Principal’s Report ____________________________Pages

Welcome to the 2020 edition of the Virtus. Since 1935 the Virtus has faithfully recorded the collective and individual achievements of students and staff at St Joseph’s College. The first edition was published just as Australia emerged from the depths of the great depression. Some five years later it reported the College’s achievements in a community fearing invasion and scarred by loss of lives in the Second World War. This Virtus records the 2020 achievements of this great College in the context of the first global pandemic since its establishment, the untimely deaths of students, restrictive state-wide lockdowns, remote learning and the onset of the most serious economic recession in Australia since the early 1930s. Many events reported on in past magazines have not taken place this year and hence many of the achievements, particularly in competitive spheres including sport, were not possible. I am proud to report however that during 2020 St Joseph’s students have continued to learn and achieve, sometimes with methods and outcomes that would never have been envisaged prior to this year. At the commencement of the year, we welcomed new staff including teachers: Neal Arthurson, Viktor Ceburgs, Jane Emerick, Peter Griffin, Chris Lahey, Thanh Le-Rodda, Marnie Lunnon Johnson, Vanessa McCarthy, Julia Mitchell, Peter Osbourne, Ellie Purser, Natasha Scanlon, Aroon Tremul, Sean Trevaskis and Aaron Westgarth and support staff Heidi Andrews, Lauren Bermistrow, Jessica Chandley, Maddy Cole, Ashleigh Grant, Hayley Haynes, Sarah Klein, Lucy Liu, Lydia Watson, Nerida Zula, Jane Malone, Ryan Birthisel and Charlie Walter. Early in the year we also farewelled College Business Manager Terry Fowler and welcomed Andrew Dowd into this significant role. Midyear, Michelle Brodrick was appointed Principal of Loreto Ballarat. Both Terry and Michelle made a huge contribution to St Joseph’s and we are indebted to them. As school commenced we welcomed back a small group of staff and students from the Catholic Youth Festival in Perth. They returned and challenged us to ‘Listen to what the Spirit is saying” (Rev 2:7). This formed the basis of our Liturgy at the Mass celebrating the start of the school year. Unfortunately most other Liturgies throughout the year were also cancelled. Edmund Rice Day, when we celebrate our identity, and give practical expression to our commitment to the marginalised, was cancelled. The loss of the on site fundraising component reduced funds available to support our sister school in Kensekka Uganda, but many families generously contributed to provide tuition and meals for Kensekka students for some of the year. During Term 4 many staff chose to donate their social club contributions for the year and many families contributed to a Kensekka ‘Christmas Appeal’ to enable us to continue to support our brothers and sisters in Uganda into 2021. In February we launched our ‘St Joseph’s framework for Learning’ to assist our young men become ‘future ready’. Never was there a timelier document! Early in the year many parts of the state were devastated by bushfire. In addition to our community providing practical and financial support, our VCAL students were privileged to spend a week helping restore fencing on properties around Corryong in the North East of the state. In March this year on site learning ceased as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. We were challenged to find a way to teach and learn remotely. In an extraordinary testament to agile and creative thinking, experiential learning and hard work, we were teaching almost 15,000 classes a week online using dual platforms and a mixture of ‘real time’ and ‘any time’ learning after five days preparation. Quite an extraordinary achievement!

This enormous exercise in change management would normally have taken years. I would like to record my great admiration for the staff who bought about this change, the students who adapted quickly to it and the families who supported it. While challenged by the shut down of face to face learning St Joseph’s continued to be faithful to our commitment to those in need. During this time our support staff were on site preparing meals each day. These were donated to families in need within our school community and more broadly through local charities. The COVID restrictions saw the adoption of many changes, some of which are likely to remain in place. Online parent student, teacher interviews are likely to be part of our future along with creative utilization of online communication technologies to overcome student, or teacher absences. Some events however including Mothers Day and Father’s day Breakfasts are not as effective when held remotely and we look forward to being able to reinstate these in a face to face format.

