By Mrs Anna Hardy, Acting Deputy Principal

During the year, the College community farewelled Mr Craig Frattini, Deputy Principal of over 10 years.  I would like to take this opportunity to thank Craig for his dedication and commitment to the College and for his positive and vibrant initiatives that have shaped the College we know today.  It has been my pleasure to step into the Deputy Principal’s role for the last Semester and a bit of this year and work with the Pastoral Leaders; Mr Matthew Bruton, Mrs Julie Collins, Mr Bob Bell and Mr Phillip Yates.  This pastoral team has worked tirelessly on the pastoral culture and student wellbeing at the College and I would like to thank each of them for this. 

Over the course of the year, the pastoral team at the College have been successful in wrapping the academic, faith and pastoral life of the College together with the introduction of initiatives in the pastoral sphere of the College.  Each house has engaged in a House Mass throughout the year.  These have been successful in allowing the House communities to celebrate their faith life together.  The House Masses also develop a shared understanding of and consistent language for Catholic Identity. 

The pastoral team also embedded Merit Awards and badges that allow students to be acknowledged for their consistent involvement and efforts across all four domains of College life; Academic, Cultural, Sport, Faith and Social Justice.  Students have been applying for these awards and as a result many have achieved a gold merit award throughout the year.

Staff have been engaged in professional development practices to increase their capacity to collect and use data to inform pedagogical practices.  The pastoral team have been immersed in student data to help inform the pastoral care and classroom teachers about their students.  Our wellbeing practices are being shaped and will continue to inform us about our students so that we can proactively address their need for support.   This has allowed the academic and pastoral needs of students to be brought together to provide a wholistic approach to a student’s education at the College. 

A key goal for the year was to effectively engage with parents and community members.  This has been achieved through the extra parent information evenings and social events offered.  These have included; Brett Lee Internet Safety, Device Information Night, Subject Information Night, Elevate Parent Information Session and Father’s Day BBQ.  We are committed to engaging secondary school parents into the College to help continue to support the delivery of quality teaching and learning. 

This year the pastoral team aimed to foster a culture of independent learning and intrinsic motivation, building on the positive work in the last few years of the growth mindset.  The growth mindset program has been effective in the delivery and embedding of its key messages throughout the school community.  We look forward to beginning to nurture this culture further through to the academic life of the College in 2020.