Last Friday, we held our opening school mass and induction of the senior students and College leaders. I thought that it was a great ritual and a fitting start to our new year. The senior leaders followed this up with a leadership afternoon after school on Monday. During this time, they all worked together to plan and set leadership goals for the term. They were joined by their parents later in the evening when we held our Year 12 Parent Information evening. I would like to thank all the parents who were able to join us and hope that you found the evening to be relevant and useful. If you have any feedback for us, please do not hesitate to send an email to me.

On Tuesday morning, we held our traditional Scholar’s Assembly. This assembly is always held in the third week of the new academic year and recognises the efforts of students from the second semester of last year. We also invited members of last year’s senior cohort who received an OP 1-5. This was 26% of their cohort. Our guest speaker was College Old Boy, Dr Shaun McMahon. Shaun completed his senior year at St Patrick’s in 2010 and has gone on to a further eight years of study in the areas of engineering and information technology. He currently works in the field of artificial intelligence. Shaun addressed the students explaining his journey since leaving school and the exciting avenues that have been opened to him as a result of his studies. He also gave some helpful tips to our young men to assist them to persevere and be effective with their school studies.

We held our first Leader’s Lunch on Wednesday with Mark Occhilupo as our guest speaker. Mark started his professional surfing career as a 15-year-old and competed in the world championship surfing tour over many years. His professional surfing journey was punctuated with mental health issues and burn out. In 1999, he won the world title aged 33 years. Mark had some good advice for our young men, and we were very lucky to be able to host him at the College. There will be a Leader’s Lunch held each term over the course of this year. I would like to thank Mr Dan Nethery for organising our guest speaker.

As the third week of the term has finished, each student should be well into their study routine. On Thursday morning, each student took time to work with their group tutor to set themselves targets for the first semester of this year. The students in Years 11 & 12 also did work around study skills and habits and ways to be more effective in the classroom and with homework. There are three very clear expectations that the students will face this year. Firstly, they will be given homework. This is work set by their teachers to assist them to reinforce what they have learned during their lessons and practice the skills needed for their subject. Secondly, they will be given assignment work. This will be given with plenty of notice and students will be given time in class to work on these assessments but will also be expected to complete some work on this at home as well. Finally, they will need to do study. This is student directed work that will assist them to revise and memorise work and skills that they have learned in class and will need to retain for future assessments. 

It is wonderful to have so much rain over the past weeks. However, it has played havoc with the AIC sports calendar. Once again, the AFL and cricket fixtures have been cancelled for all teams. 

Live Jesus in our Hearts!

Mr Chris Mayes – College Principal

Term 1 school fee accounts were emailed out on 5 February 2020.  The due date for payment is 19 February 2020 - unless you have a payment arrangement in place.

It is still possible to set up a direct debit payment scheme. The form can be obtained on REALM.

If you did not receive your account please contact Judy Kelly via email finance@stpatricks.qld.edu.au or jkelly@stpatricks.qld.edu.au

Thank you

 

Celebrating achievement at the Scholar’s Assembly

This week we were lucky enough to welcome back all 20 students from the cohort of 2019 who achieved and OP of between 1 and 5, representing a significant 26% of the cohort that were OP eligible. They were obviously very proud to come back as past scholars and it was rewarding to hear about their plans for the year ahead. Plans that include Bachelor of Pharmacy (honours) at UQ, Bachelor of Law and Humanities at UQ, Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering and Maths, Bachelor of Arts / Business Management at UQ, Bachelor of Engineering (Honours)/Master of Engineering majoring in mechanical and aerospace engineering, Bachelor of Exercise Sports Science, double degree in IT and Arts majoring in Philosophy, Bachelor in Biotechnology (Drug Development), Bachelor of Advanced Science, Bachelor of Psychological Science, Bachelor of Medical Science/Doctor of Medicine, Bachelor of Advanced Business (Honours). These young men leave us to put into practice what they learnt at St Patrick’s about being a Man of Action and a Man of Learning. 