During the year our community was devastated by the deaths by suicide of current students Tom Barnett and Abe Knox and immediate past student Louie Shearman. The devastation was real and lasting. There is no silver lining to the tragic death of a young person, however the St Joseph’s student body demonstrated a powerful capacity to empathise with and support each other. I have never felt more proud of young men than I felt while witnessing the open displays of emotion and support. Our College song exhorts us to strive for the highest ‘in a manly way’, never was ‘manliness’ more visible than in the grief and mutual support we witnessed during this time. These events and the challenges of lockdown sharpened our awareness of and support for mental health and saw a focus on providing skills and information to students, staff and families. We received much support from a range of agencies but particularly Headspace. Some of our normal annual events occurred this year. The inter-house Swimming Carnival saw victory to Butler with Brophy victorious in the Athletics after a lengthy ‘run of outs’. In a season where ACC sport was largely cancelled, our 1st XI cricket had an extraordinary season awarded with a shared Premiership after the final was cancelled. With an overwhelming lead in batting and bowling figures and five players in the ACC Team of the Year, a shared Premiership was deserved but somewhat bitter sweet. The different groups supporting the College continued to have a major positive impact. The College Foundation was active in its 25th anniversary year and conducted the ‘A Step Towards His Future’ campaign raising 100k to support our Bursary Program. Another success following the ‘Every Boy Every Dream’ campaign which helped make possible the Westcourt Gymnasium and the refurbished Performing Arts Centre, both opened this year. The Old Collegians Association also contributed to the Bursary program and to the installation of an electronic screen / scoreboard on Zampatti Oval. The Parents and Friends planned events were cancelled and we look forward to their resumption in 2021. The Josephines continued their commitment to Education support with their fundraising dinner in March. Child safety, Indigenous reconciliation and sustainability remained an important elements of the College. We moved further toward the reduction of plastic use with changes to the canteen and opened our polymer recycling centre which enables recycled material to be used to produce items that can be used in the College. The planting of endemic species around Carey Oval continued. Many of our students also participated in the School Strike for Climate locally and in Melbourne. Our commitment to reconciliation with our first nations people continued with the formal launch of the Possum Skin Cloak and the development and implementation of our Reconciliation Action Plan. A number of childsafe initiatives were implemented through the work of our child safety team. We moved away from a focus on compliance toward a culture of child safety. Students were part of this process and contributed to the development of a student friendly version of our childsafe policy and documentation. I am proud to report that there has never been a time where students are safer at St Joseph’s. In this extraordinary year no individual group of students were more challenged than our VCAL or and VCE students in their final year of schooling. With many ‘right of passage’ events cancelled, from Edmund Rice Day to Graduation, opportunities to celebrate their achievements at St Joseph’s were limited. A truncated and extended year in which final assessments were delayed with VCE results published on 30 January the following year, tested the resolve and perseverance of students. The results across the College were consistent with those of recent years and reflect well on the hard work of students and dedication of teaching staff.

While these results focus on VCE students, I would also like to acknowledge the successes of our senior VCAL students all of whom successfully completed their VCAL certificate and have begun full-time apprenticeships and further education, or full-time employment. Congratulations to Will Holdsworth who was awarded the VCAL High Achiever Award. At the higher end of our VCE results 9.5% of students achieved an ATAR greater than 90 and 25% achieved an ATAR greater than 80, 9.3% of students achieved study scores of 40+. These numbers were slightly down from the 2019 cohort and similar to those of the 2018 group. Congratulations to 2020 College Dux, Clancy Hehir who achieved an ATAR of 99.65, and to ‘podium finishers’ Patrick Day (99.55) and Luke Dowd (99.25) with Liam Bindokas fourth highest (99.05). Congratulations to the following students who achieved the perfect study score of 50: Clancy Hehir (English Literature), Liam Bindokas (Further Maths), Luke Dowd (Chemistry) and Campbell Burns (Business Management). Scores of 49 were also achieved by Patrick Day (History Revolutions), Luke Dowd (Physics) and Lochlann Dess (Year 10, Further Maths). I would like to congratulate every student who achieved their VCE regardless of their study scores and ATAR. A ‘2020’ VCE is a powerful statement of a young person’s ability to persevere through adversity and overcome challenge. While academic achievement is important and ATAR a stepping stone to a Tertiary goal, the capacity to overcome adversity is a critical skill for thriving in one’s career and life. It was a difficult year to be a student leader with few opportunities for students to gather but our student leadership group including College Captain Freddie Dripps and Deputies Matt Issell and Jolyon Simpson led effectively with authenticity strength and compassion. I would like to acknowledge and express my gratitude to those members of staff charged with providing leadership throughout 2020. The work of Deputy Principals Michelle Brodrick and Mark Kennedy has been exceptional. Michelle led the implementation of remote learning in first semester while Mark led the wellbeing focus as the community responded to tragedies, before adding the leadership of learning and identity to the wellbeing portfolio for the second semester. Andrew Dowd has been outstanding in his role as business manager having taken over from Terry Fowler whose skill and integrity in that role for 12 years has been the benchmark for business managers across the EREA network. Michelle Bishop has met the myriad of challenges related to remote learning with professionalism, John Mitchell has done an outstanding job in the organisation portfolio when the rules under which we operate were changing, often on a weekly basis. In all of this year our anchor is our identity as an Edmund Rice School inspired by the Gospels. Mary Malone and her identity team have kept us faithful to this. Our heads of school Simon Piasente, Mark Deverall and Cassie Gleeson have led from the front along with Jess Gunning and Kerry Drever (student services), Mark Turner (educational support), and curriculum leaders Brad Smith, Lauren Hall, John Harmon and Brendan Reed. On a personal level I would like to thank my PA, Adele Watt who in addition to her administration work was the face of the College to many families suffering bereavements and hardship throughout the year. I have been grateful throughout the year for the wisdom and guidance of the College Board. In particular I thank Board Chair Mrs Joanne Van Slageren, executive members Barry Knight and Mark Nicholls and members Andrea Kelly, Barny Lee, James Crough, Mark Appleford, Chris Hickey, Shona Casey-Eland and Br Roger Cripps. At the end of 2020 the Board farewells James Crough, Mark Nicholls and Br Roger Cripps. All have provided great service and I would particularly like to acknowledge Br Roger who departs after 13 years during which he has been a passionate advocate for student wellbeing and provided a concrete link to our roots as a Christian Brothers school.

I thank all who have provided support and positivity to the College during this extraordinary year. I hope you enjoy the 2020 Virtus.