PRINCIPAL UPDATE
P & F Meeting
A big thank-you to the parents that made their way to the P & F Meeting on Tuesday night. This is always a nice opportunity to share what is happening at the College and listen to parent ideas and thoughts. Key items discussed included a girls pant option for the uniform, the current and planned improvements at the school, and how the P&F might use funds in the future to support school improvements.
A survey will be published shortly to seek feedback on adding a girls pant option, and we will also seek expressions of interest for a committee to review options and styles for the girls pants.
Champagnat Day Liturgy
On Thursday 10th June, the John Therry College Community celebrated Champagnat Day. The Feast Day of St Marcellin Champagnat actually falls on Sunday 6th June and recognises the contribution that Marcellin made to the Catholic Church, in educating and supporting some of the poorest students in rural France during the revolution. He wanted to ensure that all young people had the opportunity to learn, and know about the love that Jesus had for each of them. From small beginnings, Marcellin founded the Marist Brothers that now have schools all around the world. John Therry identifies as a Marist school and looks to live out the Marist Charism in our day to day work.
On this day we acknowledged staff and students that live out the Marist values and we will include some photos in our next newsletter of the award winners.
Staff Development Day
On Friday 11th June, John Therry staff participated in a faith and wellbeing professional learning day. The day focused on the Emmaus Paradigm, with a theme of 'walking together'. In Luke's Gospel 24:13-35, the Road to Emmaus is the story of two disciples who were lost and disillusioned after the death of Jesus, travelling together to Emmaus. Jesus walks with them and though they don't recognise him, he listens and has them reflect on their worries and doubts. On realising it was Jesus with them, they returned quickly to Jerusalem with new hope to the other disciples. It is with this same spirit of hope that we as teachers at John Therry aim to walk with each other, and our students to help each student discover their unique gifts and talents.
Recent "Tell them from me" survey data indicates that students do not have a strong sense of self belief and are anxious about their future. We know that the students at John Therry are just as capable as students anywhere and it is our challenge to get them to believe this and work hard to achieve their potential. Our professional learning day aimed to look at ways we can address this through our Pastoral programs and we have generated some good ideas for discussion and implementation.