From the Principal

Presentation night

Congratulations to all staff and students involved in this week’s Presentation Night. It was a wonderful celebration of another great year at the College.

The highlight of the evening is always the recognition of our students and acknowledgement of their achievements. I also the used the event as an opportunity to highlight several themes.

The Challenges for the Church

‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…’

Charles Dickens’ famous quote from A Tale of Two Cities is very apt in our current times. For our College, it has been another great year. Our students have participated cheerfully in the offerings of school life, our staff remain wonderfully committed and our parents superbly supportive.

For the wider Church it has been a challenging year. A new generation of Catholics is questioning the Church hierarchy and its responses to a changing world and issues such as sexual and power abuse.

With a Plenary Council to be conducted in Australia in 2020, the words of Pope Francis are particularly heartening:

‘Heal the wounds, heal the wounds... And you have to start from the ground up.’

High Impact Learning Strategies and Master Planning

The pursuit of educational excellence is at the heart of all that we do at John XXIII College. To ensure that we continue to provide the best possible research-based teaching and learning experiences, Mrs Jessica Bouwman, Deputy Principal – Teaching and Learning, is leading our staff in the creation of a coherent and comprehensive ‘Vision for Learning’. We are aiming to create a contemporary and engaging pedagogical foundation that draws on modern educational research while recognising and valuing the core aspects of our history. Dr Tim McDonald (the former Executive Director of Catholic Education Western Australia) has been engaged to support this process.

Next year will see much of that planning come to fruition. It will also be supported with some exciting plans to develop some aspects of our Campus to support the vision for learning. These physical changes will include:

• Protecting the line of sight to the Chapel in any future developments.
• Re-imagining the traditional library as a creative and engaging learning space.
• Creating flexible learning spaces that engage students.
• Re-locating our maintenance facility to free up valuable College land for the Primary School.
• Developing a new administration building and staff areas to help attract and retain quality teaching staff.

There are exciting times ahead.

Robert Henderson

Principal

Christmas & New Year Closure dates

The College will be closing over the festive season from 10:00am Thursday, 19 December 2019 and reopening on Monday, 13 January 2020.