Principal
Mr Gary Conwell, Principal
Opening Mass
Thank you to Ms Janai Sugars and the school team for their work preparing and delivering the Opening Mass last week. It was wonderful to see the whole school assembled together, and particularly seeing our Year 12 cohort who take up their mantle of leadership within the College for 2025. I’d also like to thank Fr Saju for presiding over the mass.
The theme of the Opening Mass focused on leadership, particularly the leadership that our Year 12s bring to the rest of the students at the College. For Year 12 students, leadership is about cultivating virtues like faith, service, and courage, which are crucial to our understanding of service. Effective leaders connect with others, finding common ground and uniting people using their various gifts, talents and attributes of service:
There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us.
1 Corinthians 12:4-6
Our Year 12 students are now commissioned to serve the rest of the College body. They are the most important student role models for all other students and, therefore, have a much greater responsibility to live out their faith (spirituality and worldview), service and courage as best they can. How Jesus commissioned his disciples is how we have commissioned our Year 12 students. We say to them to be true to our values and live them out strongly using the gifts God has given you:
Again he (Jesus) said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
John 20:19-23
Welcome to our new staff and new students
I warmly welcome the following new staff to our community. We are very grateful for their participation and contribution to the learning of our students:
Teachers Learning Support Officers
Deborah Cadell Alexandra Fuller
Troy Brunjes - MLP Deacon Amber Maree
Libbie Herbert Rachel Stricklen
Jim Ballin Duncan MacGregor
Colin Free Tonya Calvert-Martin
Alexandra Collins
Nola Nunes
Aurelle Brunjes
Georgia Santucci
During our opening mass, we also welcomed 151 new students from Year 7 to Year 11. We are very grateful that they have joined our school and wish them the very best introduction and experience at St Stephen’s.
CCTV Footage
Please note that as per a new CCTV policy by Cairns Catholic Education, I must advise our parents and friends of the operation of CCTV at the College:
Our school has an obligation to ensure the school environment is safe and secure, and to fulfil our duty of care to students, staff, and visitors. Please be advised that CCTV systems are present in our school to help us fulfil these obligations, and to manage and prevent other inappropriate behaviour on school grounds. CCTV also provides enhanced capability to protect our school’s assets against vandalism and theft. If you enter upon school grounds, you may be the subject of CCTV monitoring and recording in accordance with Catholic Education Diocese of Cairns (CEDC) policies and procedures. All such recordings are managed in accordance with the CEDC privacy policy.
I directly oversee the CCTV system and may delegate access to senior leadership staff when appropriate for the purposes outlined in the previous paragraph. Our online CCTV system logs all access, and we manage record-keeping according to the CES policy to ensure we do not breach privacy provisions.
Kind regards,
Gary Conwell