News

Dear Families and Friends of St Paul’s,

While the 2022 school year is rapidly ending there is still a great deal of activity occurring and many more essential tasks to be completed before we sign off for Christmas.

Over the last fortnight we have again been kept busy with the following:

• Year 6 Rites of passage celebration
• Year 10 retreat
• We welcomed all Catholic Education SA Principals, Deputy Principals and senior leaders for meetings and a dinner in our new MacKillop building
• Year 11 Final Year Liturgy, where we farewelled some students who are leaving to joining the workforce and challenged the returning students to step up into the position of college leaders for 2023.
• Transition day for all new students from Reception through to Year 7. This was a student free day for our Year 7 – 11 students, the Year 11’s preparing for their exams.
• Year 11 Exams this week.
• The final parents and friends meeting of the year where we farewelled and thanked two outstanding mothers who have committed many years of service to the college. Mrs Bec Verrall and Mrs Felicity Bylhower. We will thank them more formally at an upcoming school function but from a personal point of view and on behalf of the College I would like to sincerely thank and congratulate both ladies on what has been an outstanding level of commitment to our community. Their servant leadership and desire to see St Paul’s flourish, while supporting all families new and long term, has been nothing short of amazing. Thank you both so much.
• Extra transition visits for students with additional needs.
• Another successful College Tour
• And last but by no means our all-important year 12 Graduation Dinner.

This function is so important in the life of the College and symbolizes yet another Rite of Passage where our students attend their last official school function and well and truly become members of our old scholars fraternity. For many parents it symbolizes the completion of much sacrifice and commitment to both the students, the families, and the College. For some this has spread well over a decade and with a number of children. We thank them all for their contributions to the college and wish them all well in the future. Hopefully, we will catch up with many next year when they have the first of hopefully several reunions.

Staffing appointments

We have continued with our staffing processes for 2023. There is a lengthy list of staff movement and welcomes, given our continued growth and I will announce all of that in the last newsletter of the Term. But a recent appointment I would like to highlight this week is the announcement that our outstanding Head of Wellbeing in the Secondary Years, Mr Nick Callary, has been offered the opportunity to work at St Joseph’s College in Port Lincoln as Acting Deputy Principal for 2023. We congratulate Nick and wish him well for this new experience.

Hence, there is still much to do, still much happening and still very much to celebrate. Enjoy the last few weeks of the term.

Take care and God Bless

Paul Belton
Principal

Photo: Primary Years Precinct ground works have begun

Dear Friends and families of St Pauls,

Is it only two weeks since the last newsletter? What has happened at the College seems it could have filled two months’ worth!

Life in a school, as I’m sure it is for you all nowadays, is extremely busy. Some may think that in term four we are all slowing down. Whether we like it or not nothing could be further from the truth.

Since the last newsletter college events include:

• We held the official opening of our new St Mary of the Cross MacKillop building. This was a momentous occasion for the College, attended by our Archbishop Patrick O’Regan, Acting Executive Director of EREA Ray Paxton, Director of Catholic Education SA and other distinguished guests. It was a wonderful occasion added to by our formidable primary Liturgical Dance Group under the direction of Ms Amy Barone
• Yr. 12’s on their Swot-Vac but coming to school to finish major assignments and being supported by our dedicated staff with their revision.
• Yr. 12 exams have started.
• An amazing Year 7 camp. Thanks Mr. John Grave and all the staff who attended.
• An amazing Year 5 Camp. Thanks Mr Jake Stewart and staff who attended
• Our 2023 Reception students having their first transition visit – such excitement and fun.
• A significant Inclusive Education transition visit for students who may need some extra support in 2023.
• The 2023 Prefects Camp – from Sunday to Tuesday. An excellent group of talented and inspired young men willing to take on the mantle of senior student leadership in the College. Thanks to Messers. Nick Callary, Josh Foulis, Joe Hicks, and Leaders of House. What awesome staff and students we are blessed with.
• A Year 8 Retreat. More awesomeness!! Thanks Ms Maria Girolamo-Corbo and the Catholic Identity Team. These experiences enrich the lives of our students in so many ways.
• Continued work on our 2023 school timetable (thanks Mr Michael White, Mr Matthew Muscat, and Mr Josh Foulis.) An enormous task undertaken with such desire to achieve what is best for the students and families.
• More interviews to employ more great staff for the College.
• A hugely successful Parent Information Evening for new students in 2023 and those progressing to the Middle Years. Thanks to our wonderful Parents and Friends for the BBQ and your amazing and ongoing support of the College, and to Ms Donna Nguyen for her coordination of the evening, together with all the staff who presented and supported the evening – it was a tremendous success.

