Principal

Dear Parents/Carers,

I hope this message finds you well and that you've had a restful summer. As we embark on a new school year, we are excited to welcome your son/s back to school and look forward to a year filled with enriching learning experiences.

A Warm Welcome

Firstly, we would like to warmly welcome all the new families joining our school community and a hearty welcome back to all our returning families! We are thrilled to have your boys as part of our school and look forward to nurturing their academic and personal growth.

Staff Updates

We are delighted to introduce new members of our teaching staff who bring with them a wealth of experience and fresh ideas. We believe they will be a great addition to our dedicated team. There have also been changes to our leadership structure across the College, particularly with the additional resourcing of experienced staff in the Student Wellbeing space.

Firstly, our Leadership Team. I am joined and supported in this team by the following people:

Leadership Team Portfolios

There have also been some changes and additions to our some of our Middle Leadership positions. 

Wellbeing Team

* denotes a newly created position

Curriculum Team

Changes are as follows:

Co-curricular Team

Changes are as follows:

And finally, the teachers new to the College, replacing staff who have left or employed as a result of growth in our overall student population in the secondary school.

We are thrilled to introduce these newest members of our staff this year. Each of them brings a wealth of experience, a love of learning, and a commitment to fostering your child's academic and personal growth. They will be joining their respective teams with some common traits: a passion for their subject area and a dedication to student success. We are excited to see their positive impact on our students.

I noted that in last Sunday’s Sydney Morning Herald (28 January), there was a very informative article, Even the state’s top schools are struggling to attract teachers that describes the widespread teacher shortage in NSW with NSW Public Schools unable to fill more than 500 vacant head teacher and assistant principal positions, in addition to almost 2000 full-time positions unfilled. And these vacancies are not just in regional areas with schools in affluent areas such as St Ives High, Inner Sydney High, Northern Beaches Secondary College Cromer, and Chatswood High all with more than seven empty positions. Like the Department of Education, 2023 was a year of great challenge for us as we are forced to compete for a limited pool of qualified applicants, private schools are matching higher pay, with some including Newington and King’s hiking salaries to $140,000. NSW Public Schools is also reporting that all-boys schools had 52 vacant teacher positions, double that of girls-only schools. We are also finding a reluctance to join an all-boys school that includes co-curricular sports on Saturdays as part of the teaching role. We have worked very hard over the Christmas break, and we are happy to report that we have filled all of our vacancies with qualified and talented teachers however, a few of them have yet to work out their notice to their current school before they take on their substantive roles. We will continue to actively engage with universities and initial teacher education students to promote the benefits of working in an EREA College. This includes encouraging students to work part-time with us while completing their final year of study. Once again, I ask for your patience and understanding as we work to cover all of our classes with the very best, committed teachers.

Please join me in extending a warm welcome to our new staff members. We are confident that they will be instrumental in our mission to provide a high-quality education for all students.

New Curriculum

This year, we have an exciting curriculum lined up, along with various co-curricular activities aimed at holistic development. We believe in the all-round development of every boy, and these courses are designed to bring out the best in them.

We will be implementing a new curriculum for Mathematics, English, and Italian from Years 5 to 10. We are also implementing a new, revised course in TAS Stage 5, namely Computing Technology. There are also new syllabuses being implemented this year in Stage 6: Geography and Enterprise Computing (replacing IPT).

I would like to take a moment to recognise the extraordinary efforts of our teachers and coordinators in implementing our new teaching programs. These programs, designed to support the curriculum reform in NSW, meet our boys' current needs and interests and are a testament to our commitment to providing a relevant and engaging educational experience.

Our teachers have shown remarkable dedication and adaptability in integrating these new programs into their classrooms. Their passion for teaching and their deep understanding of our students' needs have been instrumental in the successful rollout of these programs.

Our coordinators and team leaders, too, deserve immense praise for their tireless work behind the scenes. Their meticulous planning and coordination ensured a smooth transition to the new programs, demonstrating their unwavering commitment to our College's mission.

We are incredibly proud of our teachers and coordinators for rising to the challenge and leading the way in innovative education. Their efforts underscore our College's commitment to fostering an environment where every student can thrive. Please join me in expressing our congratulations.

