janelle agius acting principal 3 february...
TRANSCRIPT
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Dates to remember:
Janelle Agius – Acting Principal
Partnerships
Our college mission statement has partnership at its core.
St Patrick’s College is a partnership between students, staff and parents
providing an environment of learning, personal growth and faith development
while recognising students as young adults.
Partnership has a number of important aspects. Each partner needs to have respect for the others
and make their own contribution by playing their role.
Parents are the supporting partners, teachers are responsible for their role with the learners and
students are the ones who are actively engaged in the processes of learning. The student role is
that of the doing. It is imperative that students keep everyone, parents and staff up to date with
their progress. The “meet and greet” BBQ next week discussed in detail below is an important
part of beginning the partnership and the communication.
The other significant wording in our mission statement is the idea of recognising students as
young adults. With the rights of young adulthood come responsibilities. All students by choosing
to be part of St Patrick’s College have both rights and responsibilities as learners.
It is very important that students take the opportunity to belong to St Patrick’s community and
to take on the young adult role of professional student. Today at Assembly I reminded students
to reflect on the importance of education as their base capital in their life. To understand the
concept that they have to make an investment if they want a return. I urged students to gain more
education capital, develop it and sustain it. Imagining that they can become a better student just
by participating more, taking action, getting involved, striving to outdo themselves and work with
others to enhance the spirit and community to make St Patrick’s a greater place.
As young adults it is time to invest in education. To realise the importance and value of obtaining
more knowledge and to add to their investment bank.
Parents and Friends Association
All interested parents are also invited to the Annual General Meeting of the Parents and
Friends Association this evening at 6:00 pm in St Patrick’s College Board Room, in the
Administration Building on the corner of Gregory and River Streets. The P & F meets monthly
and is an opportunity for parents to have input into college life and assist the college with
disbursement of the funds collected through the P & F levy. The Parents and Friends Association
is always welcoming of new members.
College Board – First Meeting of the Year
Tonight all interested parents are invited to the Inservice of the College Board at 7:30 pm in
the St Patrick’s College Board Room, in the Administration Building on the corner of Gregory
and River Streets. The College Board serves an important function, writing policies and having
input into the finance and future planning of the college as well as acting as a sounding board for
the principal. The college board is always open to new members as well. If you are unable to
attend tonight but are still interested please contact Jenny Staples (Board secretary) at the college
either by phone or email [email protected]
February 2016
3 P & F Meeting, 6:00 pm
Board Meeting, 7:30 pm
9 Meet and Greet Barbeque
10 Ash Wednesday
11 Bishop’s Inservice Day
12 Investiture Mass, 9:00
am St Patrick’s Church
21 Music Ministry, 6:00 pm
St Patrick’s Church
22 QCAA Monitoring Day
March 2016
2 P & F Meeting, 6:00 pm
Board Meeting, 7:30 pm
3 Aquatics Carnival
17 St Patrick’s Day
Year 12 Academic
Awards Evening
14 Year 12 Industry
Placement
16 Mass of the Oils,
Rockhampton
18 End of term exams
commence
Mocktail (for Year 12)
20 Music Ministry, 6:00pm,
St Patrick’s Church
24 Last day of Term 1
3 February 2016
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Weekend Masses
Other Events Coming Up…
Meet and Greet BBQ
You should have received an email with a letter from me inviting you to the Meet the
Teachers and Success in Senior Schooling night coming up on Tuesday 9 February. The
evening begins with a barbecue at 6:00 pm where parents have a chance to meet all the staff
followed by a seminar for new parents at 7:30 pm about ways to help your student achieve in
their senior studies. The venue for the barbecue is the Tuckshop and St Pat’s square area and
the seminar is in St Patrick’s Hall on River Street.
Opening and Investiture Mass
The Investiture Mass is on Friday 12 February at St Patrick’s Church commencing at 9:00 am.
All parents are invited to attend the Opening Mass. At this mass we will have the investiture of
our college leaders. There will be morning tea in St Patrick’s Hall for parents and invited guests
following mass.
McGarry Bursaries
At the conclusion of the Mass we will be awarding the McGarry Bursaries to those eligible
seniors from 2015 that have enrolled at tertiary studies.
For those who don’t know the history. A bequest by the late Miss Joan McGarry has established
perpetual bursaries to be presented each year to St Patrick’s College students. The trust is
established in honour of Miss McGarry’s parents, the late Fred and Rose McGarry and her
brother, the late Jim McGarry. Fred McGarry was a prominent hotelier and bookmaker, the
licencee of the Queen’s Hotel which stood on the corner of Wood and Victoria Streets on a
site now occupied by Westpac Bank. Jim McGarry was tragically killed in a motorbike accident
in 1949 aged 19. Joan McGarry herself was a nurse which is recognised by the college in a
bursary to the student with the highest OP who is studying nursing each year.