On Friday, the 11th of the 11th. A wonderful Remembrance Day Ceremony. Thanks Ms Joanna D’Angelo and all for creating such a respectful and unifying learning and spiritual experience.
More learning experiences for the students – isn’t that our normal life?

So, all this is pretty normal for us! Our staff have an amazing desire to provide the absolute best experiences for our students, families, and community. The College is and will continue to do just that – our best – for you all. It is a pleasure and blessing for us to not only work here but to serve this wonderful community. The weeks and activities fly by, staff work so diligently and together we live a life of gratitude for being able to do it all – together.

God Bless
Paul Belton 

Dear Families and Friends of St Paul’s,

Week two in term four of an academic year is always a very special one in the life of the college. It is the last week of formal lessons for our Yr. 12 graduating class and includes several extremely important celebrations. These celebrations, in many ways, help us to put our life in perspective, acknowledge how important the college is in the lives of our students and their families, and allows the younger year levels to see and understand what we are all committed to doing – in partnership together.

A great highlight for us all at the Senior Years Presentation was the “debut” of our giant new screen and audio system in the gymnasium. The work done by the “Big Screen Video” and AJS Lighting, Sound and Events companies has been amazing, and we have finally now got a system that does justice to all the amazing work done collectively by the staff, the students, and the families. Everyone present was delighted with the ceremony and the quality of the presentation. Personally, I am so pleased to be able to now offer the St Paul’s community the very best of what is available in this area and what you all so very much deserve! I know how much our music department appreciates it! We are so grateful to them for their professionalism and support of our dreams.

We again enjoyed this facility at the Year 12 Graduation Mass. It will enable us all to participate more fully in the celebrations, the prayers, the formalities, and our ability to engage and celebrate together.

Great Building News

This week our families would have received a letter from the College outlining the most recent success story regarding our building program. While it now seems to have progressed quicker than first expected, and will bring some disruption to our normal structures, the news is awesome.

We have engaged the services of Sarah Constructions Pty Ltd to build the new Primary Years building and the engagement with the company has been amazing so far. Sarah’s has commenced their establishment arrangements and has actively cooperated with the college to assist us in making our normal operations as smooth as possible. We look forward with great confidence to watching this next stage of our master plan come to fruition. Exciting times!

We do apologise for any disruption this may cause to families, but we are certain we will all reap the benefits of this development in a short space of time.

New Staff

The College continues to grow in all aspects of our life. As we build on the great success of becoming a co-educational school and welcome another 100 new students into our great community for 2023, so too will we welcome a new group of staff.

While we are not able to announce all the appointments, we can assure families that the quality of those people who have applied to work with us has again been outstanding. Our growth has not only allowed us but also driven us to continue to review what structures are needed for us to provide our students and families with the very best structures and human resources we can. In 2023 we will have more emphasis on the pursuit of excellence in our core business of teaching and learning. We have added more senior appointments to positions of Leaders of Learning (i.e. Leaders of Design and Technologies, Health and P.E, and The Arts), and we have added new roles supporting a cross section of services such as the “Head of Learning Diversity” which will oversee Inclusive Education, Gifted and Talented programs and ATSI support amongst other things. We will announce these appointments when we can and with permission of the staff and other schools, from which the staff are coming.

Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop Building - Official Opening

Next week we can finally officially bless and open the new Senor Learning Centre complex which will be known as the Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop Building. While this has taken us much more time than we all would have liked, it will be another great occasion for the College and we will welcome several distinguished guests including Archbishop Patrick O'Regan.

We will provide more news and photos associated with this celebration.

