Principal's Update

An Enjoyably Eventful Month

It has been pleasing to note the enthusiastic participation of students in a range of college activities in recent weeks. The House Cross-Country events in conjunction with the regular training sessions are a lead-in to the much anticipated ACC Cross-Country, where we will be challenged to continue our recent domination.  

All participants in the Brother Quentin O'Halloran Public Speaking Evening are congratulated on their preparation and skilled presentations.

Our Winter Music Concert allowed groups, bands and individuals to showcase their talents and gave Year 7s, one of their first opportunities to perform before an audience.  Many of these students will soon perform in the ACCent on Music Concert. Another group of students have been able to join the Lifeblood team with a blood donation to the Red Cross.

Students are taking the opportunity to participate in our St Bede's Tough Guy Book Club to improve their literacy and comprehension skills as well as develop the enjoyment of reading. Our gratitude to all the students, significant males in their lives and our own teachers who attended the launch this week. 

Our College also participated in the inaugural ACC Spelling Bee and ACC Pitch competitions, which was a great opportunity for our students in Years 7, 9 and 10 to try their talents among other like-minds with audiences present. 

We look forward to welcoming our students and their dads, father figures, grand fathers or significant men in their lives to our Father's and Carer's Day Morning Events. Tickets do close tomorrow and are available here for Bentleigh East and here for Mentone. 

2025 NAPLAN and St Bede's College

NAPLAN is a national assessment that allows parents, schools and policymakers to see whether young Australians are developing critical literacy and numeracy skills for learning, using a national, objective scale.  More than 1.3 million students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 undertook the 2025 tests which assessed young people on their reading, writing and language skills, with participation rates the highest in recent years.

Used for its originally intended purpose, the NAPLAN tests are very well-designed diagnostic tests that support schools in understanding where their students have performed well and areas for improvement, as well shaping teaching and learning programs.  NAPLAN was designed as a helpful check-in, not a high-stakes judgement of students, schools or teachers. A single test administered once every two years cannot replace the ongoing assessments conducted through the year or the numerous interactions that teachers have with their students. 

“NAPLAN is a limited snapshot: one additional data point in a much richer, more nuanced mosaic of student progress.” Professor Jim Tognolini, Sydney School of Education and Social Work

Unfortunately, NAPLAN has been used as a proxy measure of overall school or teacher quality, and in some cases, even used to influence student selection into programs—all beyond the intended scope of the tests. This has heightened student and parental stress, narrowed the curriculum wherever a school tries to teach for the tests and makes high stakes testing more important than the process of learning.

After years of NAPLAN testing, we see every year the continuation of the same broad information; that there is a need to support students from regional and remote areas, those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and Indigenous students. Girls outperform boys in literacy testing and boys outperform girls in numeracy testing. Until these areas are addressed, persistent achievement gaps will remain, and the Australian statistics will not show any significant lift in academic achievement. After all, two out of every three Australian students do meet the “Strong” or “Exceeding” proficiency level for their reading, numeracy and writing skills, and just one in 10 students fall within the “Needs additional support” level across all year groups and all testing domains.

NAPLAN assesses the literacy and numeracy skills that students are learning through the school curriculum and allows parents/carers to see how their son is progressing against national and state standards.

Performance

The score in each test must be viewed in isolation and not compared to the score in one of the other tests, ie, a score of 550 in Reading does not equate to a score of 550 in Writing or any of the other tests. The performance of students in a test, however, can be compared to the average performance of all students in their year level in Australia or in Victoria.

Proficiency Standards

NAPLAN is not a pass or fail type of test. Individual student performance is measured using 4 proficiency levels for each assessment area and the expected performance for that year level. Against the expected performance level, a student will be shown as “Exceeding”, “Strong”, “Developing” and “Needs additional support.”

Year 7 Results

Our Year 7 cohort's performance is above State and National levels in all test domains and shows improvement from 2024 in all Domains except for Spelling. Numeracy remains substantially above State and National levels, and considerably above our 2024 performance. 