The trust fund has indicated that there will be $30 000 distributed in bursaries this year. We
are extremely grateful for the bequest that Joan McGarry has made and the continuing support
it provides to our students as they embark on their senior studies.
St Patrick’s Family
Congratulations to Mrs Tracey McLeod who was the recent recipient of an award from
Capricornia School Sport to recognise of her dedication to school sport, particularly in the area
of Netball. Tracey has been involved with the running of Netball in the Capricornia region for
the past 12 years.
Readings at Mass, Sunday 7 February 2016 – 5th Sunday in Ordinary time
First reading, Isaiah 6 : 1 – 8 … ‘Here I am, send me.’
Psalm, Ps 137 : 1-5, 7-8 … ‘In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.
Second reading, Paul 15 : 1 – 11 … I preach what they preach, and this is what you believe.
Gospel, Luke, 5 : 1-11 … ‘they left everything and followed him’
Stephen Mortimer – Assistant to the Principal: Religious Education
Reflection
For many people, to sin is to break a religious law, but there is more to this. Lent is a period of
time to remind us that sin is more about relationships than about maintaining the law and order.
The ten commandments are more a guide for maintaining good relationships than a set of rules.
Each of the commandments provides us with directions to avoid those actions which would
create a conflict with God or other people. We sin when we damage our relationship with God
or our neighbour.
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall
love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your
mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall
love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and
the prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40) (NRSV)
Southside Cluster
Saturday Vigil Mass
6:00 pm St Francis Xavier
6:00 pm St Mary’s
Sunday
7:00 am St Patrick’s
7:00 am St Therese’s
9:00 am St Michael’s
9:00 am St Francis Xavier
9:30 am St Francis of Assisi
6:00 pm St Patrick’s
Northside Cluster
Saturday Vigil Mass
6:00 pm St Joseph’s
6:00 pm St Brigid’s
Sunday
7:30 am St Brendan’s
9.00 am St Joseph’s
Walkerston
Saturday Vigil Mass
6:00 pm St John’s
Sunday
7:30 am Eton
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ACTS Camp
For more than fifteen years now, young people from Colleges around the Diocese of
Rockhampton have been coming together to experience ACTS.
The Year 11 Camp, A Chance to Serve, focuses on how we can be part of recreating our world
as the compassionate, just and peaceful world God intended it to be. By examining our own
giftedness and the needs we see around us, we can make a difference in our families, with our
friends and in our Colleges. ACTS camp this year will be 27 - 29 April. Any students interested
in attending this camp, please see Mr Mortimer ASAP.
An Open Invitation to the St Patrick’s School Community
As is the tradition at St Patrick’s College we will come together as a community through the
celebration of Mass on Friday 12 February, commencing at 9.00 am at St Patrick’s Church. I hope
as many parents and friends as possible will come along to be with the students and staff as we
ask God to bless our endeavours during 2016. We will welcome our new student leaders and
award the McGarry Bursary recipients.
Sean Geoghegan – Acting Assistant to the Principal: Curriculum
The importance of Travel
Over twenty years ago I read Kent Nerburn’s book ‘Letters to my son.” One of the chapters
was dedicated to the importance of travel. I rediscovered it the other day and realised that I had
taken ownership of so much of what he had said and that the experience of my travels had fulfilled
the promises he had made. I believe travel is the greatest gift a parent can bestow upon their
children. For my entire teaching career, I have made a point of organising tours to destinations
that I know will add immeasurable depth to the development of young people. This year the
destination is China. I invite you to download the itinerary which can be accessed on the front
page of the College website.
This what Kent Nerburn says about travel: You leave your home secure in your own knowledge and
identity. But as you travel the world and all its richness intervenes you meet people you could not invent;
you see scenes you could not imagine. Your own world, which was so large as to consume your whole life
becomes smaller and smaller until it is only one tiny dot in space and time. You return a different person.
All you need to do is to give yourself over to the unknown. What matters is that you leave the comfort of
the familiar and open yourself to a world totally apart from your own. Slowly memories of the familiar
recede from your mind and you find yourself immersed in the experience of the world around you. Your
thoughts and concerns change. Your emotions focus on new people and events. The world makes its claim
on your heart and mind, and you're free, at least momentarily, from the concerns of your everyday life.