We also welcomed our 2019 College Dux Thomas Irwin and our special guest, 2010 old boy Dr Sean McMahon. Both shared excellent messages around what a balanced and holistic education looks like. 

For all the other students that achieved recognition at the assembly, congratulations. Significantly, we celebrated an increase in the number of academic award winners across each category when compared to the year before. I hope that these are signals to the community that our boys are continuing to realise their potential, are growing their love of learning, and that our classrooms continue to be places where students both value learning and pursue academic achievement - which for every student is fulfilling their own potential. 

I believe at times some of our boys can tend to underestimate what they can achieve as young learners and as academic students, and I reflected this message in my address which I share below. My aim is that we can shift this culture to one where every student has confidence in the way that they approach their learning, and belief and motivation that they can be successful. 

I start our ceremony by welcoming Mr Chris Mayes, CLT, our invited guest and College Old Boy, Dr Sean McMahon, our teaching and support staff, our visiting parents – thank you for being with us, our invited returning scholars, and young men of St Patrick’s.

Before we start our award section of the ceremony, I would like to share some of my thoughts on what I think our Scholar’s assembly represents to the College this year.

Our College Principal, Mr Mayes, often speaks to our student body about being the best possible young man each of you can be. He does this in many ways, but frequently and significantly he finishes with a distinct and heartfelt phrase – “Never underestimate a Paddy’s boy, because he can do anything”.
 
“Never underestimate a Paddy’s boy, because he can do anything”

The phrase from Mr Mayes is strong and deliberate.  My sense is that when Mr Mayes uses it to finish a speech, it has an impact on the young men sitting in front of him, because it’s often followed by a brief moment of absolute silence. This silence might show that it has caused, if only for a moment, students to feel stronger, better, confident, and surer about what they can achieve.

However, I have some questions I want to ask of the young men sitting in front of me – “Why might this feeling of strength, that you can do anything, only last for a moment? Why don’t you believe, every time that you walk into a classroom, that you can learn and grow and succeed? Why don’t you approach your learning, every single time, with the view that you can be persistent, show effort and have a positive attitude? Why aren’t you walking into every classroom, every lesson, on time with your chest out, confident, prepared for learning, and positive about what you will be doing that lesson? Why aren’t you making the choice, every day, to believe that you are a Paddy’s boy who can do anything, and who can learn anything?”

My guess is that for all of the young man sitting in front of me today, is that you don’t always have good answers to at least some of these questions. My challenge to you, is that you recognise that you can make a choice about how you can see and engage with the learning in your classrooms. You can make a choice about the attitude you show towards your learning and how prepared you are to learn when you walk into a classroom. You can make a choice about how much you can achieve and how far it is that you can go. You can make a choice about how you will learn with and from your teacher and how you can build a productive relationship around learning with them. And most importantly, you can choose to see, if you want to, that everything is already in place here for you at this College, for you to achieve your goals and be working towards your dreams for the future, whatever they may be. The challenge is for you to realise that when Mr Mayes seems like he is warning the world to never underestimate a Paddy’s boy, he may actually be talking directly to you, as a young man at SPC, to challenge you not to underestimate yourself.
 
Today we celebrate a significant number of young men for their academic achievement, or for their improvement in academic achievement. Across every award category, we celebrate a greater number of recipients being congratulated when compared to Semester 2 in 2018. There are more medallions, more learning gains and more straight A students. We celebrate our 2019 senior cohort who after struggling at times to be a presence on the academic stage, graduated our College last year as one of our top performing senior cohorts with 26% of students receiving and OP 1-5 and 91% an OP 1-15.
 
What these achievements should show us all, is that as a College we should continue to question the reasons why Paddy’s men are underestimated when it comes to what they can achieve, or what they can learn, because as we will see today with our celebration today, there are many reasons why the young men sitting in front of me should not underestimate themselves. Rather they should believe that they are able to achieve anything and everything they wish to. On behalf of the College community, I wish the best to each of our young men as they work towards their goals in 2020.