Transition visits

Commencing over the last week or so we have undertaken several transition visits for students who will be new to the College in 2023. This is due to the review of all our programs leading into our first year as a co-educational school this year conducted by our amazing Transition Co-ordinator Ms Donna Nguyen and her desire to make the process even better for the new boys and girls as well as their families. Already they are being very well received.

Term four is the most hectic and we have many more celebrations and opportunities to welcome families and guests into our beautiful community. I hope all families take the opportunity to visit and enjoy these celebrations as you are most welcome and so much a part of the reason, we have them.

Take care

God Bless
Paul Belton

We are delighted to formally introduce our 2023 College Captains and Prefect team. The role of Prefect is one of privilege and responsibility and we congratulate them on their appointment.

Dear Families and Friends of St Paul’s

Another term comes to a rapid close! I am not sure if it just because we all get a bit older, but our school terms just seem to by faster and faster every year. Maybe it is that we are so much busier and cannot fit it all into the ten weeks!

In many ways term 3 is the busiest. In addition to all the normal teaching and learning, co-curricular activities, staff professional development, meetings etc we begin the massive undertaking of preparing for the next year! This seems crazy, but has been bigger and more important than ever over the last couple of years as we have grown. We are currently interviewing numerous candidates for teaching and other ESO positions at the College. It has been a pleasure to read so many great applications and interviewing so many terrific teachers who want to join our community because of who we are and what we hold most dearly, the FRED values and EREA Touchstones.

In addition, to keep us on or toes, we are continuing to push on with planning regarding the new Primary Building that we hope to start before the end of the year. We have been to tender and will progress further over the next couple of weeks. More excitement for St Paul’s.

Over these last couple of weeks, the College has held or participated in:

An amazing College Music Night
Catholic Schools Music Festival
Report writing and Parent/Teacher Learning Conversations
Achilles Cup Athletics Carnival
Another college tour
School Advisory Council meeting
A 2023 girls transition evening
A sensationally successful Primary Market Day
And we finish of the term with our spectacular Colour / Slim Run Day and announcement of the winners of the prestigious Shannahan Cup – the trophy for the most outstanding “House” of the year.

Did we say we were busy having fun! These activities cannot happen without the exceptional commitment of our amazing staff who give so much of themselves, for the students. We are sure the families appreciate these efforts.

As term 3 concludes we again ask all students and families have a good round table conversation about school reports and all the efforts associated with the learning dimension of their lives. Hopefully, this conversation is a congratulatory one whereby recognition of the pursuit of personal excellence is the main topic!

I hope the upcoming break is an enjoyable time for everyone, that the weather improves and that you have some quality time with your loved ones.

My sincere thanks to everyone for what has been another wonderful term in this great community.

Take Care,

God Bless

Paul Belton

Dear Friends of St Paul’s,

We are in week eight of term three already and the year is flying by. As always, the College is full of vitality, energy and experiencing wonderful celebrations. The highlight for us over the last week or so was the Reception Rite of Welcome Celebration that we held this week on Monday afternoon. Over the last few years, St Paul’s has been continuing to develop an overall “Rites of Passage” programme that begins with this Reception Rite of Welcome and ends with our Year 12’s graduation celebrations (which are not far away now.) These celebrations are a significant part of our acknowledgement that students go through several stages in their lives, while here with us, and that we need to celebrate those, acknowledge their importance, and use them to continue both our holistic approach to education as well as strengthening our three-way partnership with students, families and staff.

The Reception Rite of Welcome is both a beautiful liturgy with prayers and readings as well as a symbolic presentation to the students of an incredibly special plant. This year we presented each student and their family representatives with a raspberry plant and hope that they will plant, care for, and nurture this plant throughout their 13-year journey with us, as we will for them. A special thanks must go to Ms Kristynn Ross (Primary Years Religious Identity leader) and our three reception teachers, Ms Victoria Romeo, Ms Amy Barone, and Ms Ashley Bell as well as all Primary staff for their wonderful care of the students.

