Welcome back to the third term. I hope that each young man had the opportunity to get involved in activities away from their normal school routine and have had the opportunity to refresh for the new term. During the holiday break, many of our staff and students were involved in a variety of camps and clinics within the sporting and cultural areas of the College. I would like, once again, to thank the many staff members who gave their time over the holiday break to enable the students to have opportunities to participate in so many activities. I would...
Welcome back to the third term. I hope that each young man had the opportunity to get involved in activities away from their normal school routine and have had the opportunity to refresh for the new term. During the holiday break, many of our staff and students were involved in a variety of camps and clinics within the sporting and cultural areas of the College. I would like, once again, to thank the many staff members who gave their time over the holiday break to enable the students to have opportunities to participate in so many activities. I would make special mention of the Indonesian trip where the students arrived back in Brisbane the morning that flights started to be cancelled from Bali. Furthermore, our First V Basketball team won the second division of the EREA cup last week. It was a great effort and a real "come from behind" victory.
I have been impressed with the start to the term from the student body. Our young men have returned with enthusiasm and energy. It is our job together to channel this energy into their work within the classroom and around the College.
By now you should have received reports and Parent/Teacher interviews are able to be booked. I encourage all parents to discuss reports with their son and review the results and efforts of last term. More importantly take some time to set down goals and targets for this coming term. These might include the idea of study habits, homework skills, results for subjects etc. If possible, it would also be very useful to revisit and discuss these goals and targets with your son every three weeks. This is a way to be involved and interested in your son's schoolwork and also a way to find out how he is going at school. It also assists him to develop the skill of goal setting, review and reflection. These meetings may help you assist him in being realistic about his goals and targets and showing him that they may need to be adjusted and renewed from time to time. It does not matter how old your son is, this is an important skill for him to learn.
I would also strongly encourage parents to have their son attend the Parent/Teacher interviews with them. It is important that they hear what feedback the teacher may have. Time to discuss student progress is often easier and more valuable than writing or interpreting comments in reports. At the end of the first term we had approximately 72% of our families attend the interviews. It would be wonderful if we can continue to have so many families interested and involved within these meetings.
Social media offers many advantages to so many of us. The most obvious of these is the ability to communicate with one another in an easy and swift way. From our College's perspective, we have endeavoured to use social media as best we can to keep in communication with families. It has recently come to my attention that some parents within the College are also using this means to contact others within the College family. Whilst this is an obvious means to do so, I would request that any of these communication channels or sites (facebook etc.) do not use our College name as a part of their site. Furthermore, I would ask that any person who uses these sites please be sensitive to using the name of any other community members or students within their public discussions.
There are some very important events happening next week. On Tuesday, we have the College Academic Assembly. There will be a number of students receiving academic medals and I hope that their proud parents have the opportunity to be at the assembly. On Friday we will have the Spirit Assembly for Basketball and Tennis. We will also have the Grandparent Mass on Friday morning. This Mass is a great chance for our young men to proudly show off their school to their grandparents as well as spending time praying together. I look forward to meeting as many people as I can during Friday morning.
Since the first term, the College Leadership Team has been reviewing our current structures to decided whether they are appropriate for the recent rapid growth of the College and the future direction of education and schools. As a result of these meetings we have made the decision to change the structures beginning from the start of 2016. The new team will consist of a College Principal, Deputy Principal, Dean of Identity, Dean of Teaching and Learning, Dean of Students and Dean of Administration. As Mr Frank Torrisi is the College Deputy Principal, he will move to this new role. This will mean that the Dean of Students position needs to be filled by the beginning of next year. Consequently we will advertise this role commencing this Saturday and an appointment will be made by the end of the week 6 of this term.
It is also with mixed feelings that I advise community members that Mrs Lee Schultz will be finishing at the College on Friday 7 August. Lee has worked at the College for just over 10 years and has been a mother and volunteer for many more as well. Lee will have the chance to spend more time with family. I would like to publicly thank Lee on behalf of the College community and wish her well into the future.
God Bless
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