News & Events

Dear Families and Friends of St Paul’s

Week 10 and our last newsletter for Term 1 2024. As time flies so quickly, we should constantly remind ourselves to make the most of every moment, take some time to slow down and enjoy the beauty of everything around us.

Easter time is certainly a wonderful reminder of all that. The joy and hope of the Easter season encourages us all to become more aware of the good in our lives and encourages us to be more positive than what the world around us shows.

Easter Liturgies

Last Thursday and this Tuesday we were blessed as a community to share in several wonderful school liturgies. As a catholic school in the Edmund Rice tradition, we know that this season is the most important and the most relevant in our liturgical calendar. The journey from the cross of Calvary on Good Friday, where Jesus gave us the greatest ever example of sacrifice and love through to the Resurrection story of hope on Easter Sunday enables us to reflect on what is important in our lives and to keep our lives very much “in perspective.”

The College Stations of the Cross liturgy on Holy Thursday was a beautiful and poignant reflection and the Resurrection liturgy in the gym on Tuesday another faith-filled experience for all our staff and students. In addition to these the two lovely Primary liturgies again highlight what a beautifully reflective and celebratory community we have here at St Paul’s.

Multi-Cultural and Multi-Faith Community

All families and friends of St Paul’s know and understand we are very much a multi-cultural and multi-faith community. In fact, it is our absolute strength. We often speak of the forty-seven different languages spoken in our family homes, but we do not often speak of the many and varied faith backgrounds our families have. The beauty of this is in the fact that every single major world religion such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, and Sikhism all have one major belief in common. This belief revolves around the way we treat each other and quite simply is “To treat others exactly the same way you wish to be treated.” Surely this is the core ingredient to a successful and loving community.

From a multi-faith point of view, our aim at St Paul’s is quite simple. We hope that every student that comes through our gates and joins our Catholic community grows in a deeper understanding and commitment to their own faith and grows in a deeper respect for our Catholic faith. The journey of a student at St Paul’s should allow each student and their family the opportunity to express who they are and participate in our community celebrations to the point where this spiritual growth occurs.

Term 2 Leadership

As has been communicated to all our families, I will be taking some Long Service Leave across Term 2 and part of term 3. During this time Mr Josh Foulis (our current Deputy Principal) will become Principal and we are fortunate and pleased to have Mr Frank Ranaldo (currently Deputy Principal at Rostrevor) join our community as Deputy Principal for Terms 2 and 3. We look forward to welcoming Frank and I know our community will offer both Josh and frank the continued support that we all experience.

On behalf of our staff can I offer everyone an incredibly happy and restful break, if you are having one and our most sincere thanks for the wonderful relationships we have across each dimension of the College.

Take care, God bless

Paul Belton