Pastoral Care & Wellbeing

Year 8 Live4Life

This week saw the final of three sessions delivering Teen Mental Health First Aid to our Year 8 students. We are proud to say more than 200 boys will be presented with their first aid certificates next week in an assembly attended by City of Ballarat Mayor Des Hudson. The City of Ballarat has driven this program in all secondary schools throughout the municipality. We are grateful for their support in upskilling a generation to support each other and know how to respond to mental health concerns. We are also proud to have Simon Dwyer join us on behalf of the Chris Yeung Fund, who have sponsored additional funds to ensure we are fully resourced in this space. We are grateful for the community to make this program possible. We are also grateful to our facilitators Jon Butters, Tom Nash, Andy Penny and Rebecca Robertson for giving up their time to deliver the course to our boys.

Year 10 Retreat

On Wednesday June 13 our Year 10 boys participated in various activities through the day in line with our Gospel Spirituality touchstone. Students participated in sessions looking at the Big Issue, Habits of Mind, Edmund Rice camps, Cor Ad Cor, and watched an educational performance on the topic of bullying and cyber bullying. Thank you to Rachael Leighton and Matthew Taylor for your work organising this and to the mission team for their efforts.

Men’s Health Week

Student Congress (Years 8 – 11 student leaders) have been working hard to promote Men’s Health Week this week. Working in groups they have put together videos on the different dimensions of health. With a theme for each day of the week they have interviewed students and put together information to education our boys on areas of mental, physical, social and emotion health. This has been done by having our VIVI display the video across the school each morning during homeroom time. Thank you to our student leaders for your effort and making this possible. You can check out the videos on our social media platforms.

Year 9 Social

On Thursday 6 June, Loreto College and St Patrick's College came together for the Year 9 Social at the St Patrick's Cathedral Hall. It was a wonderful night of dance, socialising, well dressed young people and fun. Thank you to our Year 9 team, Liam Davie, Sarah Lamanna, and Karina Dunne for your efforts and all the Year 9 homeroom teachers and staff who gave up their time to make this possible. Of course, a huge thank you to Eric Langdon and Graham Thurgood for organising and teaching 300 students to dance at the same time. This is an enormous effort which we are all grateful for. 

School TV: Nicotine Pouches

As parents there is enough to worry about simply ensuring your children are healthy and happy, never mind the challenges and pressures they face going through adolescents from external sources. It has been clear for many years that cigarettes are harmful to those who use them. Recent innovations have seen cigarette companies navigate restrictions and laws in this space to get a generation addicted to vapes. It seems these companies continue to navigate different methods to get tobacco products into the market and find users. To keep you informed as parents in this space, here is some information around a trend that seems to be gaining momentum amongst youth to be aware of.

Snus and nicotine pouches are gaining popularity among youth as smokeless tobacco (SLT) products. These products are marketed as safer alternatives to traditional smoking and vaping, yet they still pose significant health risks. Both are discreetly placed under the upper lip, allowing nicotine absorption through the gums. Like vapes, they come in a variety of flavours and strengths, with unregulated nicotine levels leading to inconsistent and misleading labelling.

If you want to find out more around the harms and worries of this product, please click on the link to our special report from the SPC School TV channel.