Principal Message

Last Saturday evening saw the final performance of the truly wonderful Back to the 80’s musical brought to us by close to 200 students on stage and off, produced by a very generous team of staff led by Mr Michael Mack, Ms Ali Sutton, Ms Mel Hale, Mr Robert Thompson and Ms Clem Patterson and seen by close to 3000 people, young and old,  across the past few weeks. 

The production was impeccable, professionally produced and great fun for the audience, adult or child. The greatest of school productions always feels and sounds flawless and one leaves with the clear sense that it wasn’t a school production at all but ranks alongside the work of professionals. Back to the 80’s certainly met that benchmark and beyond. Well done!

I made the point to the cast that whilst we will move on and it will be one of many memories of the rich tapestry of college life for us; for the cast,  they have experienced something they will remember all of their lives and will be re-lived every time they come together. Such has been the enormous gift given by the generosity of the college staff and I thank them deeply for this.

I would like to thank all parents for engaging with Parent Teacher and Student meetings with your daughter or son’s teachers over the past few weeks. Your engagement with teachers is highly valued. If you weren't able to be part of meetings I would invite you to please make contact with teachers to ensure you have up to date feedback on your children’s progress and any support you may be able to provide.

This week we have AFL and Netball finals for both boys and girls. I spoke with the students this morning about how they should approach such contests with class and grace and also reminded our students about their conduct at such events.

Can I please ask parents that if you are sending your children to such finals that you accompany them and take responsibility for their conduct. There have been incidents between spectators of different teams which are of concern but further was the almost total absence of parents at such games. 

I look forward to and thank you for your help this week both at the game and at any after party that may ensue. Let's keep our children safe. 

This term we are progressing a key plank of our strategic plan which is to review our policies and procedures around Wellbeing for Learning. The research upon which our current structures are based is between 20 and 30 years old and we are conscious that research has moved forward significantly particularly around Positive Behaviour For Learning. 

Whilst it is valid and important to have calm classrooms and minimise disruptions to learning, we also need to take into account more of students from all backgrounds who are coming to school each day not ready to learn and provide support through intervention but also through teacher pedagogy. This is more important than ever when one considers the challenges to student mental health wrought by Covid 19 lockdowns.

As a Catholic school that values inclusion of all students and principles such as equity, differentiation and ensuring high expectations for all students we need to support our staff to be able to work more effectively with all students. We will be reaching out to parents to respond to a survey in the next few weeks to assist us in our work. This will accompany the professional learning that is already underway this year in trauma informed practice.

More immediately it will be a short survey on behalf of our College Council to seek your suggestions about what type of parent forums would assist you as parents, led by college staff or key speakers. So far this year we had Safe on Social leader Kira Pendergast work with parents and students across the college.

What would interest you that would help you?

This term we resumed our Master Planning meetings with CEDWW and our architect team from Glendenning Szboszlay Architects. The plans for our redevelopment of Kildare are progressing well towards our submission to the Catholic Block Grant Authority in October this year. If successful, which all indications are we will be (one can never be certain) we will go to tender in 2024 and building will commence before 2025 commences. 

We will communicate all plans to our community including the staging of works and expected impacts. It is an exciting project which will see Kildare transformed. I am conscious this brings things towards closure which have been under discussion for a decade and plans have been updated with modern possibilities in mind.