Principal's Report
Welcome back
It was great to see and hear the College come back to life last week as staff and students returned from the break. From the level of enthusiastic conversation around the College one could only deduce that most people have had some opportunity to rest up and recharge themselves for the second semester despite the ongoing uncertainty around COVID 19 responses, border crossing permit changes, etc.
This week is Sabbatical Week.
Sabbatical Week is the most important week of the year for Staff members. It gives us an opportunity to stop and reflect on what it means to call our school a Catholic school and our role as staff members within that school.
Over the course of the week, we get to participate in a range of workshops designed to assist with our formation as educators responsible for opening the minds of the students to the Gospel message.
Semester 1 Reports.
These were published this week and I encourage all families to take the opportunity to read their students’ reports and discuss the information they contain. These reports should be used to reflect on the conscientiousness that students bring to their studies and what steps can be taken this semester to bring about improvement. From the advice given by teachers, each student should be able to identify a number of practical steps that they can take to help them to achieve their learning goals. College staff will certainly be working hard to help students to achieve those goals.
Together we achieve much in our College and I am looking forward to a successful second half of 2020.
What can l do? Especially, in this COVID - 19 world.
We can often feel useless and overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems of the world; especially at times like now when so much of the world news contains COVID – 19 anxiety and uncertainty.
I recall once reading a story that went along the following lines. Repeating it here may help some of us.
Two people were walking along a beach that had thousands of dying jellyfish washed up onto it. As they walked one person began picking up jellyfish and throwing them back into the sea. The other person asked, “Why are you bothering to throw any jellyfish back into the sea. You can’t possibly save them all.”
“I know.” replied the first person.
“Then why not leave them all if you cannot make a difference?”
“You tell that to this one” said the first person picking up another jellyfish and returning it to the sea.
My apologies to the original author (whom I cannot recall) for any liberties taken with this story. The point is clear though; we need to do what we can for as many people as possible in our day to day lives. At best we may only be able to be daily witnesses within our own communities of Jesus’ call to “Love one another as I have loved you”. Whilst making sure that we make that small difference in our immediate worlds, we keep praying that our collective witness may one day have a much wider effect.
Holy Lord, you are our comfort and strength in times of sudden disaster, crisis, or chaos. Surround us now with your grace and peace through these times of pandemic and uncertainty.
By your Spirit, lift up those who have fallen, sustain those who work to rescue or rebuild, and fill us with the hope of your new creation; through Jesus Christ, Your Son.
God bless
Michael Delaney
Principal.