Many people don't want to be travellers. They would rather be tourists, flitting over the surface of other
people's lives while never really leaving their own. They try to bring the world with them wherever they
go, or try to recreate the world they left. They do not want to risk the security of their own understanding
and see how small and limited their experiences really are. They move from hotel to hotel protected by
money and credit cards, and never really meet the world through which they are travelling. To be a real
traveller you must be willing to give yourself over to the moment and take yourself out of the centre of
your universe. You must believe totally in the lives of the people and the places where you find yourself,
even if it undermines your faith in the life you left behind. You need to share with them, participate with
them. Sit at their tables, go to their streets. Struggle with the language. Tell them stories of your life and
hear the stories of theirs. See what they value and what they fear. Become part of the fabric of their
everyday lives and you will get a sense of what it means to live in their world. Give yourself over to them,
embrace them rather than judge them, and you will find that the beauty in their lives and their world will
become part of yours.
When you move on, you will have grown. You will realise that the possibilities of life in this world are
endless, and that beneath our differences of language and culture we all share the dream of loving and
being loved, of having a life with more joy than sorrow.
If you don't travel how else will you know the feeling of standing on something ancient, or hearing the
silent roar of empty spaces? How else will you be able to look into the eyes of a man who has no education,
never left his village, and does not speak your language, and know that the two of you have something in
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common? And how else will you know in your heart, that the whole world is precious and that every person
and place has something unique to offer? These lessons and more will have etched a new element onto
your character. You will know the cutting moments of life, where fear meets adventure and loneliness
meets exhilaration. Because I have travelled, I can see other universes in the eyes of strangers. Because I
have travelled, I know what parts of me I cannot deny and what parts of me are simply choices that I
make. I know the blessings of my own table and the warmth of my own bed. I know how much of life is
pure chance, and how great a gift I have been given simply to be who I am. That is why we need to
travel. If we don't offer ourselves to the unknown, our senses dull. Our world become small and we lose
our sense of wonder. Our eyes don't lift to the horizon; our ears don't hear the sounds around us. The
edge is off our experience, and we pass our days in a routine that is both comfortable and limiting. We
wake up one day and find that we have lost our dreams in order to protect our days.
Subject Changes
Please attend to these by the end of this week so classes can be finalised. This is very important
so that time is not missed from the new subjects.
Queensland Core Skills
Those non-OP students not sitting the Core Skills Test must return the required form before
they can join the Prepare for Work group.
Assessment Schedule
The Assessment Schedule for this semester is emailed with this newsletter. The electronic version
will be operational from next Monday. Downloading instructions will be in next week’s
newsletter.
Brendon Brauer – Acting Assistant to the Principal: Student Welfare
Our Year 11 induction camp to Hamilton Island will be held in the first week of Term Two from
13 – 15 April. St Patrick’s has been holding this camp on Hamilton Island for a number of years
now and it is a perfect location to take our students with the goal of fostering positive
relationships with staff and students and with students and their peers. No other school in
Australia can offer such an opportunity and we are very excited that in 2016, over 300 students
will experience Hamilton Island possibly for the first time. At St Patrick’s we import teenagers
and export young adults. Hamilton is a big part of this with the camp involving team building
activities, assisting students to become more productive individuals and fostering the development
of community. It is for this reason that Hamilton Island is a compulsory school camp. Mrs Erika
Brauer has been very busy organising the camp and putting together a program that will enable
us to start the development process.
SRC Leadership Day
On Friday this week our College Leadership Team (SRC) will attend training workshops. These
workshops will enable our student leaders to establish their goals for the year, develop an
understanding of the virtues required for leadership and our leadership expectations. All of our
college leaders have important roles and responsibilities and our leadership workshops will
ensure that our leaders are prepared for a busy, yet no doubt rewarding year. I look forward to
working with the SRC throughout 2016.
Uniform
Our St Pat’s community is bound by a shared set of expectations to promote good behaviour,
positive relationships and self-responsibility. It is very important that all students meet our
community expectations through personal discipline. One of our shared expectations is Respect
for College Uniform Standards. Students are reminded that they must wear the uniform
correctly at all times. Where items of their uniform are missing a note of explanation from a
parent or guardian is required. Our Uniform Policy is included in the student diary on page 17.
There seems to be some misunderstanding relating to nail polish, piercings and hair. Our Uniform
and Grooming policy states that:
Females can wear one pair of small matching earrings (one in each ear lobe); no other
piercing including tongue rings; no coloured nail polish.
