News

Mr Paul Belton, Principal is proud to announce St Paul's College is an official partner of the Adelaide 36ers and is an official High Performance Academy school.

“Basketball is an extremely popular sport at St Paul’s College.  Through access to the 36ers club’s resources and knowledge throughout the year, this partnership will deliver outstanding opportunities to our students to develop in the sport.” Mr Belton said

The College will benefit from exclusive access to coaches, training sessions, coach education, leadership engagements, match day experiences and clinics.

Dear Friends and families of St Paul’s,

Term One is marching on, and our community life remains as busy and energetic as always. Since our last newsletter, we have had a much-needed long weekend, students have sat for their NAPLAN tests across the College, we have celebrated Neuro Diversity Week, World Down Syndrome Day, the beginning of Ramadan for our Muslim students and today, Harmony Day.

This is all in addition, of course, to the in-class activities, excursions and co-curricular events that take place every week. It also does not take into consideration all the work that is going on “behind the scenes.”

EREA Principal’s National Charter Strategy Forum

On Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, I had the privilege of attending a national gathering of my fellow EREA Principals in the Barossa Valley. We gathered together with the senior leaders of the EREA governing bodies to review and discuss our Charter. The Charter is the document that contains the four EREA Touchstones (Gospel Spirituality, Inclusive Community, Liberating Education and Justice and Solidarity,) that together with our own St Paul’s four core values (Faith, Relationships, Excellence and Diversity), form the very foundation of who we are as a Catholic College in the Edmund Rice tradition and the education we are committed to for all our students and families.

These experiences are not only inspirational but also transformational in that as a collective the entire Australian Edmund Rice family recommits itself to the type of education we want for all our students regardless of their race, culture, religion, socio-economic status, intelligence, sporting ability etc. In other words, all families who want to embrace this type of ethos and charism are not only welcome but also valued and included. We are indeed blessed to be a part of this national family, and in fact, a worldwide family whose aim is to educate students in such a way that they know their responsibility is to assist in making the world a better place for all.

Harmony Day

Given we are part of an international family it is most appropriate that we acknowledge and celebrate Harmony Day together. At St Paul’s our sincere hope is that we live in harmony with all our students and families. We believe that our diversity should not only be welcomed but very much included in all we do. This week, with Ramadan beginning for our Muslim families, we hope that they all feel included, valued, and appreciated for who they are and what their faith brings to our community. We hope that through the celebrations and spiritual liturgies we hold not only help all our students appreciate our Catholic faith but also reinforce their commitment to their own faith and spiritual journey.

Our God is a God of love, of inclusion, of oneness, of truth and is not only good but beautiful too. These are universal values and beliefs that belong to all the great religions of the world. They are the very deepest things we share, and we have every right to hold each other accountable for those beliefs.

We are who we are at St Paul’s because of that, and it is what we genuinely hope we are a shining light in our broader society.

As our Christian celebration of Easter approaches, we will hold several different liturgical celebrations from Palm Sunday to the Stations of the Cross and to the resurrection of Jesus following Easter. These will not only enhance the knowledge of our faith community but will also celebrate how fortunate we all are to be a part of such an inclusive family of cultures and faith backgrounds. It is a blessing to be a part of this great community.

God Bless

Paul Belton

It is with great excitement that we announce and congratulate 2023 Stage 2 Visual Art-Art student Ali Najafi on his work being displayed in the 2024 SACE Art Show. Ali was one of 129 Year 12 students in the state to have their work selected for the exhibition. His artwork entitled ‘Flying Free’ depicts the life cycle of an eagle sketched in graphite on paper.  Ali is a talented and skilled artist and his attention to detail is remarkable. 

The exhibition will be open to the public at Light Square Gallery - Adelaide College of Arts 39 Light Square Adelaide. 19 March to 12 April Mon - Fri 9am - 4pm Saturdays 10am - 3pm.

Congratulations to Ali on this enormous achievement!