Mr Troy Schultz – Dean of Teaching and Learning

 

This week we celebrated the academic achievements of our students at our Semester 2 2020 Scholars’ Assembly. Our bronze, silver and gold medal winners, our 2019 OP 1 to 5 students and our All A students were recognised for their outstanding achievements.   

In addition to celebrating excellent achievement, for the past three years we have also celebrated exceptional growth through our “Outstanding Achievement in Learning Gains Awards”. This award was introduced because at St Patrick’s College, we value persistence, effort and a positive attitude (PEAs) and we felt that we needed to acknowledge and reward these traits. At almost every Parent Information evening I use one of my favourite quotes:

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
Calvin Coolidge (US President, 1923 – 1929)

Dominic Graham, in his College Captain address last week at our Opening Mass and Commissioning said to his peers that there was no one else’s shoes they needed to fill other than their own. The only thing we ask of our students is that they do the best they can, always trying for some small improvement irrespective of their starting position.  

Congratulations to the 45 young men across Year 6 to 12 who demonstrated outstanding growth in GPA from Semester 1 (Unit 1 for Year 12) to Semester 2 (Unit 2 for Year 12) in 2019. It is important that our community understand that there are not two separate groups of people in this world; ‘achievers’ and ‘improvers’. The students who do achieve are often those that have a growth mindset and are always looking for ways to improve and in fact some medallion winners for excellence also achieved outstanding learning gains. Rafael Nadal once said “even if I have already peaked, I have to believe I can improve. I wake up every morning, and go to practice, with the illusion that I am going to get better that day”.  
It is our hope that our boys approach their learning with this same attitude.

Congratulations to all the young men who walked across the stage on Tuesday; you deserved to be acknowledged and celebrated with the entire community.

Ms Elizabeth Gaber – Dean of Administration and Business Intelligence

AIC Round 1

Last weekend saw the start of the 2020 AIC Sporting competition with St Patrick’s matched against St Laurence’s College for the opening round.

Unfortunately, following some of the heaviest prolonged rain that Queensland has seen for a number of years, all of the matches for AFL and Cricket were cancelled for every team in the competition. This was a very disappointing start to the season for the boys, particularly for the Senior teams who had been training long and hard in preparation for Round 1.  Fingers crossed that they are able to get on the field for Round 2!

Swimmers off to a good start

Last Friday our Swimmers travelled out to Marist College Ashgrove for the first AIC invitational meet of the season. Swimming Coordinator Kelsey Duke writes:

“Special mention goes out to all the new students who were competing for a spot on the AIC team. It was an excellent first meet with some fast times swum.  I look forward to seeing the boys try to beat their times this week at Centenary.” 

Swimming has had very good numbers at training over the last two weeks, although please make sure that you attend the Wednesday mornings at Sandgate as the compulsory session for SPC swimmers. 

A tough opening round for the Volleyballers

Due to the cancellation of the Cricket, the Volleyballers had a strong and vocal crowd turn out to support them in their home round clash with St Laurence’s. Across all the teams it was a very tough day on the courts with only two of our teams, the 11Bs and the 8Cs, recording victories. In all of the games there were some passages of good play and teams got themselves into good positions to win sets. Unfortunately, at this early stage of the season they lacked the team cohesion required to finish points off in their favour and the well drilled St Laurence’s teams were all too happy to take the easy points on offer. 

In the 1st VI match, the St Patrick’s team were infuriatingly inconsistent. They played some outstanding team rally’s and at times really took it to their opponents. Unfortunately, just as they seemed to be building pressure and winning points, the boys would give the advantage away with a poor execution of a simple play or a miscommunication. St Laurence’s won the first two sets comfortably, but as was the case last week in their trial against Villanova, the St Patrick’s boys showed real spirit in the third set and although they lost in three, they went down fighting. This is a young and relatively inexperienced side and the team will improve each week as they get used to the speed and intensity of the game at this level. 

