Junior School

Junior School News - Term 1 Week 4, 2022

As the school calendar turns to Week 4, we are now well and truly back into the swing of things, along with the routines that accompany each new year. Whilst some of these may at first feel a little unsettling, they are now becoming familiar as the boys quickly adjust to life in 2022 at St Patrick’s College. Our students are incredibly happy to be back at school and are enjoying the return to a relatively normal school day. From my perspective, it is the little things that stand out the most such as the manner in which students willingly engage with their peers as they pass each other in the hallway; or even how they warmly greet an unfamiliar member of staff on the playground. It is also extremely encouraging to see many of our current Year 6 students offering support or advice to the new Year 5 students; a clear sign that our sense of community in the Junior School is alive and well!

Tomorrow represents a rather considerable day for all Year 5 boys as they participate in their first official College formation experience, Belonging Day. I would ask all members of our Junior School community to please pray for the boys as they embark on this significant occasion in their educational and spiritual journey at St Patrick’s.

Another highlight of becoming part of the College community for a Year 5 boy and his family is the annual Year 5 Welcome Mass. We look forward to officially ‘inducting’ the Year 5 class of 2022 and to hosting their parents for this very special occasion. Our Mass begins at 5:00 PM in the College Chapel. A friendly reminder that it is an expectation of the College for all Year 5 students to attend this important event. 

The annual Parents' and Friends' Junior School Family Dinner will follow the Year 5 Welcome Mass on Friday. This component of the evening will commence at 6:30 PM in the College Gymnasium and represents a lovely way of gathering together as we share in a fabulous meal. After not being able to hold this event in 2021 due to the impact of COVID-19 protocols, we look forward to hosting as many Junior School families across both year groups as our on-site capacity will allow.

As always, if you have any queries or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me via email (glenn.stephenson@spc.nsw.edu.au) or phone (8705 9247) and I will endeavour to assist you in any way that I can.

May God bless you,

Glenn Stephenson

Director of Junior School

St Patrick’s College Band and Instrumental Program/Year 5 Instrumental Program – a Demystification!

At this time of year, I receive many enquiries from new parents about our ensemble programs – understandably! So, I wanted to take the opportunity to try and help clarify how the various moving parts work.

First of all, what’s in a name? You’ll see many references (as above) to the ‘band’ program, and sometimes elsewhere the ‘ensembles’ or ‘ensemble program’. The terms are largely synonymous and describe a group of instrumentalists that play together. But traditionally, ‘band’ does not include string players and refers to wind bands, concert bands, big bands, and marching bands. We have groups here at the College that include violins, cellos, violas, and other string instruments, so ‘ensemble’ is a better description for these and, rather helpfully, also encompasses traditional bands. The ‘Band and Instrumental Program’, therefore, reflects the College’s strong tradition and history of bands, and has stuck!

The biggest source of confusion I find, however, surrounds the Year 5 Instrumental program. This is a separate program to our college-wide program and is aimed at providing all Year 5 boys the experience and opportunity of learning a musical instrument; it’s an introduction, if you like. These are essentially group-lessons held once a week in the Duffy Centre. Due to the numbers of boys involved, half the cohort will attend in Semester One, the other in Semester Two (we have a lot of instruments, but not that many!). Boys get a choice of what to try: trumpet; trombone; flute; clarinet; oboe; French horn; violin or cello, and each session is taught by our professional, external instrumental tutors. Some weeks we come together as a huge group. Whilst we try our best to accommodate everyone’s first choice, again, due to limited number of instruments, it’s not always possible.

If a boy already has some experience on an instrument, I recommend they not pick it for the Year 5 Instrumental Program (Y5IP) – simply because they will find themselves well ahead of the others and quickly become bored and unmotivated. Instead, I encourage them to pick a different instrument (perhaps one they never dreamt of playing!). In these instances, boys are invited to take up private lessons on their instrument here at the College and join our college-wide program (open for boys in Year 5-12). These lessons incur a fee but are one-to-one. 

Once having private tuition, each boy is expected to contribute to the College’s music community by participating in one of the large ensembles that aligns to their level of ability, as well as any of the many smaller groups that cater for their instrument. In the senior school, boys can also select the band, orchestral or choir programs as separate co-curricular streams. 

Next time, I’ll go into more detail about what ensembles we have on offer and how they are structured.

Dr David Taylor

Ensemble Coordinator