Deputy Principal

Shining the St Patrick’s Way

At College Assembly last week I took the opportunity to talk to our young men about the importance of always striving to do their best. Dr Lavorato was at Waverley College for the launch of the new EREA Charter. Principals from all 55 EREA Schools met with the common thread being that we are all members of EREA. 

Each one of the 55 schools has their own identity. At St Patrick’s College, Strathfield, we are a ‘beacon for boys’ education.’ We ask our young men to ‘let their light shine’ and if you look at the image of our ‘ideal graduate,’ it is an image of a young man walking away from the College towards light. All of these ideas centre around light and that it is what guides our own identity.

Over the last five months, a small working group has been meeting regularly to renew the College’s Behaviour Management Policy. We have received extensive feedback from staff and students. The key theme coming from both groups is that there are a minority of students disrupting our classes and the management of these situations has been inconsistent. 

In 2025, we have developed a new framework called, ‘Shining the St Patrick’s Way’. I talked about this with staff and students at their assemblies on Friday. We will be launching this with all staff before the students return next year. It will then roll out to students in the first week back next year, before we launch it with parents and carers at their information evenings next year. 

We will be making our expectations clear for our young men on how we expect them to act both inside and outside of the College. We will have explicit outcomes for staff to manage student disruptions and we expect parents/carers to support these measures as we aim to improve the outcomes of every student at the College.

As we move into the last week of the school year, I take this opportunity to wish you a safe and happy Christmas break. May God shine his light upon all of us until we meet again.

Adrian Byrne

Deputy Principal