We will write more of the other Rites of passage as they are celebrated but we have them for our Yr. 3’s, Yr.6’s as they move out of the Primary Years, Yr. 9’s as they move out of the Middle Years and as mentioned in Yr. 12 for Graduation. Each of these has an incredibly significant message for the students, families and of course the staff. It is a blessing to be able to do these from our catholic perspective as well, which highlights the fact that each one of us is made in the image of God, and that is worth celebrating!

2023 – Planning and Preparation

While still in term three of the year we are quite feverishly preparing for 2023. It is the time of the year when we prepare budgets, advertise for staff, and followed all those procedures to make sure we employ the absolute best teachers and support staff we can, to assist us and join us in this amazing vocation we share.

We will share more news about staffing over the coming weeks. It continues to be exciting times at the College

Take care,

God Bless
Paul Belton

Our Parents & Friends group are running a wine fundraiser. There are some premium wines available at discounted prices. It’s a fantastic way to support the P&F, who contribute funds and event support for our college community. Please see the order form below and return it via email to: stpaulsparents1@gmail.com. Orders are required by Monday 12 September. 

Dear Friends of St Paul’s,

It is Springtime!!

September is the very much anticipated end of the winter season and the beginning of spring!

Hopefully, this brings with it much more sunshine and warmth. Spring is also the season of new birth as we see very evident in the natural world, both plant and animals alike. For us a St Paul’s, as a Catholic School in the Edmund Rice Tradition, it is the season of HOPE! We are always a hope-filled and incredibly positive community, but this is highlighted even more at this time of the year.

Having said that, it is the very busiest time of the year for us too! Our students in Years 9 – 11 are having to consider their subject selection, discuss futures with parents and staff alike and begin serious thinking about future pathways. With this process comes our background work of preparing timetables, subjects, staffing needs and budgets to make sure we are well prepared for 2023. That seems ironic – flat out preparation for 2023 when we are in week 6 of Term 3! We often refer to this period as the “ducks on the pond time.” Everything is going smoothly on the surface, but beneath that, things are going flat-out. But isn’t that life in a school anyway?

Given our continued growth and expansion due to becoming co-ed you will see several extra and replacement staffing positions advertised in this weekend’s press and on various online platforms. To be able now to expand our leadership structures, our new and ongoing education programs and support positions and our teaching and ESO ranks makes us an even better resourced school and one that yet again will improve the quality of what we provide to our students and families.

It is extremely exciting times at St Paul’s.

Year 10 Camp

This week we have our Year 10 camp in the Flinders Ranges. This is the culmination of several years camping experiences for the students, and by far the most challenging. The students always rise to the challenge of this camp, build resilience, develop further their sense of teamwork and camaraderie, while building stronger relationships with staff. These camps and our retreat program are such an important part of the overall holistic education that St Paul’s provides, and we are grateful for the support of families and students alike.

Support Staff Week

This week we have been celebrating, daily, the amazing contribution to the St Paul’s community that all our ESO staff provide. Our ESO staff are all our staff that are not teachers and this covers, administration, finance, grounds and maintenance, ICT, marketing and enrolments, library, and inclusive education. As you can see from that list, we would simply not survive without the enormous amount of dedicated love, support and work done by these staff. We are so grateful for that and hope that all the little treats that have been provided (much thanks to Ms Keera Masters) have helped them understand again how much we love what they do for us all and just how valuable they are to us. God bless them all.

Father's Day

This Sunday I hope all the fathers, grandfathers, male role models and mentors will have the opportunity to enjoy an extra dose of love and gratitude from their families on Father's Day. I am so blessed that not only is my father still alive and going well at 93, but that I am both a father and a grandfather myself. The continued love and inspiration I get from my dad and likewise from my own family remind me constantly that I must not only “say” how grateful I am, but I must “show and do” my gratitude daily. I sincerely hope that all our families have an awesome day, and can celebrate somehow, even though some may be missing.

To all our extended community, this springtime reminds us of the new life, continued hope and the abundant joy we continuously experience, being a part of St Paul’s. We acknowledge that we are only who we are now because of all the great people who have gone before us and laid an amazing foundation upon which we can build.

We are indeed blessed!

Take care

God Bless

Paul Belton

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