Principal
Deb Frizza
College Mass and Inauguration
Finally, we were able to have our Opening College Family Mass, allowing us to welcome around 400 members of our community. Congratulations to our Deputy Principal, Faith and Mission, Ria Greene on a wonderful Mass and liturgy. Thank you to Bishop Tony Ireland, Fr Peter Mathieson, Fr Andrew Jekot, Fr Cameron Forbes and Fr Huang Dinh for concelebrating our Mass.
It was a personal honour to officially have the ceremony for the Principal’s Inauguration and to be able to share this with the community, my family and friends is something for which I will forever be grateful. Thank you to Bishop Tony, Br Peter Ryan and the Chair of the Board, Anthony Brinkley, for the roles they played in the inauguration.
We were able to welcome members of the Brothers Community of both Mentone and Malvern, Mayor of the City of Kingston, Steve Staikos, Cr Hadi Saab, SBOCA President, Jason Smythe and many students and families.
It is a privilege to work in a Catholic College; it is an even greater privilege to be allowed the role of Principal in a Catholic College. I understand that one is given the privilege of stewardship of a college for just a period of time; at some stage in the future that stewardship is handed back, to then be passed on to someone else. When that time comes, I would hope to see the college further advanced along the continuum of school effectiveness. I am also mindful of the work of the De La Salle brothers who founded, who led, or worked initially at Mentone, and later at Bentleigh East, and for those many lay teachers who have given a commitment over these past 84 years to building the culture and reputation of St Bede’s College and to living out the principles of a Lasallian education. I am mindful of the need to build upon the contribution and work of our immediate past Principal, John Finn. Real and lasting progress can only be achieved when one is respectfully aware of the contributions of people in the past.
High Achievers' Assembly
We had the opportunity to celebrate with our high-achievers’ from 2021 in the presence of their families recently. Again, to have families on site celebrating their child’s success is something that I think we do not take for granted anymore. Congratulations to the students who were presented with an award across a range of areas, including academic achievement, VCAL, work experience and community/university awards.
An evening such as the High-Achievers’ Assembly does focus our minds on the pursuit of high-achievement and I would like to give students a few matters to contemplate as they try to be the best that they can be. High achievers make stuff happen - small things and big things! They will make a project work! They will take a vision and turn it into reality! They will make a plan and turn it into action! High achievers have many characteristics that help them attain the goal of being the best that they can be - and it isn’t based on luck. High Achievers seem to demonstrate the traits listed below:
| Key Traits of High Achievers | |
| They are Action Oriented | Strong motive to achieve Takers of action Think, take action, always on the move, test and apply ideas Walk the talk |
| They are Visionary | Know what they want and have some clarity on what it looks like, feels like and acts like |
| They have a Laser-beam Focus | “If you chase two rabbits, you end up catching neither” Turn their plans into reality |
| They have Discipline | Consistency of action and consistency over time Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments |
| They have a Positive attitude/mindset | Can do/will do mentality rather than can’t do/will not do View challenges as an opportunity to grow, not a reason to stop |
| They are committed to Life-long learning | A continued thirst for learning Keep feeding their minds to grow personally and professionally |
Council of International Schools Accreditation
We spent the week of March 6 – 11, with the Council of International School (CIS) review team as they assessed our application for membership. Many thanks to the team from CIS for their thorough and professional approach. Many thanks to the members of the community who participated in surveys (last year), classroom observations or interviews. We had representatives from the Board, students, staff, parents and Old Collegians speak with the reviewing team.
While it will be some time until we know the outcome of our application to become a member of CIS, many positives of the College were identified, as we would have all anticipated.
Foremost was ‘our students’ who presented themselves well, speaking respectfully to the reviewers and with passion for their school. A strong “sense of community” came to the fore in the interviews and observations. It was very apparent that our students love their school, our staff value the College and our parents place a great deal of trust in the College. The College Board was recognised for the role that it plays in the governance of the College and the professional approach of the Board members was noted. The College received commendation for the value it places on Child Safety.
As we would expect in any review, there have also been areas identified as in need of improvement and we will give attention to these when we receive further detail. A couple of areas identified included: greater use of data to inform classroom teaching and more consistent curriculum documentation, including the links to global citizenship and intercultural understanding.
Further information will be made available to the College community when the final report is received.
Again, I thank you for the role you have played in our application.
Per Vias Rectas
Deb Frizza
Principal