From the Director of Students

Dear College Community,

As 2020 wraps up, I would like to take the time to give you all a general overview of the year. 2020 has been challenging but has brought significant changes in support of students and improved wellbeing across the College.

Highlights of 2020

• The Year 7 Twilight Dance with St Patrick’s College
• Senior students moving to ‘online’ learning
• Returning to a COVID-19 safe College
• Student leadership creating a short video to help support hygiene practices at the College
• The Student Hair Policy committee was created
• New Hair Policy updated
• New Merit system introduced to students
• Student bullying prevention survey implemented
• Year 12 Graduation Day
• Year 12 Graduation Mass and Dinner.

The College is forever grateful to the staff who support our students every year, in particular, a special thank you to our College Counsellors; Ms Renee Orecchio and Mr Tom Greally, who have been working behind the scenes tirelessly, to enhance the wellbeing of our students.

I would also like to wish Mr Hogan the very best on his long service leave in Term 1 2021. I hope he has a wonderful time and enjoys his break. 

Another big thank you goes out to our Year Leaders:

• Mr Luke Wilson Year 7
• Mr Mitchell O’Brien Year 8
• Mr Daniel Goodhew Year 9
• Mr Peter Hogan Year 10
• Mrs Trudy Sawyer Year 11
• Mr Patrick Newell Year 12

Also, a big congratulations and thank you to our Academic Leaders:

• Mrs Lee Ursino [Stage 4 Academic Care]
• Ms Loren Keir [Stage 5 Academic Care]
• Mr Stephen Bullock [Stage 6 Academic Care]

Changes in 2021

As we move into 2021, the following Year Leaders will be taking respective Year groups:

• Mr Mitchell O’Brien - Year 7
• Mr Luke Wilson - Year 8
• Mr Daniel Goodhew - Year 9
• Mrs Alicia Price - Year 10 (Acting Term 1)
• Mr Patrick Newell - Year 11
• Ms Trudy Sawyer - Year 12

The College Merit System 2020

As we introduced the new Merit System in Semester 2, 2020, I was amazed to see a large number of students immediately embrace the changes, clearly showing students were motivated to excel and further develop. A large number of positive merits, green stamps and reward points, helped students achieve a College Medallion.

The top students in 2020

Overall Year 7 finished first!!

Congratulations to JACOB MALVERN

Who finished in first place with a whopping 184 points!

DARTA -Drugs Alcohol Research Seminar

On Monday 30 November, Mr O’Brien (Year 8 Coordinator) and I (Mr Goodhew – Year 9 Leader) attended the Paul Dillon Drugs and Alcohol Research Seminar, held in Sydney.

Paul Dillon has been working in the area of drug education for more than 25 years and presented on his latest findings. Throughout the day there was a lot of excellent information for teachers, but more so, for parents.

One of the main topics of the day was Vaping and the dangers associated with it. If you click the link DARTA E-Cigarettes/ Vaping or go to Paul Dillon’s website, you will find lots of valuable information for teachers and parents including factsheets on Vaping, Cannabis and Alcohol.

To summarise, some of the important information we need to know around Vaping:

• There is a movement of young people wanting to Vape
• Vaping 1 of 3 options
• Flavour, no DRUG
• Nicotine
• Cannabis (THC oil) - With or without flavour.
• All Vapes - can contain nicotine even when labelled ‘nicotine-free’.
• Most young people are using disposable Vapes
• Vaping has only existed for 17 years. We had hundreds of years to learn about cigarettes in comparison.
• ‘Juuling’ - Subcategory of Vaping that was introduced to the market in 2015. This is the most popular Vaping option and is now very prevalent on TV.
• 1 Vaping pod = 200 puffs or 20 cigarettes
• ‘Juul’ the brand is growing faster than Facebook.
• Social Media - Young people are exposed to others ‘Vaping’ and performing ‘smoking’ tricks online.

So what do we need to consider?

• E-cigarettes and the marketing around these products challenge some of our key tobacco prevention message, i.e., the anti-social nature of smoking and smoking is not glamourous.
• Vaping may be ‘safer’ than smoking, but not vaping at all, is ‘safer’ than vaping.
• We do not know enough about e-cigarettes to say that they are a safe alternative to cigarette smoking and there is evidence to indicate that they pose a potential health hazard, not only to the user but to others around them.
• The unregulated nature of some e-liquids that can be bought online pose a risk for poisonings that can lead to lung damage. It is important to remember that recent deaths have been associated with contaminated product rather than the act of vaping itself.

How can schools and parents best deal with these issues, particularly vaping?

• Prevention messages are likely to work with school-based young people in this area?
• Being educated and aware. For more information please visit: http://darta.net.au/factsheets/

Mr Mitchell O’Brien and Mr Daniel Goodhew (Years 8 & 9 Year Coordinators)

Finally, I would like to wish all your families the very best over the Christmas period, as students spend time at home with loved ones, I hope the time shared is joyful and interactive. Keeping safe over the holiday period is really important, and again I ask all students to take caution when socially interacting with others both physically and on the ‘online’ platform.

Keep safe! 

God bless,

Mr Baldino Vetrano

Director of Students