst sitting down to study.
On Tuesday, we held our first Spirit Assembly for the year. During the assembly we acknowledged the students who were selected in the First XI Cricket team and the First V Volleyball team. When I spoke to the assembly, I was quite particular about my words. During our staff professional development week held before the students started this year, we workshopped the concept of growth development. The presenter, Luke McKenna, reinforced the notion that students need to understand that good achievement comes from good effort. The young men who were selected in these squads did not gain their talents from simply natural ability. They have trained hard and persisted with hard efforts to become better at their sports. We will keep reminding our young men that in everything that we do, they must believe that they can improve and keep improving, that improvement will come with persistence and effort and sometimes they need to change their way to make more improvement. Finally, each of us cannot improve without the support, advice and expertise of others. Good team players listen to their coaches, peers and good role models to get better. These same principles apply in all that we do. Our motto at St Patrick’s is – Persistence! Effort! Attitude!
On Thursday, I attended the AIC Ecumenical Mass with a group of our senior students and Mr Doug Locke and Br Chris Pritchard. It is always a very healthy way to start the AIC sporting calendar. After the Mass the Principals and Heads of Sport met to discuss a range of issues. The University of Queensland also updated us on their sports review for our competition and a timeline is being drawn up for matters to be decided over the course of this year. I will keep the College community updated with the progress of this review over the course of the year.
On Friday morning, we held our opening College Mass and senior student induction ceremony. We are most fortunate to have Fr Bryan Roe as our priest for this year and he celebrated our opening Mass with us. These Masses are always proud moments for so many within our community. Our Year 12 students certainly led with pride and passion and I am certainly looking forward to working with them over this year. Our student body is very fortunate to have such a cohort of senior leaders. Special thank you to the many parents who could join us during the morning. Your presence is always very welcome at our College gatherings.
Next week, Mrs Jackie Upton will post a document on REALM entitled Working in Partnership to form Men of Action. This document has been developed for all the adults within our community who work together with us to develop our young men. Working in partnership can mean different things to different people so this document is meant to be a concise summary of the College expectations of the adults who work with us so that we are all working in alignment in the formation of these young men whilst at St Patrick's. I would request that all parents and caregivers peruse this document and contact me by email for any feedback or clarification if needed.
Our sport starts this week with games of cricket and volleyball against Villanova College and an AIC swim meet at St Peter’s Lutheran College. I hope to catch up with as many families as I can on Saturday.
Live Jesus in our Hearts!
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