Principal's Message

Dear Members of the St Joseph's College Family,

A warm welcome back to the 2024 school year.  It is always a special time having students return with excitement to school.  Already the term is moving quickly, as we begin Week 4 next week.  The first three weeks have been filled with a number of school community events, along with students returning quickly to the routine of learning.  We hope that this school year is filled with wonderful memories and learning experiences that support students to achieve excellence in their lives.

Ash Wednesday and Lent

This week in the Catholic Liturgical Calendar, we begin the season of Lent following Ash Wednesday.  We were fortunate as a school to have Fr Wilber celebrate Ash Wednesday Mass with our school community.  Over Lent, students will be participating in learning more about this significant part of our Catholic Faith, particularly focusing on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.  The College will be using the Project Compassion lens to support students to develop a deeper understanding of Lent and also giving to others in need.  We look forward to sharing more about this with our community during this period.

Mission and Vision

As a College, we are striving to ensure our students know and understand why we exist as a school; what we want for each student during their time at the College;  and that our Values and Beliefs are the foundation of who we are and how we behave toward one another.  These are listed below and are central to the work we are pursuing at the College.

Mission: Enabling students to achieve the fullness of life.

School Vision: In partnership with parents and carers, produce loving, forgiving, generous and happy young adults who espouse Christian values and make a positive impact on society.

Values and Beliefs:

• Christ is at the centre of all that we do and present in each of us
• Each student must be given the opportunity to achieve to their highest potential
• All members of the SJC community will be treated with love, dignity and respect
• As an evangelical arm of the Catholic Church, all members will be provided opportunities to encounter the light of Christ

School Annual Improvement Plan

The College has developed three goals for the School Annual Improvement Plan.  These goals will support our school to continue to further strengthen the great things that occur here for our students on a daily basis.  Below you will see our goals for 2024, which will be consistently referred to throughout the year.

Mission Goal: Improve student community service by designing and embedding an explicit program that reflects the Mission of Jesus Christ Foundational Values.

Learning & Teaching Goal: Improve student growth in reading and writing through embedding evidence based whole school agreed pedagogical practices.

Pastoral Care: Strengthen the AWC model to improve the parent and school engagement/communication in students' wellbeing and learning.

Commencement Mass

On Tuesday 6 February, we held our Commencement Mass to begin our school year.  This tradition is particularly special for our Year 12 students who begin their last time of everything at our great school.

Part of our Commencement Mass sees each Year 12 student light their Journey Candle which represents a key moment on the final journey at the school.  We are so excited for our Year 12 students as they work hard over the next three terms to complete their school journey, and we look forward to sharing all their ‘last’ experiences with them during 2024. 

This mass also holds significance for our Year 7 students who, for the first time, have participated in a College mass.  We warmly welcomed Year 7 to our school with the procession through the ‘Welcome Tunnel’ guided by their House Captains.

Year 7 Transition Meetings

The College has been working towards strengthening the experience of our Year 7 students as they Transition to Secondary School.  This year, we were fortunate to have Transition Meetings on the Year 7 students' first day of school. 

This saw our Academic and Wellbeing Care (AWC) teachers meet with the parents and Year 7 students in their AWC group.  It provided parents and students the opportunity to become more comfortable with the physical environment, knowing where their AWC rooms are, student lockers and how to access and receive their timetables ready for the next day.  Parents were also able to ask questions and students set learning goals to begin their year and time in secondary school. 

It was great to meet families and students and I would like to again offer a very warm welcome to our school community all the Year 7 families and students.

College Swimming Carnival

Our first College sports event, the Swimming Carnival was held on Thursday.  It was a fantastic day full of House colour and cheer. 

Congratulations to all the students for their participation and commitment to earn points for their house.  This was no more evident than in the 200m freestyle event at the start of the day which saw several students courageously take on the challenge of four laps of the 50 metre pool just to earn extra points for their house. 

It was a great honour for me to present the Age Champions and Runner-Up awards to all students who achieved this feat.  It is great to see students push themselves in events to reach their potential.  Congratulations to all these students. 

It would be remiss of me not to highlight the great achievements of Kye Thompson, one of our wonderful Year 12 students who broke two records on the day, one by three seconds which was in the 50m breaststroke event.  Well done Kye on your commitment and dedication to the swimming craft.  Keep chasing that black line!  (See the report from Leader of Sport in this newsletter.)

Thank you to Ms Ilic for her organisation of the event for our school community.  I would also like to thank all the parents who came for the day to support our students and the school.  I look forward to seeing parents at our Athletics Carnival later this year.  Congratulations to Hanly House who won the Carnival.  Well done!

Sports Excellence Program

It is with great excitement that we launch the Sports Excellence Program at the College next week.  We at the College believe that students should have the opportunity to excel in their chosen field and as a school we want to support students to achieve all their dreams and aspirations.  We have a number of athletes who are achieving at high levels or on the verge of this.  The Sports Excellence Program will provide these targeted students with high-performance support by highly qualified sports practitioners.  The program will take a holistic approach focusing on sport specific skill development, strength and conditioning, fitness, mental health/preparation, nutrition, sport recovery and academic success.  Personalised programs will be developed for each individual student designed by Accelerate Australia, a well-renowned organisation from Brisbane that supports the athletic development across a range of sports including in the past the Brisbane Bullets.  The program is designed for students who are balancing sport commitments (State Level or State Squads or equivalent) and school.  More specific information can be found in the Sports Excellence Information Packs, which includes application forms.  These will be available on the College website later this week.  If you believe your child would benefit from this great opportunity, please have them apply.

Year 7 Welcome Evening

We are excited to be hosting our Year 7 Welcome Evening on Wednesday 28 February at the College COLA from 6pm-7:30pm.  We warmly invite all Year 7 parents and their child/children to keep this date free and attend the evening.  This night aims to begin to develop a community amongst our Year 7 families and students.  It provides an opportunity for parents to meet one another, particularly those parents of students who have formed new relationships with students from other primary schools.  A flyer will be circulated next week for families to register for this event so catering can be finalised.  We begin the evening by sharing a meal together from 6pm to 6:30pm.  I look forward to this night together to further build our community.

New Staff and Staff New to Positions in 2024

We have been blessed to have a number of new staff join our school community, as well as a number of existing staff taking on new roles, or permanent roles, at the College.  Below you will see the name of each staff member and their subject area they teach, or the area they work within the school.  I would like to warmly welcome them all to our school community.

As always, please ensure you reach out at any time if your child/children require support.  I look forward to another wonderful year and working together for each student.

God Bless

Mr Ryan Campbell
College Principal

16 February 2024