Principal Message

Dear Parents and Carers,

Term 4 has continued to be filled with joy and purpose at Kildare Catholic College. There is a positive energy around the place and a sense of community and purpose is building.

The last few weeks have also been instrumental for our Leadership team in planning for our whole school improvement. The team took time to reflect on the achievements of 2025 and plan our improvement agenda for 2026. Our team agreed on our moral purpose to lead a Christ-centred learning community with a whole school mantra of “Raise the Bar (Excellence), Close the Gap (Equity)”. This powerful phrase will anchor our work in the future and will be a useful check for us about whether the initiative we may be considering is worthwhile in achieving our aims. Please see a summary of our Annual Improvement Plan Goals for 2026 in the slides below.

We have celebrated a number of events at Kildare over the last few weeks including NAIDOC Day, Boarders Mass, and our Presentation Day Mass, including the Blessing of our 2026 SRC Leaders.

NAIDOC Day

Our NAIDOC Celebrations this year were held on Wednesday, 12 November 2025. We commenced the day with a liturgy in Homegroup, where this year’s NAIDOC theme was honoured and acknowledged; ‘The Next Generation: Strength, Vision and Legacy’. 

We were grateful that a number of local Elders and members of the community were able to join us for our celebrations. Amongst our guests were Aunty Mary Atkinson from CEDWW and Aunty Eve Jolley.  We also welcomed Tahnee and Kain from Headspace, Jaylen and all his recruits from the RAAF for Indigenous games, and Alesha and Jacob from Holy Trinity for dance.

Year 7 and 8 students had the opportunity to engage in a number of cultural experiences including throwing, dancing, and weaving.  We would like to thank our Aboriginal School and Community Workers (Trina Stewart who coordinated the day, Jody Siegwalt, Jason Jolley and Indy Rooke) for their work in making NAIDOC 2025 a great success.

Naidoc Day (Year 7 Group).

Naidoc Day (Year 8 Group).

Boarders Mass

We were blessed to have Bishop Mark Edwards join us last week to celebrate the final Boarders Mass for the year. It was a beautiful Mass, followed by dinner in the Boarding House. The Mass also provided an opportunity to formally acknowledge and bless our Boarding Leaders. Congratulations to Scarlett Jenkins and Jett Nguyen on their roles as Boarding Captains for 2026.

The Student Representative Council, Year 12 2026!

In Week 4, our Senior Student Representative Council leaders took part in two days of leadership training. The training days involved learning about and practising leadership skills, such as active listening, teamwork and public speaking. Student leaders were also guided to identify how they would like to improve the College and what their leadership focus and legacy will be. There were an abundance of great and innovative ideas. However, one common theme emerging from the two days was to improve the sense of belonging for all students at Kildare.

Our program included a visit to the Mt Erin Heritage Centre where students learned about their place in a much longer story and tradition built on the legacy of the Presentation Sisters. On the second day, we visited Erin Earth where Sister Carmel and her two canine companions, Gus and Luna, shared the origin story of Erin Earth. Through this story, students deepened their understanding of the importance of living in right relationship with creation as a way to live our faith.

Each leader reflected on their experience over the two days and nominated for captains and their positions of preference. This has led to the announcement of the following roles. 

Congratulations to all of the elected SRC students. You are a wonderful group of young people! We are all looking forward to seeing you lead your fellow students and bring about change for good.

We announced our SRC Senior leaders to the student body on Monday 24 November at our End of Year College Mass. We were fortunate to have Father Neil Hernandez and Deacon Saxon Onions with us to celebrate the Mass. The themes of our Mass beautifully wove together two important events: the Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which we know as Presentation Day, celebrated last Friday 21 November, along with the Badge Blessing and Commissioning of our new Year 12, 2026 Student Leaders.  

We were thankful to be able to share the occasion with the parents and families of our newly appointed leaders.

Staffing News

On Monday 24 November, Millie Bright, our Interim Assistant Principal, was seconded to Mater Dei Primary School as Principal. We would like to thank Millie for her contribution to our College over the past 5 months. In a short time, Millie made a big impact. She is an accomplished leader, and we wish her all the best with her new role. 

As a result, Mr Tom Pulver, who was to become our Assistant Principal in 2026, has stepped into the role earlier than expected. Please join me in congratulating Tom and his family. Tom has shown a long commitment to senior leadership at Kildare and to the Kildare community. We are grateful for the wealth of expertise, skill and dedication he will bring to this role. 

I would also like to take this opportunity to announce that our new Leader of Administration and Innovation is now Mr Ross Kennedy. Ross has come to us this year as a Creative Arts Teacher. Ross has had many years experience in a variety of middle and senior leadership positions. Ross brings creativity and strategic thinking, as well as fresh eyes to our senior leadership team. We are excited about his appointment.

We have been interviewing for a variety of teaching and leadership positions over the term. It has been pleasing to have such a large number of suitable applicants apply, and we are excited to have several new staff joining our College in 2026. We will be in the position to share more with you in the new year.

Upcoming events

There are a number of events coming up over these final weeks of the 2025 schooling year. This includes Terero (Teresa and Romero) Community Day this Friday to raise money for the Vinnies Christmas appeal  and our Orientation Days  for both Years 8 to 12 on Fri 28 Nov and Year 7 2026 on Fri 5 Dec. 

Our Christmas Liturgy and End of Year Award Ceremony, will be held at 12.30 pm on Friday 12 December, which is the final day for students. Parents of reward recipients will be contacted with more details and all parents are welcome to join us for this event.