From the Principal
Dear St Michael’s College Community,
National Child Protection Week
4 – 10 September 2022
We share with you this week’s La Salle blog regarding the National Child Protection Week and endorse their statement that “Protecting Children And Young People Is Everyone’s Business”. The St Michael’s College Child Safeguarding Commitment Statement can be found on our website by clicking here.
The first week of September in Australia is Child Protection Week, and whilst child protection requires 24×7, 365 days of the year attention, the week provides an opportunity to put the spotlight on child protection, the work being done, and the challenge to do more.
This year the theme for Child Protection Week is: Every Child in Every Community Needs a Fair Go. That theme aligns strongly to our Lasallian Mission, not only in Australia, but across the District and the Institute.
For young people to thrive we must continue to focus on enabling:
- Equality in access to education
- Stopping child abuse and neglect (and reducing its impact)
- Pathways to quality supports (in the ways that young people want to access)
- The voices and lived experiences of children and young people to be heard, honoured and included.
Our societies are only as strong as the support structures that exist for children, and the evidence shows that there continues to be much to be done. We have seen how the pandemic has been especially challenging for children and young people, with many not having access to safe places. That has meant that those vulnerable before the pandemic became even more vulnerable, and we know that the vulnerability of children and young people in Pakistan and Papua New Guinea was already high before the Pandemic.
But there is also much being done, as a District our Ministries have been actively engaged and continue to engage in implementing and refining our Safeguarding policies and procedures. We acknowledge that policies and procedures are only as good as the ways in which they are implemented and become the ‘way we do things around here’.
As the founder wrote: “Take even more care of the education of the young people entrusted to you than if they were the children of a king.”
Taking care, opening our hearts and our minds to what might be possible and rising to the challenge of being part of the solution – are very much what Safeguarding is about, and Safeguarding is at the heart of being Lasallian.
Child Protection Week gives us an opportunity to affirm what we do every day, and in line with the theme of the General Chapter: “building new paths to transform lives”, we are also being challenged to ensure that we seek a reality where Every Child in Every Community Needs does in fact have a Fair Go.
Secondary Campus Winter Co-Curricular Activities
The 2022 St Michael’s College Secondary Term 2/3 Winter Co-curricular sport season saw 50 teams participate in various competitions throughout. Many teams had success this year with 12 out of 18 netball teams playing in Grand finals for Premierships. 6 out of these 12 won their Grand Finals and were premiers in their division. Our Open A1 netball team had a convincing win in the Grand final and were undefeated all year. The Open A2’s also played in a mixed A1/A2 competition and were also minor premiers. They played in the Grand final and drew in an exciting finish. They then had to play 3 minutes each end in extra time. They held strong and had a great win in overtime to become premiers as well. It was a fantastic season for many teams finishing minor premiers.
Our Middle Girls Football team played for the first time in a weekly 9 a side comp with some success. Our Middle girls Knockout team made it all the way through to the semi final round but were knocked out by Nuriootpa. We had a Year 12 senior soccer team play in the weekly IGSSA comp as a social team and our middle girls played in the weekly IGSSA comp on a Wednesday also with some success but did not play finals.
The boys 1st XVIII Football team went through their season undefeated and made the Grand Final, which was a great result, while the boys 2nd XVIII team finished premiers in their division. Our girls 1st XVIII Football were premiers in their weekly competition and runners up in the State Knockout competition after making the Grand Final. Our Year 9/10 Knockout team made the top 4 in the state making the semi final round, whilst our Year 9B and 8A Football teams won the majority of their games. Our Year 7A team had a great first year of football, managing wins against powerhouses of Football in PAC and St Peters College.
Our Soccer program saw many teams compete strongly in their weekly competitions, with the highlight coming in the way of our Middle C1 team finishing top of the ladder in their competition, whilst our Year 7A team finished third in a great first year at SMC.
Our Basketballers fought very hard in the Division 1 program of the competition and whilst the win/loss ratio wasn’t in our favour, every team fought hard in every game all season.
It was great to see many students participate in Table Tennis once again this year, with our Middle teams all winning the majority of their games, and the big highlight coming in the way of our Year 7 team going through their season undefeated!
Congratulations to all teams participating in Term 2 and 3 co-curricular activities. A huge thank you to all our coaches, umpires, players, and parents for a fantastic season. Without your assistance, students would not be able to experience such a diverse range of activities.
A special thank you to our secondary Co-curricular Coordinator Mr Jordan Young and Girls Co-Curricular Officer Mrs Leanne Burton, with support from Ms Ebony Minagall, who work tirelessly to ensure St Michael’s is well represented each week.
Keep an eye out for next week’s The Star for the Primary Campus round-up of co-curricular activities.
Kind regards,
Mr Damian Patton
Acting Principal