Sarah Fedele - Leader of Learning the Arts

Dear Families and Friends of St Paul’s,

We are currently in the Catholic Church’s season of Lent. This began last Wednesday when we celebrated Ash Wednesday. The Primary Years were wonderfully led by the Year 4 students in Callan Hall and the Middle and Senior Years students all attended a moving liturgy in our main courtyard. The liturgies reminded us all of the importance of this season in both turning away from the things we do that do not help anyone and turn towards a more positive, helpful and better version of ourselves. In one way it allows us to try to be perfect! When our friends ask why we are doing something positively unusual we can say it because it is lent! Everyone will accept that!

In preparation for Ash Wednesday the College Executive cooked pancakes for breakfast for all the primary students on Shrove Tuesday. This was great fun, and we are sure very much appreciated by all the students. The idea was that of the Primary Religious Identity Leader Ms Miranda McGlaughlin.

College Tour

Our first College Tours for 2024 took place last Thursday (for potential 2026 Yr 7 students) and on Friday (for potential 2026 Reception students.) Both occasions were extremely well attended and for the first time we had the opportunity to hold the Primary Tour in the new primary building. That was more than enough to have parents sign up without delay! It is so pleasing to see so many parents keen to enroll their sons and daughters with us and become a part of this special community.

Teaching and Learning

This week has seen several significant teaching and learning experiences take place right across the College. One of these is the PAT M and PAT R testing regime. These tests, while not the be all and end all of assessment, provide us with an excellent base line to which we can compare improvement in literacy and numeracy across several years. Tracking student improvement is our core business, essential to us knowing that our programs and curricula delivery are the best they can be. Our aim, as always, is to enable every student to reach their full potential and move on to whatever postschool pathway they desire. Baseline testing like these and others like NAPLAN assists greatly with this.

Students have also been on Year 8 geography excursions and the Year 12 Outdoor Education class has been on a surfing camp. Our summer season co-curricula program is also in full swing with hundreds of students and families enjoying the competitiveness of several sports. These activities provide our staff and students with the opportunity to further develop positive relationships outside normal classroom situations.

The 2024 year has begun extremely well, and we look forward to building on these experiences throughout the year.

Take care, God Bless

Paul Belton

Dear Families and friends of St Paul’s,

On behalf of the entire, and growing, St Paul’s staff can I extend our most sincere welcome to the 2024 academic year. We have had a tremendous start to the year, and we hope everyone, particularly the new students and their families, have settled in well. From what we see and what we have heard this is certainly the case.

Our numbers: staff, students, and buildings (!!) have increased but the most pleasant part and our most sacred part is that the sense of community and the sense of family that permeates throughout the College hasn’t diminished in any way at all. It only gets better! The Primary Family picnic at the end of week one is a classic example of this. Thanks to our Head of Primary, Mrs Marianne Loftus and all the Primary staff for their work preparing for that great welcome.

While speaking of the Primary, Day One of the year will go down in our history as one of our proudest moments with the opening of the new primary building. This wonderful facility will be the home of our whole primary school for decades to come and it is an amazing centre of learning. As is discussed more fully in Marianne Loftus’ article (Head of Primary) the families, staff and students are so grateful for the opportunity of being the first ones to have access to it. We look forward to sharing this with you all and to an official opening later in the term or year.

New Staff: With our continued growth we have had the opportunity to welcome another 30 new staff! A full list is provided in this newsletter and as you will see they represent all areas of the College and indicate our commitment to supporting our students through the significant increases in areas including Inclusive Ed., Counselling Services, Co-curricular, ICT Services, Grounds, and Maintenance in addition to the additional teachers. We are blessed by the exceptional quality and amazing skill sets that the new staff have, and we look forward to helping them enjoy their professional and personal journeys with us.

Walking Our Common Ground: Each year we adopt a theme that provides additional focus on areas of significance and allows us to share with our students and families the strategic aims of the College. Over the last few years, each classroom has had a copy of “Our Common Ground” prominently displayed. The purpose of this document, in one way, sets out to replace a plethora of rules and regulations with a basic set of values that both staff and students undertake to commit to each other. As an example, we all hold each other accountable for showing and living “respect” for every member of the community. We will explain this in more detail at all our parent and family information sessions, inviting families to come on this journey with us.

