Principal’s Address Bicentenary Year
This year – along with other Christian Brother Schools throughout the world – Trinity College has been celebrating the bicentenary of the establishment of Edmund Rice's first school in New Street, Waterford in 1802. From this small beginning the great enterprise of Edmund Rice education, as we know it today, has developed. In a number of ways the Trinity community has joined together to make this year very special. One highlight of the year was a wonderful combined Christian Brothers’ schools Mass held at the Entertainment Centre in May. Trinity Old Boys Reunion
Another great celebration was held on Saturday 26 October, when nearly 600 past students gathered at Trinity for a Bicentenary Reunion. This night was a huge success and I congratulate the Trinity Old Boys’ Association Executive – and especially the Planning Team led by Darren Taggart – for their initiative and hard work in making this a wonderful event. Past students who attended were very complimentary about developments in facilities and programs at the school. Mr Tony Curtis, Principal Governance
English Literature, History, Economics and Geography. At Trinity the improvement in boys’ literacy is in stark contrast to the poor performance by boys throughout the nation. It should be noted that one of the four exhibition winners last year was Daniel Privilege for English. In addition to the excellence of the exhibition winners, a large number of TEE students performed extremely well. For instance, 5% of students achieved a TER of 99 (arguably five times the state average), 12% achieved a TER of 98 (arguably six times the state average), and nearly a quarter of the students (24%) achieved a TER of 95 (ie the top 5% in the state). These are outstanding “top end” results.
One of the issues currently occupying the attention of the Brothers generally, and the attention of the Province Leadership Team in particular, is the question of Brothers moving out of leadership positions in their schools – and also the consideration of a possible new form of governance for Christian Brother’s schools throughout Australia. This process will be quite significant for schools such as Trinity, and will require of the Board and other members of the school community that we understand the special charism of Edmund Rice so that this can be lived out in the school and handed on through the school community. This challenge was a key feature of the address of Br Kevin Ryan, the new Province Leader, at this year’s Speech Night.
Curriculum Framework
During the year we have progressed steadily with our planning for the implementation of the Curriculum Framework. A major step forward this year was our reporting in outcomes at Year 8 level. We plan to report in outcomes at the Year 9 level next year. The work involved in working through the Curriculum Framework process has placed a huge additional workload on Heads of Departments and teachers generally, and I thank them for their professionalism in working through this process.
Academic Excellence
I am pleased to report that the College is continuing its double barrelled drive for academic excellence on the one hand, and developing a range of programs suited to the diverse needs of our students on the other. We have been especially pleased with the developing relevance of the INSTEP program that Trinity participates in – called ONSITE – which provides some forty five senior students the valuable experience of structured workplace learning. We were, of course, delighted with last year’s superb academic results – culminating in four exhibitions – the best results in the College’s history. Of particular note was the performance of our students in literacy based subjects where they performed well above the state average in English,
Mary Rice Centre
We are delighted with the development of the Mary Rice Education Support Centre for students with disabilities which is operating extremely well with the strong support of
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