Principal's Report 

Welcome to Term 2. We hope everyone enjoyed the extended break and that all students are feeling refreshed and ready for Term Two.

At the end of Term 1, all our staff were lucky enough to attend the Kildare Education Ministries (KM) National Conference to celebrate 10 years of KM. The vast majority of us attended the Geelong Hub but the conference itself was held over five hubs also located in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Sydney. 

The Conference provided a wonderful opportunity to connect and network with other KM schools and colleagues, but it also served as a clear reminder about the purpose and the calling of working in  KM. We were called to have listening hearts, to proactively invoke positive change by accompanying our Aboriginal brothers and sisters on their journey, to support and embrace the most vulnerable in our communities and to graciously include and welcome all into our communities. As a faith-based College, these challenges are crucial to harnessing our students and staff to be people of strength and kindliness; people who embrace our core values.

It is with a heavy heart, that we have witnessed violence and destruction, as the main focus of the media and many conversations over the last few weeks.  Whether it be the tragic events in Sydney in which we just can not make any sense of; the drone attack on Israel and the reciprocated attack on Iran; or the death of an Australian aid worker in Gaza - conflict it appears is all around us. And then this week we have paused to remember our ANZACs and the many conflicts they endured. Much about the conflicts of the past seem senseless, but not the lives sacrificed to defend freedom and the Australia we have come to love and feel at home in. ANZAC day does however provide an opportunity for us to be grateful. It allows us to demonstrate gratitude for our men and women of service, gratitude for the peace negotiators, gratitude for the aid workers, gratitude for those who continue to forgive and embrace people of difference, of different religions, cultures or genders. 

At St Joseph’s we want to promote a world where kindliness is viewed as the best option, a world where kindliness is viewed as real strength, particularly when we are surrounded with a social media message of self promotion. We seek to be counter cultural, we seek and encourage our students to be people who serve, young people who promote the kindliness and care of others, young people who forgive self and others.

In the next few weeks, we will move into our Stage 2 buildings at Kildare Campus. This is an extremely exciting time for us as a College. The provision of quality facilities for our youngest students is paramount in a growing school. We will go to tender for our MCG sized oval in the coming weeks and we already have designs ready for Stage 3 - which include an indoor multipurpose sporting and performance facility. New facilities, bring new opportunities and there will be more news to be announced over the coming weeks and months. 

While all of this is wonderful, the quality of our staff is what really provides opportunities for our students. Our staff provide  support to our students in a variety of ways, some in and some outside of the classroom. We must be mindful that staff have different ways of doing things, different ways of completing tasks and different styles of delivering messages or lessons. This is actually okay, because that’s the way of the world; we are all unique and created in the image of God and it's our role to teach students to be adaptable, flexible and 21st century learners and that’s the challenge.

While we continue to grow as a school, our House Cross Country and ANZAC Day Service this week were beautiful examples of how we can come together and celebrate as a whole school community and I would like to thank and acknowledge our staff and students for their commitment in providing these opportunities for us.

God Bless.

Anne Marie Cairns

Principal