We have just finished the fifth week of the term and only have three more weeks left with students. It seems like yesterday that we began the Term. It is important that each of our students are planning appropriately because things can creep up on them if they are not looking ahead.

I recently read an article entitled “Moving Outside Our Comfort Zone” based on Pastor Leroy Barber’s book: God’s Radical Shalom for a Divided World. The article contends that humans are relational beings and therefore cannot help but function in community. The author’s view is that we were made to be together by God’s design and we flourish best when we establish, mend, and maintain relationships with other people. This aligns very much with the research about people who live longest whereby connection and purpose were the key factors. In our Catholic faith Jesus exemplified and taught that loving relationships (we call right relationships) should cross boundaries such as politics, ethnicity, nationality, gender and socioeconomic status. The article suggests that unfortunately we are appearing to lose our way and are becoming a more individualistic society, and this becomes evident when we do our best to make sure that others we interact with look, talk, think, and behave as we do. He believes that these tendencies allow us to keep in our comfort zones. Jesus’s plan was not to dominate, avoid, colonize or intimidate others but rather join in solidarity and protect their differences using love and understanding.

In our own community this revelation means for us to take time to think about what others say and how they act if we do not agree with them rather than jump to our own conclusions based on our own beliefs. It is naïve to think that communities will never have differences or disagreements, but it is dangerous to think that they can be solved by intimidation and force. Communities need rules and expectations, but the most impact will occur if everyone tries to be authentic to community values. Our community values should be clear through our communications, and our right relationships that determine how we interact with one another. That is what we mean by forming Men of Action. It is timely for us to now take this one step further and speak of forming People of Action as we all have a responsibility to contribute to a functioning Catholic community that is true to its Gospel values.

This week, will be the last at St Patrick’s for Ms Jackie Upton. Whilst I am sorry to see Jackie leave our College, I am also happy for her that she can return to her hometown and family. Jackie was the inaugural Director of Marketing and Communications and has been involved with this community as an employee and mother for eight years. During this time, she has done an exceptional job in raising the profile of the College, keeping our staff and families informed, and bringing so many good news stories to everyone in our school and the wider community. Jackie has used her expertise and skills to broaden our communication channels and enliven the many events that we hold throughout the year. She was the ideal person to start the role and introduce some essential processes and practices.  Jackie’s departure will give us an opportunity to spend the rest of this year reviewing our current programs and positions to look at possibilities for future options within the College Development Office. The Development Office encompasses the school enrolments, archives, communication and marketing as well as publications and work with past students and families. I will inform the community of the changes within this office after the final decision is made. On behalf of our community, I wish Jackie the very best in her future endeavors.

Our Year 12 students have completed their second week of external exams. I have been impressed with their planning and positive attitudes and support for each other during this time.

Last Monday, I attended a meeting of all EREA College Principal’s in Queensland. The meeting was facilitated by Mr Chris Woolley who is the CEO of EREA Colleges Ltd of which we are a member school. Dr Liam Smith (EREA National Executive Director) also attended and updated us on the new direction of the Edmund Rice Education Australia organisation. I came away from the meeting confident in the leadership and direction of EREA into the future. The regeneration of the organisation has been a long and, at times, difficult journey but this meeting gave us all greater clarity and confidence, especially for our own school communities.

The AIC Member Committee consisting of the College Principals of all member schools also met during this week and welcomed the new Executive Officer (EO) into the association. The new EO is Mr Eddie Wallace. Eddie was formerly the Director of Sport at St Laurence’s College. He replaced Mrs Kerri Stariha who was the original EO for the AIC. It was a productive meeting with some new initiatives to be unveiled next year.

 This Tuesday evening, we will hold our annual Christmas by the Shore Event. Once again it promises to be an enjoyable evening organised by Ms Kate Albury and our choral and music staff. Tickets are limited due to the size of the venue. If you are attending for the first time and are unsure what to expect you will be in for a treat.

After reviewing parent feedback from our last Parent Satisfaction Survey, four areas appeared to have the most comments:

Parent engagement;

1. Celebrating positive behavior and acts of kindness within the community;
2. Continual improvement in safeguarding practices including bullying; and
3. Knowledge and understanding of the EREA Charter Touchstones.
4. We have included priority actions around these areas in our Strategic Plan 2024-2026.

Live Jesus in our hearts!


Mr Chris Mayes
College Principal

Artificial Intelligence Update

Updates to our Academic Integrity Policy

Recently, the Heads of Faculty team discussed and finalised some amendments to our Academic Integrity Policy to explicitly reflect the emergence of generative Artificial Intelligence technologies. Whilst we believe the existing policy is already quite robust, we felt it prudent to evolve with the current time and as a result:

• We will provide specific guidance on task sheets where necessary, regarding the nature of acceptable use of AI.
• Encourage students to record and annotate notes when AI has been used responsibly as well as acknowledge it’s use in assignment referencing.
• Include inappropriate use of AI within the academic misconduct section of the policy.

Our goal is to apply the policy consistently and accurately and alongside the ongoing education of our students around appropriate authorship in assessments, we hope to develop responsible and ethical young learners.

A national response

The teaching and learning team also recently worked with Mr Nic Consiglio (Program Leader – Digital Innovation) to unpack and discuss the Australian Framework for Generative Artificial Intelligence in Schools. The education minister taskforce released the paper to guide the national response in schools. It is safe to say this is not a technology that is going away any time soon and the impact in schools will become more profound with time.

Specifically, the team discussed the 6 core elements of the paper:

1. Teaching and learning
2. Human and social wellbeing
3. Transparency
4. Fairness
5. Accountability
6. Privacy and security

The synthesis of these elements continues to become an important part of the St Patrick’s College response. Pragmatically, we are currently trying to ascertain whether there is a safe and powerful AI tool that all teachers and students can easily access as part of our suite of technologies that support learning. This helps to ensure a planned and targeted use of the resource as part of our existing teaching and learning programs. Due diligence dictates however, that data security is maintained and that teachers are provided with the right training to ensure there is consistency in the quality and breadth of our engagement from a teaching perspective. Early next year, we will communicate further about this technology and how all students will start to engage with it in their teaching and learning programs. 

Mr Troy Schultz
Dean of Teaching and learning