Faith, Justice and Formation

2022 Conclusion to Shining Our Light (SOL) Service 

SOL Service for Years 5 – 10, 2022 concludes on Friday 4 November. Any service after this time can count for 2023. I take this opportunity to remind students and their parents/carers of the following:

• Only activities on the core documents will be accepted along with any other approved by me through the SOLservice@spc.nsw.edu.au email. All documents can be found on the Parent Lounge on TASS plus on the Year Group pages on Canvas.
   
• All service must be recorded in the College Diary (pg 23) and shown to homeroom teachers or Junior School class teachers who will record it on a common staff document and who have been doing this throughout the year.
   
• ALL students are to hand up their page from the College Diary with their name and homeroom on it to their homeroom teacher or class teacher by the due date.
   
• Anything not submitted to the relevant teacher by Monday 7 November will NOT be accepted. Lateness will mean failure to complete.
   
• All diary pages must contain a reflection and signature from the student, plus a parent/carer comment and signature. If these are not completed it will mean the service is incomplete. There will be no debate about this. Not done, not complete. There needs to be consistency and deadlines need to be met so that all other related tasks can be completed on time.
   
• As a community whose values include service, kindness, equality, inclusion and integrity we expect that all entered service is in accordance with the program and that people have been honest. Questionable service will be deleted.
   
• All Semester 2 Reports will include whether SOL Service is complete or incomplete, and if a student receives an Extra Service Award this will be acknowledged. All student’s' records will also reflect the status of the service each year to build a picture of commitment to the College’s Identity and Mission.

If there are any fair and reasonable questions that cannot be answered by looking at the SOL Service Documents please write to the email address above, but please note I will be unable to answer them until at least 23 October as I will be on Retreat.

Thank you to the families and young men who really shine their light in this world for the common good. It does not go unnoticed.

Friday Masses for Term 4

Everybody is welcome to join us for Mass at 8:10 AM in the Chapel each Friday. Please come along to any or all of the Masses, but if you can only make one you may wish to choose the one most connected to your son/s. It would be great to see our numbers build again so come as a family or boys, come on your own. It’s a beautiful moment of peace in a busy week.

Masses this term will be led by:

Parents SOL

Parents SOL is our Parent Social Justice group that has been running since the beginning of this year. The group presented at the Parents’ and Friends’ Parent Forum last term outlining what they do and some of the initiatives they have engaged in thus far. You can read more about this on the College website, under Identity/Justice.

Our Term 4 meeting will take place on Tuesday 25 October at 6:30 PM in the Bangawarra Room on the Coghlan Building balcony (your sons can help explain this!). ALL are welcome to attend.

Visit from our Alice Springs Friends 

As per previous years, a group of the First Nations fellas from St Joseph’s Flexible Learning Centre, Alice Springs will be coming to visit us for a week, from 5 to 12 November. A group of our Year 11 students spent time with them on Immersion in June and now we return the hospitality.

They will stay at the school and spend some time in classes and around the playground, as well as seeing the sites around Sydney, including Taronga Zoo, the Harbour and the beach. We look forward to sharing our community with them and learning from them in the process.

I now reach out to you, our parent body, with a few requests to help with the experience. If anybody has any contacts with the Zoo or a place that does surfing lessons or a sporting team that may be playing that week and can help us with some free/cheaper tickets/costs, we would love your help. If you can help, please email me at gillian.daley@spc.nsw.edu.au. 

Recognition of Service 

The greatest service we can give is when we expect nothing in return. It is when we know something is important and we simply do the right thing. I, for one, am truly grateful for these people in the world. While recognition was not on the cards, we acknowledge these three young men from Year 11 who helped out Ms Rose Charles at her fundraiser last week, Sparkle for a Cause (for brain and breast cancer) – James Bellamy, Matthew Gainsford and Matthew Svoboda. They worked tirelessly for seven hours expecting nothing in return and bringing great success to an important evening. Kudos gents! 

Gillian Daley 

Director of Identity