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Principal’s Report ______________________________Pages
The College enrolment for 2016 was 1708 students. 18.2% of our students achieved an Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank in excess of 90 and the Dux of the college was David Motorniak with an ATAR score of 99.55. Our commitment to continue to improve academic outcomes was evident in the formation of the Aspire Group designed to encourage students studying Units 3 and 4 in VCE to strive to achieve 40 plus study scores in as many subjects as possible. We are hopeful of a strong academic performance from our VCE students but would also acknowledge some excellent outcomes from some of our senior alternative programs involving VCAL and those undertaking other vocational courses. The capacity of those programs to integrate worthwhile community projects with their learning is a great example of what is possible in a Catholic school. This year we also made a financial commitment to joining Australia’s Academic and Research Network which has provided both the Edmund Rice and Westcourt campus with fibre optic, fast, high bandwidth internet access, linking us with the university sector. Last year the Westcourt Campus was fortunate to take out the Victorian Secondary School ANZAC Day Award. This year they went one better winning both the state and national prize. The day involved students from St Joseph’s and Clonard Colleges. St Joseph’s College staff member Annalee McKew is to be congratulated and commended for her outstanding work in organising this day. As a consequence of this initiative and several others, Annalee was nominated for and subsequently won, the National 2016 EREA Charter Leadership Award for Liberating Education. Australian conductor and music educator, Richard Gill AO, refers to the two essential bookends of an excellent education as music, performing and creative arts and sport. It has been an outstanding year for our College in these areas. The Herald Sun Shield win by our First XVIII team was an extraordinary achievement as was the Associated Catholic Colleges Premiership, and the winning of the Reconciliation Shield. The sportsman’s night hosted by Mark Howard to launch the AFL/VFL Representatives Wall of Fame here at the College was another celebration of a proud sporting heritage. Of equal importance was the success of senior student, Daniel Rabbat, in winning the Geelong Plain English Speaking Awards and then going on to finish third in Victoria. Daniel also took out the Youth Advocacy Award as part of the Geelong Youth Awards. The strength of the creative and performing arts were evident at our Arts Assembly held on Monday 25 July and the Opening of the Mrs Pat Bourke Gallery, which will provide a future venue to display the outstanding quality of our student work. The College production ‘Big Fish’ was one of the finest I have experienced. Local critic, Colin Morkett, made the following comments, “Underpinning the whole production was a fine 20 piece live orchestra, drawn from students and tutors, that kept the show on song and action flowing. I highly recommend Big Fish for a number of reasons. It’s big, bright, brash, logically and morally satisfying. It shows just how good school productions have become in Geelong in 2016. But mainly, for Geelong’s lovers of musical theatre, it’s really a truly fabulous experience.” The student commitment to community service has remained a strong feature of our College. Students across the school were involved in a multitude of practical works, visiting those less fortunate and getting behind a number of fundraising events. The $50,000 raised on Edmund Rice Day will be directed, as always, to the poorest of the poor via our partnerships with the parish of Mannya in Uganda and the Edmund Rice Foundation. The work of the students was reinforced by their parents’ commitment to the cause. The annual Fashion Dinner conducted by the Parents & Friends was a sell-out and raised $24,000 for our Ugandan ministries. Edmund Rice Education Australia has strongly supported a congress which took place in India during October. St Joseph’s has been a lead school for Edmund Rice Education Beyond Borders, an international network of Catholic schools educating young people from different faiths and cultures. Over the coming years your sons will benefit from some of the initiatives which will enhance this global understanding, leading to a modern understanding of a world which is rapidly shrinking as a consequence of technology. The more we can promote common understandings, especially those which promote the idea of respecting differences and emphasising peace and tolerance, the more likely we are to achieve something closer to the Kingdom of God. I commend the Edmund Rice Education Beyond Borders as an important initiative into the future. One of the highlights of the 2016 school year was the opening of Mary’s Chapel at the Westcourt campus on 16 August. This project was strongly supported by the Old Collegians’ Association and will provide Year 9 students and all who work at the Westcourt campus with a beautiful sacred space. Looking back over my 22 years at the College, one of the critical areas that has always been an overwhelming force is the parent involvement at St Joseph’s College. We are blessed to have the level of support and participation that we have for such a large secondary college. The way our families come together to support not only myself, but our staff and students is at the heart and soul of St Joseph’s.
