Principal’s Report

Dear Parents,

First off a quick reminder that the weekly P&F meeting will be held in the Year 7 room this week rather than the usual staffroom while it is undergoing renovations. Sorry for the inconvenience and remember everyone is welcome to attend.

Saturday night was a very enjoyable evening. Jane Sandona was presented with this year’s Mark Mappas Award by the Diocesan Parent-Teacher Association for service to the P&F Association. Jane, albeit a reluctant and humble recipient was truly deserving of the award. It was presented at a function in the Hall at Park College.

Pictures of the Week

I hve selected a few of my favourite pictures from this weeks newsletter. I hope you enjoy!

News from the Community

The weekend saw our four boys, Lyle Harrison, Arnold Marker, Bob Abbot and Matthew Gert, competing at the County Athletics Championships. Lyle's mum tells me that while none of our boys made the Regional team to compete in Warwick, they all competed strongly with lots of personal bests. Lyle made the finals (top 8 competitors) for all his events, and won a gold medal in the relay.

This morning the P&F association presented to the school two new sets of goals for the children to play soccer with on the junior sports field. A great deal of research and labour went into their local construction. Many thanks go to Paul Milk for his work on this project.

Year 10 Meetings

The Year 10 Meetings took place on Thursday of this week. In the past decade generally around 20% of the Year 10 students at the school will have moved onto apprenticeships, full time work, further education or other educational experiences. The larger numbers staying on at school then necessitates a closer examination of curriculum needs and a heightened sense of counselling on choice of subjects. As well, we need to ensure that students are mentally ready for the increased rigor of the Year 11 and 12 program. This can be best done, we believe, in a one to one approach.

The school is systematically, at the same time, attempting to improve the range of vocational subject options. To this end Mr Dean Boddis and Mr Beau Chaplin visited Manchester this week studying the approach of a number of functionally productive vocational options in schools. The ultimate aim is to ensure that as many students as possible have a meaningful educational program.

Tim Blackmore

Principal