We Want to Bat with You!

As we sit in cricket season, I use the cricket analogy to invite our parents/guardians and new team members of our Catholic learning community to build strong partnerships and set up a strong foundation for their child’s innings at Padua College.

An Annual Action Plan (AAP) goal for Padua College is centered on partnerships with our community. We want to hear the voice and wisdom of our parent community.

Research indicates that effective schools have high levels of parental and community partnerships. The result of parent involvement can have a major impact on student learning (Australian Government, DEEWR, Family-School Partnerships Framework – a guide for schools and families).

Parents are an integral part of a Catholic school as a valuable instrument in the important partnership in education. They help to promote the mission of Padua College and they foster a true spirit of community. Canon Law 796 lays the foundation for the relationship between parents and friends and the Catholic school, it states:

"Among the means of advancing education, Christ’s faithful are to consider schools as of great importance, since they are the principal means of helping parents to fulfil their role in education. There must be the closest cooperation between parents and the staff to whom they entrust their children to be educated. In fulfilling their task, staff are to collaborate closely with the parents and willingly listen to them; associations and meetings of parents are to be set up and held in high esteem".

Therefore, our Parents of Padua (POP) group aims to in partnership with parents:

• To foster a distinctive Catholic environment.
• To provide a vehicle for information sharing and participation of parents, in a spirit of collaboration and common purpose.
• To identify gifts and talents within the parent community and making them available to meet the mission and identity needs of our College by the sea.

Our 2024 College Theme

We acknowledge our 2024 College theme from the words of St Clare of Assisi:

Let the love you have in your hearts be shown outwardly in your deeds.

St Clare embodied the Franciscan value of compassion. May we, the Padua Catholic College community, empowered through the love of Jesus, actively seek to be the hands, heart and feet of Christ. Loving one another with the compassion of Jesus, let the love you have in your hearts be shown outwardly in your deeds. Compelled by such an example, that you may also grow in the love of God, walking with empathy and kindness for one another.

Year 10 Wominjeka retreat

Year 10 Retreat Days were held 21-22 February and take their name from the Indigenous word for ‘welcome’ as our Retreat is held at the start of a school year and forms a welcome to the Senior Campus at Padua College.

Our goals through the Year 10 Wominjeka program are for students to:

• Explore the ability human beings have of being able to do what is correct and maintain the courage of convictions despite odds and pressures.
• Explore the pressures that can be unfairly placed on others.
• Appreciate the uniqueness of each person and consequently, avoid perceiving others through the basis of stereotyping.
• See the value of the role of prayer in Christian decision-making.