Assistant Principal - Mission and Wellbeing
The College Hangar- a wonderful community space at St Paul’s
The first Term at St Paul’s provided opportunities for our community to gather and celebrate together often, in particular in the presence of God with our Opening Mass, Ash Wednesday and Easter Liturgy. Our gathering venue for all whole school events since the beginning of last year has been the College Hangar, where we all bring a chair to the space, align in PC groups and prepare to share time together. There have been some challenges within this open space during this time; dogs barking, minor neighbourhood disputes, lots of building works at the nearby all-encompassing College community venue and hot, often rainy and windy conditions to name a few. However, this space has allowed us to build a great sense of our culture, we are very proud of our community and everyone who walks through our gates as a staff member, student or family member.
Each second Wednesday per Term our students gather together in the Hangar for Assembly, during this week it was a student led assembly. There are usually only three staff members present at student led assemblies; Mr David Johns, Ms Kate Fullbrook and myself with well over 600 students - there is a great sense of community. The College Leaders run the show, they provide the agenda and source ideas and interests from the student body. This week the focus was towards the Do it for Dolly Day supporting adolescent mental health initiatives. Our College Leaders in this instance have driven a range of activities allowing our College community to strongly support this wonderful charity on Friday 12 May. I am writing to our St Paul’s families in particular to commend the fantastic ethic our students bring to these gatherings in the Hangar. They are not perfect and we always reflect on what we agree is best practice; however you should be very proud, as I am, of our young women and men showing respect when we meet and share together, reflecting on the many interesting and positive opportunities at the College.
The refurbishment of the Edmund Rice Centre (known to longer tenured school community members as the old Hall or J Block) is nearly complete which will allow College gatherings to return to this venue, equipped with carpeted seating, air conditioning and audio-visual facilities. While the refurbished J Block provides more comfortable and accessible technological resources, I still consider there will be the beautiful place we know as the Hangar for us all to occasionally gather within the richness of the Macleay environment and reflect on ourselves as a welcoming, supportive and respectful community, which has been clearly evident during our times together over the past two years in this space.
Mr Geoffrey Melville - Assistant Principal - Mission and Wellbeing