The proportion of students assessed at Strong/Exceeding is above State and National levels in all Domains. Around 20% of our students have skill deficiencies in all Domains and our performance in Grammar & Punctuation mirrors national trends.

Year 9 Results

Year 9 overall performance was pleasing relative to State and National norms, with Writing and Numeracy significantly better than our 2024 performance. As has received some recent press, boys’ lower performance in Spelling and Grammar & Punctuation is evident also at St Bede’s, though we are at State/National levels, and there has been some improvement in Grammar & Punctuation.  

The “proficiency level” table indicates that nearly 45% of our Year 9 students have deficiencies in Grammar & Punctuation skills. Attention to these skills is a part of our 2025 Annual Action Plan and should remain so for the next few years.

                                 *Equal to National Ave.                **Equal to State Ave.

             *Above National & State Ave.                **Equal to State Ave.

St Bede’s College Year 9 - Relative Growth for each Domain

We can track the growth in Literacy/Numeracy skill performance from Year 7 into Year 9 and the following table records the Number/% of Year 9 students making high, medium and low growth.  

The table shows our Year 9 students to be in line with the expected range of growth levels. Whilst we would wish a few more to demonstrate high growth, our analysis will focus on the students indicating low growth. Many students who demonstrated low growth are quite able students who have scored well, but have not demonstrated on these NAPLAN tests that they have made appropriate progress in essential skills since Year 7. 

Carlo Acutis (1991 - 2006)

On September 7 2025, Carlo Acutis will become the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint at a solemn canonisation Mass in St Peter’s Square, Vatican City. The Mass will be held in conjunction with the celebration of the Holy Year’s Jubilee for teens. The canonisation Mass was to be conducted by Pope Francis but has been delayed due to his death.  

Pilgrims have been flocking to the church in Assisi, Italy, where his body wearing sneakers, jeans and a T-shirt lies in a shrine.  To many pilgrims, the draw is Acutis’ relatability as a teen of this time.

Born in London in 1991 as the only child of a wealthy Italian family, Carlo and his family soon moved back to Italy, where he grew up as an ordinary child. He loved football, Pokémon, action films, and all animals (he had four dogs, two cats and many goldfish as pets). He also taught catechism in a local parish and did outreach to the homeless. From early childhood, his first love was Our Lord in the Eucharist. Neither of his parents were religious, yet from an early age Carlo never wanted to pass a church without going in to “say hello to Jesus.” 

He never missed daily Mass, even when - from the age of eleven - he travelled with his parents visiting, and documenting, Eucharistic miracles all over the world.  Considered a “computer genius” and possible future patron saint of the internet, by age fourteen Carlo had created a Eucharistic Miracle display that would tour the world, along with a website.  He believed that if people knew that Jesus was truly in the Eucharist, they would turn to God.

Carlo was popular at school, and also befriended children who were unhappy at home, defended the disabled, and treated girls with an old-fashioned purity that challenged everyone. He would defend his Catholic faith — including his pro-life views — fearlessly in class. Although he loved computer games, he allowed himself to play for only one hour a week and gave the rest of his time to good works helping children, the elderly, and the poor. 

Then, in early October 2006, Carlo became ill with flu — so it was thought, until his condition deteriorated, and he was diagnosed with leukaemia.  He died on October 12, 2006. Some of his last words were to a nurse who offered to wake his mother, since he was suffering. He refused: “She is very tired as well and she will only worry even more.”

He was beatified by Pope Francis on 10 October 2020.  After a second miracle attributed to the intercession of Acutis was confirmed in May 2024, Pope Francis granted approval in July 2024 to continue forward with the canonisation process. 

Another young man who died at young age in the early 20th century, Pier Giorgio Frassati, will be canonised the same day. 

May we all be inspired by the care, dedication and belief of Carlo Acutis.  

Per vias rectas

Deb Frizza 

Principal

We acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land, the Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation, whose ancient wisdom nurtured these lands and waters for millennia. 

We pay our respects to their elders, both past and present. 

May we always walk together by right paths.