Walking Our Common Ground is extended to our entire community and will enable all of us to not only talk the talk but to walk the walk more significantly. In addition to this, we know and constantly acknowledge that our beautiful College is built on the sacred lands of the Kaurna people, and we are so grateful for their great commitment to the land over many centuries. The development and implementation of our RAP (Reconciliation Action Plan) this year will provide additional focus on this area also.

Significant Events: Already this year we have held several significant events. Appropriately the most significant has been our Opening Year Mass, celebrated by Fr Joshua Nash and which was attended by all students R-12 and all staff. It was a beautiful celebration of our faith and for our community.

This week we had the first of our Rites of Passage Ceremonies for the year with the Rite of Welcome for the Reception students and families. During this we not only offer our blessing for the beginning of a thirteen-year journey with us, but we also present a special plant (this year a Blueberry plant) to signify the growth that we will share with these very special children and their families.

2023 Yr. 12 Results: Our Year 12 results at the end of last year were particularly pleasing and a very just reward and reflection of all the dedicated and committed efforts of both the staff and the students. There is another detailed report within this newsletter outlining the results, but I would certainly like to congratulate the student and their families on those successes. It is also most important that I congratulate and thank our staff – right across the College from Primary to Senior Secondary for their outstanding efforts. In particular, I would like to thank Mr Matthew Muscat (Head of Teaching and Learning in the Secondary School,) the Secondary Learning Council, all the Leaders of Learning and all subject teachers for their tireless efforts in ensuring all the students reach their full potential. 100% SACE completion for the fifth consecutive year is one of many measures of this wonderful success story.

We hope that all students, families, and staff have a wonderful 2024. St Paul’s is a very special place. It is a wonderful community a wonderfully diverse and accepting community. A community that will work together as one big family allowing us to Walk Our Common Ground for the good of all.

God Bless

Paul Belton

We acknowledge the collective work that has been undertaken by students, families, and our entire staff throughout their academic, spiritual and personal journey during their time at St Paul’s College  We wish them every success for the future. 

Paul Belton

Principal

Dear friends and families of St Paul’s

Well, we have made it through yet another year. That is not meant to sound like a struggle but rather an expression of gratitude for everyone in our St Paul’s community for their continued love and support of the great college. As in all schools and walks of life we have had our share of tough times this year but overwhelmingly we have had an awesome year, full of amazing celebrations and stories that we will share forever.

Over the last couple of weeks, we have held some beautiful liturgies and celebrations. The year 12 graduation, the year 10-11 senior presentation and celebration evening, year 9 Rite of Passage, Reception-year 2 final liturgy and presentations, year 3-6 liturgy and presentation together with the year 6 graduation dinner and finally our year 7-9 community celebration evening. Every single one of these was beautiful, representing so much of the St Paul’s we can all be proud of. We must thank the Catholic Identity Team (Mr Joe Hicks, Mrs Maria Girolamo-Corbo and Ms Miranda McGlaughlin) for all the preparatory work for the liturgical aspects and Mrs Bonie Phillips, Mrs Marianne Loftus, and the primary leadership team, as well as Messer’s Josh Foulis, Matthew Muscat, John Grave and all staff who significantly contributed to the ceremonies. Thank you so much.

At this time of the year, we also say farewell and welcome to several staff. Several farewells include staff who have been here for many years, some just this year and the welcoming extends to staff from all occupations and into all different areas of the College. We still have not finished yet either.

A summary of both groups is as follows.

Staff who are leaving:

• Craig Coomblas - Teacher for 24 years
• Rose Sgro - Resource Centre Coordinator for 17½ years
• Libby Verrall - Teaching & Learning Coordinator for 8 years
• Kristynn Ross - Teacher/Religious Identity Leader Primary Years for 7 years
• Grazia Lustri - Teacher for 2½ years
• Joe Hicks - APRIM for 2 years
• Emily White - Teacher for 2 years
• David Knight - Teacher for 2 years
• Anastasia Stavropoulos - Teacher for 1½ years
• Daniel Shepley - Teacher for 1 year
• Loren Harrison-Garton - Teacher for 1 year
• Tara Marshall - Teacher for 1 year
• Anh Nguyen - Teacher for 1 year
• Amelia Honner - Teacher for 1 year
• Deanna Benetti - Teacher for 1 year
• Hamish Morelli - Teacher and college counsellor for 5 months