2020 Interhouse Swimming Carnival

Next Friday ,21 February is the annual Inter-House Swimming Carnival held at Lawnton Pool. Further details will be sent home containing the student expectations and the program of events for the day.  

The objective of the carnival is for the students to participate for their House team to the best of their ability. The swim coaches will also be selecting students to participate in College Championship events. Many events are held over 25m and students can be supported by fellow students to complete in events if swimming presents a challenge.  Sun safety needs to be taken seriously throughout the day.  Students will be encouraged to wear shirts and hats when not competing and to continually reapply sunscreen.  A canteen for snacks (no lunches) will be in operation at the Lawnton Pool.  Students will only have very limited access to the canteen throughout the day so please ensure that your son has enough to eat.  

For further information parents are requested to contact their son’s House Dean. Championship event enquiries should be directed to the College Swimming Coordinator, Ms Kelsey Duke. 

What is the first thing you notice about an athlete who breaks open a game?

Is it their skills? Is it their strength? What about their speed?

SPC Sport are trialling a new program designed around speed training specific for both field and court-based sports. Not only will the program look to develop how fast you can accelerate, change direction and reach top speeds, but it will implement running drills and movement patterns for athletic development, injury prevention and muscle strengthening.

If interested, please arrive promptly Monday morning to the back oval (beginning week 4). There is no need for a sign on. If raining, meet in the gym.

Any desperate questions, please email lstutter@stpatricks.qld.edu.au or come see me in the gym.

Representative Sports trials:

Throughout the year Metropolitan North and our Bramble Bay District hold representative trials in all sports listed on the Queensland Schools Sports website. St Patrick’s will nominate students who support the SPC sporting program to attend these trials.  

Information regarding these trials can be gained by visiting the Metropolitan North School Sport website to view the trial calendar

Students wishing to trial must collect trial information and permission forms then bring them to the Sports Office located in the College gym. Year 5 and 6 students need to read the daily College messages to access Bramble Bay representative opportunities. Older students need to access information via the Met North website and act on the information to seek nomination.  Parents are reminded that these trials are high level representative opportunities and St Patrick’s will only send students who have proven ability to compete at an advanced level. 

Uniform at Training 

The Merchandise Shop sells a green SPC Sport training shirt. Students are encouraged to wear this shirt and their HPE shorts to all training sessions. Wearing the House team shirt is acceptable however the training shirt is more hard wearing and will survive the rigors of a training session. 

Important Sports information and updates

All of the latest sporting information and fixtures are posted each week on REALM – the SPC College App. It is important that all students and parents sign up to the sports that they are involved in so that they receive the latest updates and notifications.

Term 1 Sport Coordinators 

• Swimming Coordinator - Kelsey Duke kduke@stpatricks.qld.edu.au 
• Cricket Coordinator - Dan Nethery dnethery@stpatricks.qld.edu.au
• Volleyball Coordinator - Steve Copping scopping@stpatricks.qld.edu.au
• AFL Coordinator - Adrian Brown abrown@stpatricks.qld.edu.au
• Sports Administrator - Kate Grainger kgrainger@stpatricks.edu.au

Mr Jim Potts – Head of Sport

Cultural Support Group News

SPC Trivia Night 2020

When: Saturday 14 March, Doors open 6:00pm for a 7:00pm start

Where: the Callan Centre, St Patrick’s College

Theme: “Hollywood” – come dressed for the red carpet or your favourite movie character to win great prizes! 

Tickets $20 each

Tables of 8

BYO Food

Beer, cider, wine and soft drinks will be available for purchase.

Tickets are on sale now!  To purchase your seat or table click here.

We are also looking for prize donations for our door prizes and raffle. Please contact the Cultural Department if you would like to donate an item and a Committee member will be in touch to collect the donation.

Proceeds benefit the Cultural Programs at the College.

on Behalf of the Cultural Support Group

Theatresports

Hello all and welcome to Theatresports for 2020! We kicked off the season on the 12th February.  Please see the table below for the list of training times and locations.

When the second session of training is confirmed, we advise students to attend as many training sessions as possible, but understand that students may not be able to for various reasons. 