Big Fish ANZAC Awards
I sincerely thank all our Board Members who give generously of their time and expertise to attend meetings and gatherings throughout the year. I deeply value your support and shared vision for our College. I thank Brett Harman, Board Chair, along with the Executive, Mark Nicholls and Joanne van Slageren for their support and encouragement over the years. We say farewell to Louise Paatsch as she is leaving our Board, having commenced in 2013. We have valued Louise’s contribution and her expertise. Her depth of experience at Deakin University has enabled her to give insights and information to our Board that is truly valued. It’s sad that Louise is stepping down to allow her husband Tony to take up his executive role on our Board. We thank Louise for giving of her time and energy to attend meetings and gatherings at the College. Kathleen Rawson also leaves the Board this year. Kathleen has been a member of our Board for 5 years, commencing in 2011 and has been an active and dedicated member throughout, always looking out for both the financial and welfare needs of our College families. We thank Kathleen for her contribution. Once again I thank our parent committees including the Finance & Planning Committee, Foundation Committee, Old Collegians’ Association, Parents & Friends’ Association, Men’s Association, Josephines, Care Group, Canteen and other Volunteers and all our parents and families who have been involved in any way at St Joseph’s College in 2016. Your new Principal, Tony Paatsch will look forward to working with you all for many years to come. I thank our Management Team made up of Deputy Principals, Michelle Brodrick and Mark Kennedy; Director of Identity, Rachel Roche; Director of Curriculum, Michael Goss; Head of Year 9 Campus, Michael Wrigley; Business Manager, Terry Fowler and Human Resources Manager, Rolf Audrins. You have been my constant supporters once again this year. You will never know how much I value your support, expertise and integrity. We say goodbye and a huge thank you to the following staff members who are leaving us this year – Ric Brodrick commenced at St Joseph’s in February 1999 and has been a Classroom Teacher and held other leadership roles but more recently appointed the Director of Students. Ric has been a hardworking and loyal employee who works closely with staff to care for our boys supporting and helping them through difficult and demanding situations. Ric’s patience and endearing nature when dealing with both students and staff are to be commended. He works hard to produce the best possible outcome for all. Ric has also been a strong advocate and represented the College many times with visits to Uganda. No doubt there will be ongoing opportunities for Ric to visit us here, as Michelle continues her great work as Deputy Principal Year 7 - 9. Ric leaves us to take up a Deputy Principal role at Catholic Regional College, Caroline Springs in 2017. We will miss Ric but commend him on his new role which he so richly deserves. Ashwin Pillai commenced at St Joseph’s in April 2004 and has given 13 years of dedicated service. Throughout this time Ash has been a Science Teacher and has shown great leadership potential. He has held the position of Year 9 Curriculum
Leader at Westcourt campus since it opened in 2014. Ash was actually appointed to Westcourt prior to the campus opening and much of the curriculum developed under his direction. Ash leaves us to take up a Deputy Principal Curriculum position at Damascus College in Ballarat. We wish Ash well and thank him for all he has been to St Joseph’s College. Luke O’Grady commenced Teaching in the PE Faculty at the College in February 2011. He was appointed shared Physical Education Domain Coordinator in 2013, a position he held until resigning this year. Luke has been an outstanding member of staff here at St Joseph’s and is resigning because his wife Robyn has been offered a position at Lismore hospital in NSW. Luke has made an extraordinary difference to our PE faculty and areas like cross country running where we have advanced to serious contenders for the ACC title. I wish Luke Opening Mary’s Opening Mary’s all the very best for the coming years ahead. Chapel John Monagle commenced as a Classroom Teacher in 1990 and leaves us to retire after 27 years of dedicated service. John has worked on various committees supporting fellow workers wherever he could. John is a passionate Fire Brigade volunteer and is extremely communityminded. We thank John for all his hard work. We hope the family enjoy good health and happiness for the years ahead and they will continue to stay connected to St Joseph’s. Pat Bourke Pat Bourke Gallery Opening Gallery Opening Earlier this year, in March, our Library Manager, Paul Devine left us after 12 years of dedicated service in our College Library. Paul was a quiet achiever and worked diligently to manage and maintain our library. Paul and his wife Anne have been travelling this year and we wish them good health and happiness for the years ahead. To all our 2016 staff members I extend my deep gratitude for your dedication and hard work once again this year. Your professionalism and commitment to our students, your colleagues, Reconciliation Match our families and the wider community are to be commended. Without each and every one of you St Joseph’s would not be held in such high regard. I consider myself blessed to have worked with you throughout all or part of my 22 years in this special place. For me this final Virtus report is not just about the 2016 school year, but to some extent, about the last 22 years I have spent here. The most significant change over that time has been around the culture of the College. I think culture was once described by AFL coach Alistair Clarkson, as what you do when you’re not being told what to do. This year has seen controversy about the Safe Schools Coalition. The work of Safe Schools Coalition Australia supports the vision of the National Safe Schools Framework. The Framework is based on the following overarching vision: “All Australian schools are safe, supportive and respectful teaching and learning communities that promote student wellbeing.” The guiding principles of the organisation are as follows:
Australian schools:
• affirm the rights of all members of the school community to feel safe and be safe at school • acknowledge that being safe and supported at school is essential for student wellbeing and effective learning • accept responsibility for developing and sustaining safe and
