News & Events

From the Principal
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
SACE Art Show
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

From the Principal
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

From the Principal
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

2023 Year 12 Results
The conclusion of the 2023 school year comes with great celebration for our Year 12 students. It is with great pride that I detail the excellent SACE, ATAR, and apprenticeship achievements of the Year 12 graduates for 2023. For the fifth consecutive year, 100% of eligible students achieved their SACE. Our students have demonstrated the skills and capabilities to flourish and contribute productively to the world beyond school and will continue to hold a special place in our community as Old Scholars of our College.
The Year 12 students of 2023 have performed at an excellent level. Congratulations to the DUX OF THE COLLEGE for 2023:
Harsimrat Singh, 99.25 (pictured above)
A+ Merits in Accounting (Year 11, 2022) and Chemistry and A+ grades in Mathematical Methods and Integrated Learning: Religion and an A in English Literary Studies.
Congratulations to the PROXIME ACCESSIT for 2023:
Shrey Patel, 98.75
A+ Merits in Research Project (Year 11, 2022) and Mathematical Methods, and A+ grades in Specialist Mathematics and Integrated Learning: Religion, an A in Physics, and an A- in English Literary Studies.
Many students will be receiving their first university and/or TAFE preferences due to a strong level of achievement in the Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank (ATAR) or through other tertiary entry processes. 65% of the 2023 grades were in the A and B bands, with 16% of students achieving an ATAR of 80 or higher:
Congratulations to the following students who achieved an ATAR greater than 90:
Student |
ATAR |
Harsimrat Singh |
99.25 |
Shrey Patel |
98.75 |
Danny Hoang |
91.30 |
Congratulations to the following students who achieved an ATAR greater than 80:
Student |
ATAR |
Liam Neville |
85.45 |
Nicholas Edgecombe |
84.70 |
Brody Meijer |
84.60 |
Bryce Yates |
83.65 |
Alexander Sauchelli |
82.80 |
Joel Machado |
82.35 |
Franco Crescitelli |
81.90 |
Ali Hassan Ali |
80.70 |
Christopher Sauchelli |
80.65 |
MERIT RECIPIENTS
Merit Certificates are only awarded to students who finish in the top 1% or 2% in the state. We congratulate the following students who have received merits:
Merit Certificate |
Stage 2 Subject |
Harsimrat Singh |
Chemistry |
Shrey Patel |
Mathematical Methods |
William McCulloch (Year 11) |
Research Project |
Harsimrat Singh* |
Accounting |
Shrey Patel* |
Research Project |
*Achieved in 2022 during their Year 11 studies
The following students achieved A+ grades for one or more subjects studied this year, 12 A+ grades in total (including 6 of these grades achieved by Year 11 students):
A+ Grade |
Stage 2 Subject |
Harsimrat Singh |
Chemistry |
Integrated Learning: Religion |
|
Mathematical Methods |
|
Shrey Patel |
Mathematical Methods |
Integrated Learning: Religion |
|
Specialist Mathematics |
|
William McCulloch (Year 11) |
Research Project |
Specialist Mathematics |
|
Mathematical Methods |
|
Kanish Aneja (Year 11) |
Research Project |
Ali Hassan Ali (Year 11) |
Research Project |
Martin Trieu (Year 11) |
Research Project |
Equally as important, we celebrate and congratulate the following 9 students (including 2 Year 11s), who have successfully gained apprenticeships this year, noting that this is a growing list to be added to:
Student |
Apprenticeship |
Zach Fielding |
Carpentry |
Jon Higson |
Chef/Cooking |
Callum Houlahan |
Electrical |
Jacob Jenkins |
Automotive |
Deyar Kshman |
Tiling |
Francesco Mignone |
Plumbing |
Joel Thomas |
Plumbing |
Liam Kinloch (Year 11) |
Diesel Mechanic (School-based) |
Blake Langeluddecke (Year 11) |
Reece (School-based Traineeship) |
The following student achieved A grades in all 6 subjects studied:
- Harsimrat Singh
- Shrey Patel
The following student achieved A+ grades in all 3 Stage 2 subjects studied this year, as a Year 11 student:
- William McCulloch
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