Males - No piercing of any kind including tongue rings, Hair to be neat. Long hair must
be tied back.
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We will be checking student uniforms over the next week to ensure that all students are adhering
to these guidelines. If there is an issue, students will be asked to correct this immediately.
Reading Groups
As was mentioned in last week’s newsletter, all Year 11 students will be completing Insight testing
as part of our Reading Plus program. This will enable us to provide a reading program that is
suited to the strengths and weaknesses of our students. It is essential that everyone attempts this
assessment to the best of their ability so that accurate benchmarks can be established. All
students will require earphones for this lesson.
Students are also being encouraged to bring their own devices (BYOD) and they have
been provided with the instructions for connecting their own device (laptop, iPad) to
the College wireless network.
Erika Brauer – Pastoral Coordinator
Year 11 Hamilton Island Retreat 13 – 15 April
On Tuesday 9 February all Year 11 students will receive a package of information and forms
regarding the Hamilton Island Induction Camp. This camp is compulsory for all students. If
extenuating circumstances prevent your child from attending you are asked to contact the college
and speak to Mr Brendon Brauer or Mrs Erika Brauer.
Students are asked to adhere to the important dates listed in the note.
Sarah Rozekrans – Cultural Coordinator
Cultural group rehearsals are underway! On Monday morning, we welcomed Mr Tim McClelland
as our new percussion conductor. He composed a few exercise for our drummers and started
working on this years’ repertoire. Tim is currently in his last year of studying music at the Central
Queensland Conservatorium of music and is very much involved with teaching and performing
within the community. The feedback from students was very positive and they appreciated his
great knowledge and teachings. We look forward to more insightful rehearsals!
Choir was held yesterday and we welcomed back Ms Kathleen Campbell as our official choir
conductor. Miss Kirsten Larsen and myself assisted and enjoyed the sounds of our 2016 college
choir. We had some fabulous solo parts take shape as we sang “Some Nights” by FUN. This year
promises to be a year of talented singing and lots of laughter.
Handbells is to be held this afternoon and Stage Band will be this Thursday morning at 7:00 am.
More information on these rehearsals will be in next weeks’ newsletter.
For anyone who is still interested in joining or trialling a group, please come along to rehearsals!
The more the merrier!
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Tracey McLeod – Netball Coordinator
Mackay District Secondary School Sport netball fixtures will start on Tuesday 15 March this year.
A sign-on for netball will occur at school on Monday 8 February. Trials for the St Patrick’s College
QISSN team will occur in St Patrick’s Hall at 5:00 pm on Thursday 11 February. Miss Jessica
Seymour will be coaching our QISSN team and players must be available to play in the MDSSS
comp to be selected in this team.
The number of teams we are able to enter in the MDSSS comp will be limited this year due to a
shortage of available coaches. If there are any parents who are willing and available to coach a
team for St Patricks, please contact Mrs Tracey McLeod at the college as soon as you are able.
Kylie Bowman – Japanese Teacher
The Mikado
Thursday 18 February 2016
7:00 pm – MECC Auditorium
After 21 years, Promac Productions are now saying Goodbye
to their Gilbert and Sullivan productions with a farewell
Australian tour of their most successful production…The Mikado.
The Mikado is a comic opera which originally opened on 14 March 1885, in London, where it
ran at the Savoy Theatre for 672 performances. This was the second longest run for any work of
musical theatre and one of the longest runs of any theatre piece up to that time.
The Mikado remains the most frequently performed Savoy Opera, and it is especially popular with
amateur and school productions. The work is one of the most frequently played musical theatre
pieces in history.
Setting the opera in Japan, an exotic locale far away from Britain, allowed Gilbert to satirise British
politics and institutions more freely by disguising them as Japanese to soften the impact of his
pointed satire of British institutions.
I would like to invite any interested parties to join me on Thursday18 February at the MECC for
the 7:00 pm start of this comic opera. English / Drama Coordinator Mr Dean Andric has
organised for a number of tickets to be held for us. Students will need to find their own way to
and from the venue and will need to purchase their ticket upon arrival. An RSVP by Tuesday 16
February would be greatly appreciated so that I can cater for ticket numbers being held. I may
be contacted at the school on 4944 7200 or emails can be directed to
Tracey Duthler and Edie Weiss – Guidance Counsellors
Welcome to St Patrick’s College for 2016. St
Patrick’s College provides a school counselling
service, and this year the school counsellors are
Mrs Edie Weiss and Mrs Tracey Duthler.
