There has been no shortage of hyperbole attached to this year. Extraordinary times that required families, communities, schools, States, and Nations to make changes that had not been required for a century. I think one of the factors that contributed to the College’s success is that decisions made in crisis management must be based upon the same philosophy as the rest of our decisions. Our focus as an institution that has Truth, Love and Community as our values has guided the approach we took to agile change.
It has been my endeavour to model leadership from which our students and community can clearly see the collaborative nature of our leadership; to focus on the wellbeing of our community and to articulate clearly and with clarity our processes. What we did not want to model was decisions made in panic or stress, uninformed decisions or decisions that lacked compassion. We finish Term 2 with my reflections on a whole staff, who looked for ways to serve our school and community with empathy and integrity, along with a calm and measured approach based upon correct information. As a result of this, we modelled best practice. With the advent of fake news, and global leadership that has lacked transparency and trust, we hope that as the boys grow into men, and in turn reflect on the magnitude of the time they have lived through as our students, that when the mantle of leadership is handed to them - as leaders of families, businesses, societies, and perhaps even governments - they will react to the challenges they face with the values they have observed while at school.
The fundamental parts of St Augustine’s College have not changed. We have been able to thrive in this new environment because of our unshakeable foundation. I cannot remember a time when teaching and support staff have had to change direction in such an unexpected way. The commitment to learning and the work required to help our students thrive, has been humbling and I am very thankful to all who worked above and beyond. The volume of work completed during this time, and the excellence with which it has been accomplished is outstanding. We have done this with passion, humility, skill and care. Over this coming break many will continue this commitment to student opportunities with HSC holiday lessons and in our co-curricular domain with holiday skills camps to prepare teams for upcoming fixtures. With the reactivation of sport there are a number of changes necessary for a COVID-19 safe environment. In the ISA competition, we will run our first fixture of the year with no spectators, and from Week 2 we will encourage only one parent to attend. Club fixtures will be guided by the relevant associations. The College will need to collect contact details for all spectators, it is anticipated that this will be done by SMS. Further details will be sent in the coming weeks.
We continue to adjust our calendar to recognise changes as a result of COVID-19. Our Senior Athletics Carnival scheduled for Friday 24 July is the latest casualty. The venue has indicated that confirmation of our booking will not be available until Term 3. It has been decided that the work required to finalise the logistics of this event, with a significant risk of not being able to use to venue, has left us with no choice but to cancel. We will attempt to secure an alternate date for athletes only. Friday 7 August in Week 3 was calendared as a Staff Development Day. It has been decided that the program for the day will be delivered differently and as such this will now be a normal teaching day.
We can see the successes of our school in the smallest way students engage with expectations. In the 23 days since we returned the four hand sanitiser stations that were converted from sunscreen dispensers to sanitiser have applied 7,372 squirts. Who would have thought we could keep adolescent boys’ hands so clean? Our next challenge is rubbish in the yards.
During the holiday break, I hope that families stay safe and are able to make use of some of the relaxing restrictions on movement.
Jonathan Byrne
Principal