Dear parents, friends, staff and students,

In this week’s Gospel (Mark 4:26-34), Jesus uses two analogies of seeds growing to bear fruit. In the first, He reflects on the way grain grows to maturity without the farmer having any scientific knowledge or understanding of why that happens. In the second analogy, He speaks of the tiny mustard seed which grows into a mighty bush. In both of these cases, something wonderful happens naturally and occurs from the smallest of beginnings. Over the last few weeks we have heard how, with the strength of the Holy Spirit, the Apostles saw Jesus and His message constantly around them. This Spirit gave them hope and enabled them to be understood even by those who spoke different languages. When we live our faith and beliefs, it is a visible way that we share the Holy Spirit with our friends, colleagues and acquaintances. These small snippets of faith can spread in others and allow a mighty mustard bush to grow from the tiniest of seeds.

Today we celebrated Champagnat Day. This day is important to our community as it remembers the founder of the Little Brothers of Mary (Marist Brothers). St Marcellin built his charism on the five characteristics of: Presence, In the Way of Mary, Simplicity, Love of Work and Family Spirit. We often refer back to these characteristics in determining what we do and how we do it. St Marcellin had a number of simple ideas that built on these characteristics. Arguably, two of the best known were his ideas that he wanted “Jesus to be known and loved” and that to teach students, “we must first love them and love them all equally”. In these two statements we again recognise the Christian idea that God is in all of us and to genuinely love another is to see God. 

Next week will see the release of the Year 7 – 10 Academic Reports. As I stated in last week’s newsletter, these will be followed by an opportunity for Parent/Teacher/Student meetings in the last week of term. Both the reports and the PTS meetings are an opportunity for students to reflect on the first six months of this year and how they have contributed to their own academic growth. It is also an opportunity for parents to have open and clear discussion with your children regarding how they are progressing. I encourage all parents to make bookings with staff where possible to discuss your child’s progress with the aim of supporting further growth. I thank the staff for their efforts in educating the students and for the effort in providing valuable feedback via the reports and the PTS meetings. 

Over the last year, our Senior School Technology Officer has been developing strategies to ensure improvements in IT systems and processes. An enormous amount of work has been completed in ensuring better hardware has been built into classes, better internet connections and new wiring and Wi-Fi capability. Over the next few months, there will be improvements to our surveillance systems with the introduction of more and better quality CCTV to assist in monitoring safety and out of hours security. The next phase of improvements will include an upgrade of our PA system and the launch of our new website. I thank Mr Grana for his time, effort and expertise in ensuring we have the best equipment available for our students and staff.

In an effort to streamline one of our IT processes, next week you will receive an email asking you to agree to certain conditions should your child need to borrow a computer from the College. When students fail to charge their devices or these need repair, our technology assistants will sometimes offer a loan device. As you would be aware, these are expensive devices and we need to ensure students take responsibility for their care and appropriate use. If you do not want your child to have access to these loan devices, there will be a spot for you to indicate this. If you do wish your child to have this access, we ask for your agreement to the appropriate conditions. This will be outlined in the email next week. 

At last Tuesday’s P&F meeting the P&F approved a grant to the College for some new fitness equipment. The P&F have agreed to purchase two new rowers and two spin bikes for the students to use in classes and fitness training. I thank the P&F for this contribution. At the meeting, the P&F also voted to change the frequency of meetings to occur once per term in the middle of the term. This means that the next meeting will be in week 5 of term 3, Tuesday August 10. The following meeting is scheduled for November 9 (week 6 Term 4). As always, these meetings will be held at the College in room I3 and commence at 7pm. Notice will be placed into the newsletter prior to these dates.

I wish you all a safe long weekend.

Ite in Veritate

Mr Steve Lo Cascio
Principal