School Counsellors offer career and personal
counselling support, and students may refer
themselves, or may be referred by school staff,
family or friends.
Career counselling supports students to identify
a career pathway after school. The role of the
counsellor is to encourage students to self-reflect, provide information about various career
options, assist with decision making, and provide assistance with QTAC applications for university
entrance, applying for scholarships, use of job search websites, resume writing, interview skills,
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and advertising job vacancies. All St Patrick’s College students are encouraged to make an
appointment to discuss career options.
Personal counselling provides support for a variety of issues including, stress, anxiety and
depression, relationships with friends, family and teachers, harassment and bullying, anger
management, self-esteem, grief and loss, relaxation, time management (balancing study, work,
sport and social life), problem solving, motivation and goal setting, exam and assignment
preparation, general health and mental health, suicide ideation and self-harm, sexual health, past
or present sexual, physical, emotional abuse, and smoking, alcohol and drug issues. Some students
attend once and are able to cope, some have ongoing support, while others are referred to
outside agencies for support.
No problem is too big or too small, and counselling should give students hope for the future.
Jonathan Pace – IT Manager
It’s great to see students bringing in their own laptops. Just remember that there is a guide on
the St Patrick’s website under the student section on how to connect your device to our network.
I want to remind those who are looking at purchasing a laptop to please make sure it supports
5ghz wireless. There are a number of laptops coming by the IT department that only support the
2.4ghz frequency. Our network uses 5ghz only because it is much faster so please make sure that
any configuration that you purchase is 5ghz capable.
Don’t be scared of Windows 10! It is a great product. Once you have learned your way around
you’ll find it is quite good. Eventually our school network configuration will be extended to include
more integration with windows 10 such as direct access to home and common drives, multimedia
etc so please keep this in mind when choosing a laptop or tablet.
Students have access to a school “home drive” when using a school computer. This drive is very
useful because it can be accessed from any computer throughout the school and is backed up
every night. We can also recover older items if need be. If you are only using a USB stick to store
your data, please keep another copy of your documents on your laptop. We have a lot of students
that only keep their assignments on their USB sticks, and sometimes they get damaged or stop
working. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to recover data from these and it’s not a good feeling
when a student has lost a large assignment the day it needs to be handed in and we cannot help.
It is really important to keep a second copy. There are other alternatives like Google Drive – it
is a great place to store your assignments safely. You can access this from anywhere. Even
something as simple as emailing yourself a copy of your assignment can save you from losing it.
Lachlan Stevens - Report from National Computer Science School
During the summer holidays I was lucky enough to attend the National Computer Science school
(NCSS) hosted at the University of Sydney. This camp was ten awesome days packed with
students from Years 11 and 12 from all over the country interested in one thing; computers.
Over this camp there were two main streams or ‘courses’, Embedded and Python; each offering
insights into two completely different types of computing. I was placed into the embedded stream
where we tinkered with hardware to learn how electronics interfaced with the world. Within
the python stream there was more of a focus on web development and the creation of a self-
contained social media site (like Facebook). Within these streams we were split into groups
where we were able to meet and get to know a small group of people very well. For the
embedded stream we needed to create a final project within each of our groups which showcased
something to do with ‘health’; my group went forward to creating a robot which moved when
you jumped to then make a game of collecting various lights scattered across the ground.
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Following this, we went on site tours around software companies in Sydney, including visiting
Google! There is the infamous NCSS all-nighter where we stay up and program all night with
pizza and coffee with heaps of challenges including who can build the highest tower out of
newspaper, a cryptography challenge where we need to solve and crack each other’s cipher and
a programming competition. This camp was an amazing opportunity to meet people who shared
similar interests and I made a lot of friends with each day offering something fun and new to do.
I highly recommend it to any new Year 11 student who is interested in this field!
Position vacant – St Mary’s Catholic Primary School
Tuckshop coordinator position
The tuckshop is a service that will provide healthy meals for students and needs to be financially
self-sufficient.
Professional knowledge and skills:
to have completed a food handing course
to have expertise in catering
to have financial competence in small business
to have excellent communication and people skills
to comply with DCEO principles of employees
Please send resumes to:
St Mary’s Catholic Primary School
PO Box 4124 South Mackay, 4740
Closing date: 12 February 2016
Lachlan
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Community information
Sign On
Wanderer’s Junior Rugby League Club McLennan Park Walkerston 6th February 2016 9:00am – 11:00am Registration fee $165 U/6 - $135.00 Contact Registrar – Roberta Morris 0408 752 078 Fee includes fundraising levy & club sports bag
Jubilee 150
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