From the 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

From the Principal
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

From the Principal
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

From the Principal
Dear Families and Friends of St Pauls.
Welcome back to Term Four!
How quickly is our year disappearing? Term four is a whirlwind of activity as we start a series of events that mark significant milestones in the lives of many of our students and their families. For our Year 12 students it is the last week of formal lessons, the last ones after thirteen years of education. For some families, having travelled halfway around the world to provide an opportunity for these students to have a better life, it is a remarkable story of sacrifice and success. We could not imagine what this journey could have been like, but we are certainly very proud and privileged to have been a part of their story.
Education is the most powerful key to unlocking a future that is full of hope and potential. This week we have held our Senior Years Community Celebration event and have acknowledged the Class of 2023 and the outstanding efforts of so many students across a wide range of areas. These include academic endeavour, co-curricular excellence, Christian Service Learning, vocational learning, and community involvement. We share these significant achievements with our families, and we congratulate the parents for all their long-lasting commitment to their children.
Today we held our Year 12 family breakfast, prepared by the staff for the students and their families and we celebrated this finale in the best way possible with our Graduation Mass. Again, this celebration is extremely emotional for the families and as a staff, we provide a guard of honour for our students as a sign of their importance and our love for them. So we offer them the very best of luck with the upcoming exams and in their very bright futures.
Despite the first of these “endpoints” for the term, we remain enormously busy with the myriad of activities and learning experiences that take place daily. We have Primary swimming, Parent/teacher interviews and an upcoming Year 7 camp. Enough to keep us on our toes.
Old Scholars Reunions
Last Friday evening we welcomed back many old scholars from the graduating years ending in a “3”. It was extremely well attended, and it was an absolute pleasure to welcome back some former students who graduated 40 years ago and had not previously returned to their old stomping ground! So many felt a great sense of pride in how the College was looking and many stories of their school days abounded. That time period was also represented by some St Paul’s ladies, who had come to the College for their Year 12 studies. We express our thanks to the Marketing, Enrolments and Communications Department, Mrs Rachel Elgar, Mrs Tania Stone, and Mrs Kirsty Casey for all their work in preparing for this celebration.
2024 Student Leadership
In the first two weeks of this term, we have also elected and announced the incoming senior student leadership team for 2024.
We congratulate William M who will become the 2024 College Captain and Julian S who will be the College Vice-Captain. We are sure that these two fine young people will lead the student body with much distinction in 2024.
Joining them in the Prefect team will be:
- Dally House Captain – Kye R
- Gleeson House Captain – Dante B
- Marlow House Captain – Jack D
- Nagle House Captain – Ryan S
- O’Loughlin House Captain – Christian K
Congratulations to the team and we all look forward to them providing outstanding leadership to and for the College.
God Bless
Paul Belton

From the Principal
Dear Friends and Families of St Paul’s,
As Term 3 ends we once again reflect on the myriad of activities and learning opportunities that the College has undertaken to assist students over the last few months. The education world is constantly evolving, and like the world of information technology we need to constantly keep up with the latest initiatives that present themselves to us. One such example is the evolving world of artificial intelligence (A.I.) While it all seems scary, it is, and can be, a technology that assists students with their learning if used correctly. Like all aspects of the modern educational world our staff will engage with it and use its capabilities when and where we should.
While our education world is constantly changing, some things about life here at St Paul’s must never change. Who we are as a Catholic school in the Edmund Rice tradition with our core values of Faith, Relationships, Excellence and Diversity will always remain. We will continue to build our beautiful community on the strength of our quality relationships, across all dimensions of college life. This was reinforced recently when the college, once again, employed the services of Greg Mitchell, an expert in human behaviour, to address our students and staff about all things working together and understanding each other, regardless of diversity or difference.
Subject Selection and Staffing for 2024
Term 3 is hectic as we both continue our normal educational activities while we also plan and develop all the necessary infrastructure for 2024. A major part of this is to review all of our subject offerings, develop new curriculum areas, and work with students and families through an extensive counselling process. This enables students to select and study the subjects they really would like to and what they need for future study and employment.
This then requires us to make sure we have the right staffing structures and physical resources to deliver on this, and the right timetable to fit everything in. Our Learning Teams and Leadership Teams work extremely hard to make sure this all falls into place and Mr Michael White does an enormous amount of work preparing out timetable for next year.
We have yet to complete all of our necessary staffing for 2024, with some areas of expertise becoming harder to fill, for the first time in my experience. There is no doubt that teaching is becoming more difficult, and many teachers are leaving the profession. We are fortunate here at St Paul’s that high quality staff are still applying to work in our community. This is not the case everywhere, so we are grateful for that. We will inform the community of all the staffing changes during the course of Term 4.
New Primary Building
The new primary precinct is coming along quite well. Our builders Sarah Constructions are working very diligently to make sure it is complete and available for us to move to prior to the end of the academic year. This has been and continues to be a significant challenge, but with better weather now we all hope that things can speed up a little to allow the completion date to be achieved. It is an extremely exciting development, and we look forward to showing this off to the community early in the new year.
2024 College Prefects
Another extremely important part of our preparation for 2024 is the process of selecting our College Captain, Vice-Captain, and Prefect Team. It is particularly pleasing to again have many students apply for these positions, knowing full well they can and will make a significant contribution to our college life next year. We are currently interviewing these students, and also allowing staff and students to have a vote. We will then take the successful team away on a camp for a few days for some intensive leadership training.
On behalf of all the staff I would like to express our thanks to all our families for their continued support throughout the term and, for those who can, we hope you have a great break.
Take Care
God Bless
Paul Belton
