Principal's Report 

Maintaining trust in uncertain times.

Thank you to everyone in our St. Joseph’s learning community for the excellent way in which we went into and then out of remote learning last week at very short notice. Whilst working with the Leadership Team on that Friday afternoon to get communication out to everyone, it was extremely noticeable how much we were depending on the preparations that had served us so well in 2020.

Experience teaches us a lot. 

In a staff briefing last week I reflected on the time when a group of Principals visited a colleague in Christchurch a year after the 2011 earthquake had damaged her school irreparably and they were sharing the site of another school. That Principal had decided that the way to live with the uncertainty of when or if another earthquake might occur, she would never be without a fully charged torch, a fully charged phone, a hardcopy printout of everyone’s contact details and 1L of water.

During WWII Londoners became very well prepared for making their way quickly and with the necessary items to air raid shelters, again at very short notice. We could easily find other examples from around the world today too.

Forewarned is forearmed as they say. We will continue to live through the uncertain COVID times as though each tomorrow will be an on-site learning day. However, we will also plan as though we could end up in remote learning with as little notice as last time.

It is the trust we place in that planning that will help us to cope with the uncertainty of when/if we might have to return to remote learning.

Similarly, we place our trust in the planning done by the Kildare Education Ministries Board following my decision to resign at the end of the year to give a higher priority to what I must do to live well with Parkinson’s disease. I would have loved nothing better than to still be Principal when we welcomed the first students onto our new campus. However, that is not to be.

Making that decision was made easier by two things. One, my full and complete trust in the thoroughness of the processes that the Kildare Education Ministries Board will put in place to enable it to discern who the next Principal of St. Joseph’s College will be. We have been working quite some time to make sure that the transition is as robust and successful as possible. Secondly, I have every confidence and trust that the Project Control Group responsible for overseeing the successful development of the new campus has the expertise and wisdom to achieve the best outcome for our students.

When we have confidence in the planning and the people responsible for that planning, we find it much easier to trust, especially in uncertain times.

That is my St. Joseph’s experience. That is my KEM experience. That is my Project Control experience. I can assure you that it is the intention of the KEM Board, the PCG and myself, the Leadership team, and staff at St. Joseph’s. That each and every member of our learning community has that same confidence and trust in these uncertain times.

God bless.

Michael Delaney

Principal.