Details of new staff to the College in 2024:

Primary Years Teaching Positions

• Eleni Vassiliou – St David’s Parish School
• Tessa Baron - Elizabeth Vale Primary School

Middle and Senior Years Teaching Positions

• Emily Cooymans – Sacred Heart College
• Samuel Martin – St Michael’s College
• Daniel Torode – Rostrevor College
• Maria-Grazia Vicario – new Graduate
• Marie La Dru – St Columba College
• Trisha Harding – Our Lady of Hope
• Cristina Maiese – St Ignatius College

Middle and Senior Years Leadership Positions

• Anthony Farina, Head of Secondary - CBC
• Carlo Librino, Leader of Wellbeing (Middle School) – Gleeson College
• James Keating, Leader of Wellbeing (Senior School) – Nazareth Catholic College
• Leanne Savill, Music & Performance Coordinator - Xavier College
• Dale Clarke, Acting APRIM – Sacred Heart – Sacred Heart College

Secondary Years Inclusive Education ESO Positions

• Deanna Dimasi
• Abbey Hodgson

While the departure of many of our staff is a sad occurrence, most are moving on to new challenges and some promotional positions in other schools. As a community, we offer them our most heartfelt thanks for their contribution to our community and wish them and their loved ones all the best for the next chapter of their lives.

Likewise, we welcome all those new staff into the St Paul’s family and sincerely hope their time with us is both rewarding both personally and professionally.

Merry Christmas

On behalf of the whole staff, I wish every family the absolute best for the upcoming Christmas season. May the real meaning of Christmas, i.e., the birth of our Savior Jesus, warm your hearts and bring you the joy and hope that this beautiful time is meant to do.

We very much look forward to a well-earned break and even more to welcoming you all back for the 2024 year.

Take care and God Bless

Paul Belton

Dear Friends and families of St Paul’s,

Over the course of the last two weeks the College has held several events that truly reflect who we are and that indicate how diligent the College approaches our Professional Development and preparation for 2024.

Monday 24 November was a PD Day for the staff and our Primary team completed their fourth and final day of BESM (Berry Street Education Model) training. This has been a huge success and so very beneficial in helping all the staff develop an understanding of the theory and formulate implementation strategies that will assist all students. While the program is centered around trauma and its impact on children the skills and strategies developed will be beneficial to all.

The Middle and Senior Years staff were provided with a Resource center update and the transfer to a the new “Oliver” system. We would like to thank Ms Kate Haskey and Ms Yolanda Rogers for this terrific presentation and their fantastic efforts throughout the year. This presentation was then linked to a discussion about the connection between Inquiry Based Learning and resources which the staff all found extremely valuable. After this time our staff (who have been given a draft timetable for 2024 – much earlier than normal) were given the opportunity to commence preparation for their relevant learning areas. 

Transition Day

Friday of last week was our 2024 Transition Day for all the new and continuing Yr 6 into Yr 7 students. It is a tremendous opportunity for new students to meet and mingle with our current Yr 6 students and to find out much needed information regarding our facilities, courses and also to complete a couple of learning tasks for us so that we can adequately prepare for all the needs of all the students. We are extremely well served on this day by our newly elected College leaders for 2024, who gave up their Yr 11 exam study day, and all the staff.

As I explained to the students, even when we were a College of about 600 students, they came to St Paul’s from nearly 90 different schools. Not only does this highlight, yet again, the diversity of St Paul’s, but also explains the significance of days such as this one. To see all the smiling faces leave the College at the end of the day clearly indicated it was a huge success.

Year 9 Rite of Passage Celebration

On Monday evening of this week, we held our Year 9 Rite of Passage ceremony and dinner. Again, this was a tremendous evening, so very well attended by families and so valuable for continuing to build on our terrific relationship with our students, staff and families. There were three parts to the evening. Firstly, and as always, most importantly we had a shorty liturgy presented by our Senior religious identity Leaders in Mr Joe Hicks and Mrs Maria Girolamo-Corbo. Secondly was a presentation in regard to what a Rite of Passage is, (a ceremony or ritual of the passage which occurs when an individual leaves one group to enter another, involving a significant change of status in society,) and the significance of this in relation to the history of St Paul’s, who we are as individuals and how the school, families and students need to work together to assist these wonderful young children across “The Bridge of Adolescence” which can be very tricky and challenging at different times.