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supportive learning and teaching communities that also fulfil the school’s child protection responsibilities • encourage the active participation of all school community members in developing and maintaining a safe school community where diversity is valued • actively support young people to develop understanding and skills to keep themselves and others safe • commit to developing a safe school community through a whole-school and evidence-based approach While we do not use the curriculum material, the coalition provides a useful resource to help ensure that our policies and procedures are appropriately inclusive. Our membership of the coalition in no way diminishes our values as a Catholic School, indeed one of the four touchstones of Catholic Schools in the Edmund Rice Tradition is ‘Inclusive Community.’ As a school community we are committed to the pastoral care of all students irrespective of their sexual identity. Homophobic bullying is destructive because it is an attempt to destroy the self-esteem of some students and often reinforces a narrow and unhealthy stereotype of what it means to be authentically male. As a community we have made significant progress in addressing homophobic bullying and our student culture over many years has developed and matured. At the same time, it is a constant challenge to ensure that students continue to treat each other with tolerance and respect. As a consequence of my position on safe schools, I am currently representing the Catholic Secondary Principals of Victoria on a reference group, ‘Safe and Supportive Learning Communities’, established by Catholic Education Melbourne. I am also the Co-Chair with former staff member Ms Jo Hart on an Edmund Rice Education Australia working party to develop appropriate guidelines and resources to ensure those being educated under the Edmund Rice charism around the nation will be part of safe and inclusive learning communities, irrespective of where their learning takes place. I will continue with my involvement on both working parties until that work is complete. The second area of focus for me has been highlighted in my submission to the Royal Commission on Child Abuse, which was published earlier this year and is re printed below. “My name is Paul Francis Tobias and I have worked in the area of Catholic Education for the past forty years. Over that time I have worked as a teacher at Christian Brothers College St Kilda, 1978 -1984; Deputy Principal at St Joseph’s Christian Brothers College Warrnambool, 1985 to 1990; Deputy Principal Emmanuel College Warrnambool, 1991 – 1994; Deputy Principal at St Joseph’s College Geelong, 1995 – 1999 and Principal at St Joseph’s College Geelong, 2000 – 2016. I will retire at the conclusion of the 2016 school year. My career has been based in Catholic Secondary Colleges, but I served for several years as the Board Chair of Our Lady Help of Christians Primary School in East Warrnambool. My observations outlined below relate to structure, governance, culture, power and authority in the Catholic Church. I have no doubt that these systemic institutional factors have impacted on the occurrence of abuse, as well as the Church’s capacity to respond appropriately. Many of the observations I am about to make in relation to the culture in our church, may have contributed to the current crisis. In the year 2000, my first as Principal, I made a public apology for the abuse which had taken place at St Joseph’s College Geelong in the preceding decades. I did so in the hope that some of the victims would have an opportunity to move forward, with the assistance of appropriate redress procedures. The response from the then Archbishop of Melbourne, Cardinal Pell, could best be described as muted. I think at the time an apology was not considered as an appropriate response. I subsequently met a number of victims and believing that the Church had the best interests of the victims at the forefront, referred many of them to “Towards Healing”. I have been incredibly disappointed to discover that at the same time I was meeting with victims, senior catholic clergy including the Archbishop were meeting with their legal representatives to develop strategies such as the Ellis defence which were designed to exhaust the financial and emotional resources of the victims. This fact alone provides an interesting insight into the structure, governance and culture of our church. The Catholic Church operates on a hierarchical structure, which means that incredible power and authority resides with the clergy, Priests, Bishops, Archbishops, Cardinals and ultimately, the Pope. During my time as Principal, Cardinal Pell has been an extraordinarily powerful and influential leader within the Australian Catholic Church. Even from Rome, he exerts in my opinion, significant authority and power over the direction of the Catholic Church in Australia, to the extent of maintaining the existing culture here. At the heart of our culture is too much power residing with too few people and not enough input from the laity (non- clerics) into key decision making. I would also make the point that there are not enough females in genuine positions of power in our church. Few genuine forums exist whereby people can express dissent or different points of view. Those who do express their views can expect to be penalised, isolated and have their careers impacted. The prevailing culture was adequately highlighted for me in Cardinal Pell’s attack on former NSW Premier Christine Kenneally when she expressed a contrary view, reported in the Sunday Telegraph 2nd of January 2011. “You’re either one of us or you’re not.” That has been the prevailing culture which has been applied consistently over the past decades. The prevailing understanding therefore, is that the clerics in our church have the wisdom and the expectation of the rest of us, including those such as primary and secondary school principals, is to follow them rather than think for ourselves and provide authentic leadership. The Catholic Church persists with antiquated governance models
Awards and music Awards and music showcase showcase
which are no longer appropriate, rather than distribute power appropriately. The governance of many Catholic primary and secondary schools needs urgent review. In the case of primary schools, the local Catholic Priest is often the Canonical Administrator. This is a role unsuited to many Parish Priests, due to their other work commitments, lack of interest or expertise in education, lack of understanding in relation to modern work place practices etc. It can also mean that Principals are pressured into positions and situations which they know to be inappropriate, but since they are often relying on this Canonical Administrator for their current and potentially future employment, they are hopelessly compromised. This is less likely to be a problem in Catholic secondary schools, but we still have a situation whereby the pastoral care of students can be compromised because of a position taken by Catholic Bishops. The current lack of clear guidelines and curriculum to negate the impact of homophobic bullying in the Archdiocesan schools of Melbourne is a clear case in point. As principals, we are frequently told that we are important components of the leadership of the Catholic Church. However, secondary principals quickly come to realise that their future careers, like those of their primary colleagues, rest with appropriate recommendations from clergy and often ultimately, the approval of the Archbishop. I would describe the relationship between Catholic secondary principals and the clerical hierarchy, at best, as immature. The Archbishop of Melbourne will, for instance, determine who is and is not an appropriate speaker for our annual Principals’ conference. That lack of maturity of relationship makes it very difficult to conduct genuine dialogue around pastoral and curriculum initiatives impacting on our students and their families. The only effective link between the schools and the Bishops is the Catholic Education Offices, primarily through their respective Directors.