2023 HSC Results

The College had closed for the year when we received our HSC and ATAR results, and we were delighted to see our trajectory of positive academic attainment. Our school improved its ranking to 105th, but our ATAR results are the most important measure we are tracking. Our median last year was 83.10, an improvement from 79.84 in the 2022 HSC. This means 50% of the cohort who applied for an ATAR received a figure greater than or equal to 83.10. This is a proud achievement for a comprehensive school.

The ATAR is not the be-all and end-all for our young men. As a comprehensive school, we are equally as proud of the students who chose a vocational pathway, and did not apply for an ATAR, and moved straight into their choice of industry and secured jobs with on-the-job and off-the-job training. 

A detailed report on the HSC 2023 will be shared with our community following our Open School Mass and High Achievers’ Assembly on Friday 9 February 2024. 

With great joy, I share with our community that our 2023 Proxime Accessit, Angus Reen has been offered a place in the UNSW Co-op Scholarship Program for Mechatronic Engineering. This is a highly competitive scholarship program with only two places on offer in this field of engineering. This is a wonderful opportunity for Angus and a great reflection on his family and his College, and we wish him all the best as he embarks on this exciting journey!

Parent Involvement

We value your involvement in your sons’ education and look forward to your active participation. Whether volunteering for College events, attending parent/teacher meetings, or simply engaging with your son about their school day, your involvement is crucial. Due to a revision of our Work, Health, and Safety Policy, and in line with current NSW Department of Health guidelines, COVID-19 vaccination will no longer be mandatory for visiting our College Campus. We will still be encouraging and supporting our staff to maintain their COVID-19 and influenza vaccinations however, it will no longer be a mandatory requirement.

For our parents/carers, this will mean many of them can return to assisting us in our weekend barbeques, chapel cleaning, etc. I thank those parents/carers, previously excluded by our Policy and public health guidelines, for their forbearance when they could not be included in their usual activities. Thanks to God, we are in a new era now and can return to normal.

Home-School Communication

Please make sure to read the Especean each week and check our College website regularly for updates on College events and activities. 

Parents/carers can access much information from the TASS Parent Lounge where you can see your son/s timetable/s, attendance data, download published College Academic reports, read the daily notices, download Assessment Handbooks, and even track your son/s Academic Assessment Services (AAS) and NAPLAN results. 

Our SPC App is one of the most critical channels for Parent/Student/College communication. It is free and easy to download from the App Store or Google Play.

The SPC App will be the repository of all the vital information a parent/carer needs to support their son properly and place it in one, easy-to-access location.

By going to Settings and setting your subscriptions, you can avoid the information overload that can occur in Home/School communication.

For example, if your son is in Year 8 and plays Rugby and Cricket, set those as subscriptions, and you will only receive information that you require for that cohort and those activities.

The Especean will always be our focal point of summarising our information each week, and TASS Parent Lounge and Student Café are the most appropriate places to share resources and information. We look forward to hearing the feedback from our community as we commence its use. Detailed instructions for use can be found here.

Of course, we celebrate our students’ successes on social media, and we would love it if you took the time to follow us on social media: 

Thank you for your continued support and cooperation. Here's to a fantastic school year. 

In Memoriam

We keep in our prayers the following members of the Leadership Team who lost a parent at the end of 2023: 

Ms Bernadette Arraj (Director of Business Service), on the loss of her mother, Mrs Zahara Mikhael, who passed away. Mrs Mikhael is grandmother to Old Boys Anthony Arraj (’21) and Luke Arraj (’23), and George (Year 12) and Elias-Charbel Mikhael (Year 7). We keep Ms Arraj and her family in our prayers. 

Mr Rob Simpson (Director of Senior School) on the loss of his mother-in-law, Mrs Lynette Faulkner. We keep Mr Simpson, his wife, Mrs Clair-Maree Simpson, and their daughters in our prayers.

We pray for Jack (Year 10) and Patrick (Year 8) McDonald whose grandmother Teresa Gorka passed away after a long illness on 25 January. 

We also pray for Christian Angiletta (Year 11) and his family for the loss of his aunt during the school holidays. 

Dr Vittoria Lavorato

Principal

SPC boys can do anything! 

**except divide by zero