Principal's Report

Dear families,

This has been a big week for our College. On Tuesday we celebrated Shrove (pancake) Tuesday and raised over $200 for Caritas by selling Pancakes to our students and staff.

On Wednesday we held our Ash Wednesday house liturgies (see today’s Prayer in the newsletter) before the Year 12 cohort attended English lectures off site. Thursday was of course the Swimming Sports, see Sports section for photos and age champions, (well done Clontarf!) and today we all walked to Ss Michael and John’s Church for our opening Mass, led by Monsignor Murphy and our Leadership badge ceremony. In addition to all of this, I attended the Catholic Education Ballarat Principals’ conference, Mass and Dinner. I am looking forward to the weekend!!

One of our key focus this year is to develop student engagement through increasing student voice. In other words, what do the students really want from their education. I visited the Year 9 classes this week to hear from them what would make schooling more engaging for them and then provided this feedback to a forum of Year 9 teachers to discuss how we may support these ideas. This is very much a work in progress, however I have some exciting news for the Year 9 students that will be unveiled next week. I will communicate these changes to Year 9 parents this weekend via email.

Throughout the year, we will continue to explore newer ways to provide engaging opportunities for all students to ensure that coming to school puts a smile on students faces as they embrace the challenge of learning.

Gerard Raven

Principal