Exams and Learning Expo

Our year 12s have finished their exams last week, our Year 11s are finishing theirs this week and next Wednesday we will have our end of Semester 2 Middle Years Learning Expo. This will round out and highlight the major achievements and learnings of our Middle Years students and we encourage every family to be present to celebrate that.

We are in Week 6 of term 4, so much is happening and there is still so much to achieve, celebrate and accomplish. The Year 12 Graduation this Thursday being one of those.

Take care, God Bless

Paul Belton

Dear Families and Friends of St Paul’s,

I am not sure how you feel but often I really struggle with watching the evening news on TV or reading the local newspaper. Everything seems to be so negative, so full of grief, so pessimistic, so reflective of a world full of mistrust and dislike for different cultures that we probably all turn off, even before the sport or weather comes on.

Our St Paul’s community is an enormously diverse one and we are constantly acknowledging this and celebrating it. Diversity comes in so many ways, culture, religion, academic or sporting ability, gender, age, and it goes on. We are enormously proud of this, and we acknowledge that our role in promoting all things inclusive, just, and equitable is particularly important and in the educating of our students to believe they are the ones who can change the world!

We cannot allow ourselves to be daunted by the enormity of the negativity and grief we so constantly see around us. We have an obligation and a belief that we must be a people of faith, a people of love and above all a people of hope.

In life there are so many things that are a mystery. Science has a habit and a desire to explain everything so we can understand why everything happens. Unfortunately, in the human world, we will never fully understand why people behave the way they do and in the natural world why some disasters happen the way they do.

What we do know is that our life is a journey. A journey that involves ups and downs, happy and sad times, successes and failures, and positive and negative interactions with other people. Life itself is a mystery. Our role, as members of this amazing St Paul’s community is to work together in partnership, to walk side-by-side in practising kindness, love of all and above all hopefulness, so that when our students graduate, they can continue this same path and positively influence those around them. This takes much courage, resilience, and faith. Let us all practice those!

Holistic Education

The term “Holistic Education” is one that is used often and probably too much as it can be taken for granted. In its authentic application, it refers to a school like St. Paul’s providing a myriad of events, experiences, courses, and activities that are dedicated to helping students gain the best and broadest education possible. In the Catholic school setting it is also about helping the students develop spiritually and our retreat program is a great example of that. We often refer to these in our newsletter articles and our Facebook posts etc so that families are aware – in case students forget to discuss them!

Over the last few weeks our Year 8 cohort has enjoyed learning about the art of self-defence, in this case, boxing and we were fortunate to have the services of Sifu Pete Pitrakkos, who is a 3rd Generation instructor of Bruce Lees Jeet Kune Do and a former National/International Taekwondo champion. Pete is the Master Coach at The Train Station Fitness Studio.

The students thoroughly enjoyed the experience and so did Pete! In fact, he wrote a lovely email to the staff that in part said the following:

“A sincere and heartfelt thank you to you all for the wonderful opportunity to be a part of your educational curriculum and present my boxing sessions to the Year 8s.

It was such an amazing environment to be a part of and to have the chance to hopefully enrich their lives with some knowledge they may take with them on their journey and be a positive influence.

It has been a beautiful learning experience for myself and a highlight of my year to be amongst you all!"

It is really pleasing to receive such a positive endorsement from a visitor to the College. While we know our community is wonderful and our students terrific, we know also that it is always a work in progress, that we constantly strive to improve all aspects of our College life and we respect the three-way partnership that we constantly strive to build upon.

Term 4 and the 2023 school year is flying by very quickly. It is important that as the year 12’s then the Year 11’s finish the rest of the College continues and we must maintain our very high standards of effort, uniform, attendance etc. We are grateful for the support of all families in this regard.

God Bless

Paul Belton