News & Events

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