Go well Mr O'Farrell

Tim O'Farrell departed the College after 10 years as Principal at the end of the 2019 year. This was his final report to the College community:

Dear Parents, Students and Friends of Trinity College Colac,

Welcome to the College Magazine which is my final report as Principal of Trinity College Colac.  In my first College  newsletter in 2010 I shared the following words:

‘I feel very privileged to lead the school community and I look forward to meeting you over the coming weeks and months.’

Earlier this year I shared a ‘profile of a well-educated person in the 21st Century’ with our students at our whole College Assembly, which was sourced from ‘Show What you Know: A Landscape Analysis of Competency Based Education’ by Ton Vander Ark, Mary Ryerse et. al. This profile presented a learner who is a critical reader with the skills to analyse and assess and able to express oneself through written and verbal communication. This learner is numerate and can collect and sift through data.  This learner will know and understand the world, its cultures, history, nature and sciences. The well-educated person will want to learn and understand the obligations and responsibilities that each person has to and for one another. This learner will be curious about life, will have the skills to solve problems, will work with others and will view learning as a life long pursuit.

The well-educated person will create learning paths, careers and lives and in doing so will do good things and become a better person.  I also include that this learner will be formed spiritually and will have a knowledge and understanding of not only some aspects of the Catholic faith but also some of the other major religious traditions. They will live out our motto: Virtus Nobilitat!

Project Based Learning (PBL) was introduced to our curriculum via our Year 9 programme.  PBL began with a conference day for our Yr 9 students at the beginning of the year and has continued alongside core curricula offerings throughout the year.  PBL has a focus to develop learners similar to those described above and the design of the programme has followed our 21st Century Learning Design (21CLD) learning and teaching framework.  This framework focuses on the development of six key pillars to develop a learner. They are:

• Collaboration

• Skilled communication

• Knowledge construction

• Self-regulation

• Real world problem solving and innovation

• Use of ICT for learning.

21CLD is being applied across all areas of our curriculum and is embedded in the Yr 9 PBL programme. The programme is innovative and our students are developing their skills in each of the 21CLD pillars.

Another change which was introduced at the start of 2019 was a new timetable structure for the school day.   Each day now consists of five, one hour lessons and our students have a long break early in the day (shortly after 11 am) and a short break (around 2.00pm).  The change in timetable structure has enabled an increase in the learning and teaching time for each subject in the senior end of the College and enabled our staff to meet with their students more often over the ten day cycle.  

The introduction of PBL and the new timetable structure have occurred in 2019 following research and design in 2018.  I thank the team of staff who have worked over 2018 and 2019 to enable the introduction of both innovations.

At the end of Term 2 I began six months of leave prior to concluding my tenure as Principal of our wonderful College.  It certainly has been a great privilege to have led the school community and I have enjoyed meeting with our amazing students, their families and working alongside a team of dedicated staff members over the past nine and a half years.

In that time we have grown as a College in many ways, however we have also remained true to our College motto, Virtus Nobilitat. Our motto can be translated to mean that ‘doing good things makes us better people’.  As my time at Trinity draws to a close I will continue to pray for our students in the hope that as they journey through life with a Trinity education and the support of their families that they will ‘do good things and as a result be better people’.  May they live in word and action, our motto, Virtus Nobilitat.  

Mrs Cheryl Pefanis was Acting Principal in Term 3, prior to Mr Paul Clohesy starting his tenure as Principal and I thank you for your support of them in the principal role.

I take this opportunity to thank the members of the Leadership Team who I have worked with in my time at Trinity College, most recently this team has been comprised of Mrs Pefanis, Mrs Ryan, Mrs Eastman, Ms Hughes, Mr Testa and Mr O’Dowd.  I also thank Mrs Jenny Weller for the wonderful work she undertakes as PA to the Principal.  In addition, I thank our College Governor, Fr Michael O’Toole and our College Board currently led by Mr Peter Lemke for their support, encouragement and for sharing the vision of our College as we journey into the future.  

The College Board ratified a new and more simple College Vision for the next phase of our growth and development at the Board Meeting in May.  That vision: Inspired by Jesus, We make a difference.  I look forward to this vision being actioned in the Trinity College community in the years to come.

I thank the students, their families, the staff and the Old Collegians of our College that I have had the pleasure of working with over the past nine and a half years. I thank my wife, Lou and children, Eliza, Tom and Joe for their support.  I will always treasure my time leading this wonderful educational community and look forward to remaining part of the school community as a parent.

With thanks for your support over the years.

Virtus Nobilitat

Tim O’Farrell