Teams for the YTS competition will be selected towards the end of Term 1. If students wish to be considered for a spot in one of the teams, it is absolutely crucial that they attend at least one of weekly training sessions on a regular basis.
If you have any questions, queries or concerns, please contact me.
Looking forward to a great year!  All welcome!

Wednesday 3:15–4:30pm, (Mr Duncan Moir duncan.moir5@gmail.com)

Experienced and novice players come and learn the games, practice performing in the lead-up to YTS competition.

Duncan Moir – Theatresports Coordinator

Culture News

Junior Art Club

Monday 3:15–4:30pm,  B1A2 (Ms Julie Catalan jcatalan@stpatricks.qld.edu.au ) Creative art-based fun for years 5 – 7. 

Senior Art Club

Monday 3:15–4:30pm,  B1A1 (Ms Eloise Svendsen esvendsen@stpatricks.qld.edu.au )

Creative art-based activities for year 8 – 12.

Junior Chess Club

Tuesday afternoons 3:00-4:15pm, W202 (Ms Rosemary Butt rbutt@stpatricks.qld.edu.au )

Senior Chess Club

Monday afternoons 3:00-4:30pm, W202, (Ms Rosemary Butt rbutt@stpatricks.qld.edu.au)
Please Note: If chess players have training conflicts on the designated club day, they are invited to attend either Monday or Tuesday afternoons irrespective of age.  Afternoon tea is provided.

QDU Debating

QDU information and draws may be found HERE. Trials and training commences in week 3.  
QDU Summer School, 16 February @ Brisbane Boy’s College (No cost) See Mr Clough to register
Training times will be set in consultation with team members. Sign-on will close next week
(Mr Dennis Clough dclough@stpatricks.qld.edu.au )

Senior Film Crew

Tuesday / Thursday 3:15–4:30pm, B1T1 (Mr Hamish Teitzel hteitzel@stpatricks.qld.edu.au)

This club is intended to help students develop their film-making skills as they produce short films and document college events.

Junior Film Crew

Friday 3:15–4:30pm, B1T1 (Mr Thomas Hahne) culture@stpatricks.qld.edu.au 
Years 7 and 8 students learn camera techniques and complete photography and film projects.

Junior Musical

“Disney’s Aladdin Jnr”. Wednesday 3:15–4:30pm, W203. (Ms Fiona Engwirda fengwirda@stpatricks.qld.edu.au)
Students in years 5 – 9. Performances in early May.  This is a conducted as a project for our “Junior Voices” choir.

All details are found on the relevant REALM pages or general cultural enquiries may be directed to culture@stpatricks.qld.edu.au

Mr Geoff Samuels – Head of Culture

Please find below a letter to Parents/Guardians in regard to the 2020 Student Residential Address and Other Information Collection Notice

Government Collection Notice

Dear St Patrick’s Year 5-9 Students and Parents 

Unfortunately, due the current COVID-19 government restrictions, the Easter Holiday Camp on Monday 6 April to Thursday 9 April has been cancelled.

Camps for the June, September and Christmas holidays have not been cancelled at this stage.

Mr Heath Mackintosh

Interviews for Year 7, 2022 will occur in March with letters of offer being sent prior to the Easter holidays.  If you would like a formal application or further information regarding the enrolment process please contact our Enrolments Office on 3631 9052 or enrolments@stpatricks.qld.edu.au

YEAR 10 BLAZER FITTINGS took place on Monday 3 February. If you require a blazer to be ordered for your son, it is necessary to pay $65 deposit to confirm your order. This will need to be done by Thursday 13 February. Blazers take approximately 6-8 weeks to manufacture and are required wear for Term 2. There are some secondhand blazers in store but not available in all sizes.

TERM 1 SPORTSWEAR – Uniforms are in stock for all sports in all sizes. These can be purchased on line or at the store.

VOLUNTEERS are still required for the hours listed below on a monthly roster basis. If you are available to help, please let me know.