Principal's Address
After a restful holiday, I return ready for a wonderful 2025 with many decisions and initiatives the Executive Leadership team worked on last year commencing. I believe we start 2025 in a positive place, with an adjusted leadership structure, a tuckshop open five days a week, and a major whole-school teaching and learning framework to introduce called Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS). MTSS will help ensure consistent classroom norms across the school and provide clear levels of support for students struggling to achieve success without intervention. MTSS is designed to shift us from a ‘wait to fail’ approach, where students are flagged for support only after experiencing prolonged failure, to a preventative model that identifies students with academic, social-emotional, or behavioural needs early on, allowing for timely and targeted intervention. MTSS will be implemented from 2025 to 2027. Regular updates in the newsletter will inform parents about the aspects of MTSS that staff have been working on during their professional development meetings.
It would be remiss of me not to discuss the exceptional academic outcomes achieved across the school in 2024, starting with our Year 12 students. Fifty-two students received a QLD Certificate of Education, with 27 of those students also attaining a VET qualification. Nine of our students achieved an ATAR above 90 (which in the old system equates to an OP1-5). They were Hasti Mahmoudian, Erick Jeleco, Leo Ey, Erl Nino Solana, Patrick Moloney, Grace Horn, Alex Hayward, Sophie Partridge, and Taylor Forrest. These students deserve applause for their efforts. They have all been accepted into their chosen courses at university, including Medicine, Engineering, Architecture, and Education. Special mention must go to Hasti Mahmoudian, who was awarded DUX of St John’s for 2024, and to Erick Jaleco, who received the Lance Baldo Award and a Certificate of Academic Commendation for achieving six As in general subjects from the QCAA. Our internal assessment data showed clear improvement from Semester 1 to Semester 2, with many more students achieving As in Semester 2. Noteworthy surprises include 32% of students in Years 7-10 achieving an A in Religion and 29% of students in P-6 achieving an A in Maths. An area of focus for this year is to improve our NAPLAN results. While we are performing comparably to similar schools, I believe it does not reflect what our students are truly capable of. We will be working to ensure students are familiarised with the test and incorporate some preparatory activities in Term 4 of the year prior to the test.
Finally, I encourage parents to engage with the email received from the school last week that outlined the change to the enrolment agreement for students at St John’s. The email included a Parent Code of Conduct developed by the Toowoomba Catholic Schools Office. The Code of Conduct specifies how parents should interact with other members of the school community, including teachers. Adhering to the Code of Conduct is now a condition of enrolment. Additionally, the office has added a power-to-search clause to the agreement. Due to the legal obligation the school has to ensure our premises remain safe for students, staff, and visitors, this clause allows school staff to search school-owned property, including student lockers and school-owned devices, if they have reasonable grounds to believe that a student is in possession of property or content that presents a risk. At St John’s, any search will be conducted by a member of the welfare or leadership teams. Parents or guardians will be contacted if a search of a student’s personal property, such as school bags or mobile phones, is required.
We’ve had an exceptionally positive start to 2025 with the Swimming Carnival, Academic Awards Assemblies, and New Families Liturgy and BBQ serving as examples of St John’s spirit alive and well as our staff, students, and community are called to be more.
Cheers,
Mark