News

Dear Friends of St Paul’s,

As always, life continues to be extremely busy at St Paul’s – and life in general no doubt! What is one of the ironies of this time of the year is that we are only in week 4 of term 3 and yet we are having to work extremely diligently in all our preparation for 2023! This includes preparing budgets, finalising student numbers and hence advertising for new staff, guiding students and families through the subject counselling processes and at the same time continuing to do our best in our core business – teaching and learning.

College Musical

This week has seen Mr Antenucci and all his resolute staff and student teams undertake the week-long production of “All Shook Up” the musical. Damian has been doing this for over 20 years and this production provides student and staff, from a variety of backgrounds and with a variety of skills and talents, to work together in producing a tariff final product. The dedication of the team and the commitment of the College, in providing significant resources, has guaranteed another extraordinarily successful production. We congratulate them all.

EREA Conference

As a part of our commitment to our national EREA family two staff members have attended the EREA National Deputies Conference here in Adelaide. Ms Marianne Loftus (Head of Primary) and Mr Josh Foulis (Deputy Principal) have not only participated but contributed significantly to its success. Throughout the year several of our staff participate in various EREA “Full of Life” programs and inductions spread across all sections of the College. Belonging to a national, and international EREA family brings opportunities and support services, all of which contribute to St Paul’s commitment to provide the best possible Catholic Education in the Edmund Rice Tradition.

Feast of the Assumption

August 15th is one of the most important and significant dates in our Catholic Church’s calendar. It is the feast of the Assumption of Mary, the mother of Jesus. It has always been known as a Holy Day of Obligation in the Church, where traditionally all catholic schools and communities would celebrate a Mass together. With all the COVID restrictions we face this important aspect of College life has been significantly altered. Having said that our Catholic Identity team, led admirably by Mr Joe Hicks our APRIM, produced a beautiful online liturgy that the whole community had the opportunity to participate in.

This feast is not only the opportunity to remember Mary as the mother of Jesus and all the wonderful character strengths (courage, compassion, love, selflessness, sacrifice etc) she demonstrated in her live, but also a time when and where we can celebrate and give thanks to all of the beautiful women in our lives from our mums to relative, to friends, to teachers. At St Paul’s we a re a beautifully diverse community and this had been strengthened by the inclusion of girls in our Reception to year 8 classes. Some our girls participated in the liturgy and shared aspect of their journey of welcome to St Paul’s. It was a lovely liturgy, and we thank our Catholic Identity Team (Mr Hicks, Ms Girolamo-Corbo and Ms Ross) for all their work in the soul and spirituality dimension of our College life.

Winter Cocurricular, Girls Soccer, Under 12 State Soccer team

Our winter sports season is ending, and I would like to thank every staff member, student and family that has supported this important part of College life. Mr Nick Gillard does an amazing job in coordinating all of this and we can celebrate many, many wonderful achievements across different sports.

One amazing achievement is that our very first ever girls’ soccer team with this weekend paly in a Grand Final against St Domic's College at Cabra on Saturday morning. Under the guidance of Ms Sarah Fedele, the girls have been impressive and to achieve this in their first year is terrific. We wish them well.

Another exceptional performance that needs to be publicly recognised is that St Paul’s will be represented by three young boys in the State Under 12 Soccer team to play in a national carnival in Perth soon. To have three boys from the same school in the one state team is exceptional and a rarity.

We offer our most sincere congratulations to Liam Oliviero, Ziad DiBlasio and Marcel El Hamra and wish them every success. All budding Socceroos no doubt!!

Take care

God Bless

Paul Belton