The right of the Bishop to appoint whoever he wishes to the position of the Director of Catholic Education, is apparently enshrined in Cannon law. It has certainly been the case that in some instances, this appointment has been made without advertisement or interview. This practice does not represent sound governance principles. The cultural implications of such an appointment are obvious. The lack of transparency can provide impetus for that director to make further appointments into senior positions, with a similar lack of process, and establishes a mutual relationship between the director and the Bishop, which is more likely to breed secrecy than transparency. I suspect also that Bishops appoint those who, for the most part, tell them what they want to hear, rather than challenge them, especially around matters such as sexual abuse. The end result is that issues are glossed over rather than dealt with, in an honest and transparent manner. Directors in turn can, in the allocation of resources, promote certain causes and largely ignore others. I commenced writing to the Director of Catholic Education in the Melbourne Archdiocese in 2004 in relation to the lack of any sanctioned program to deal with homophobic bullying in Catholic Secondary Schools. This issue has consistently been ignored over the years. Principals like myself, who express a view in relation to the pastoral needs of young people in their care, risk suffering the cultural consequences implicit in the statement ‘you are either one of us or you are not.’ There are many aspects of the relationships between Catholic school Principals and the Catholic Church hierarchy which need to develop and change. The current power imbalance is unsustainable and inappropriate. The evidence before the commission would indicate that Catholic primary and secondary schools have been prolific providers of the victims of clerical sexual abuse. It is interesting to note that, as a group, Catholic primary and secondary principals, who are responsible for the pastoral care of all children in their schools, have been largely silent throughout this entire crisis. This silence does not indicate a lack of conviction but to me indicates a culture whereby those who are outspoken can expect the consequences. It is not my intention to lay blame with any particular individual in relation to any of the observations I have made. I have worked in the sector for the last forty years and have loved the work I have undertaken and the interactions I have had with those in my respective schools. To some extent, we are all part of the culture and in hindsight, I would act and react in different ways, given what we now know. Each of us who work in the sector, both cleric and lay, need to be reflective about what has been uncovered and what role we might have played in promoting and maintaining a culture where this level of abuse and cover up was possible. I am not in a position to draw conclusions around the impact of celibacy in relation to the extent of clerical child sexual abuse. I would, however, make the observation that the fact that clergy are not permitted to marry and to father children, to some extent explains why many of them have been found to be so lacking in empathy and compassion in their dealings with the victims of sexual abuse and their families. My greatest fear, in terms of the work of the Royal Commission, is that some Bishops may have already concluded that because of the widespread nature of abuse, across a variety of religious groups and other entities, the Catholic Church does not need to review its structure, governance and culture. If as a Church, we fail to embrace the opportunity presented, we will risk repeating the mistakes of the past. Issues Paper 11 invited Catholic employees to address a significant number of different possibilities. My submission focuses primarily on structure, governance and culture in the Catholic Church. Once the matter is considered by the commission any reports received can, with the consent of the writer, be downloaded onto the Commission’s website. In the case of my submission I was comfortable with it being released to the public because it is my honest assessment of where as a church we are and what we might need to change to avoid further damage to our school communities and the young people we educate. If, from all of this, what emerges is a more inclusive and transparent Australian Catholic church, that will be a good thing for everyone. Pope Francis is clearly calling for reform and it will be interesting to see within the Australian context who has the capacity to lead. In terms of leadership at the school level, I have done my best over the years and the remarkable cultural transformation which has taken place at St Joseph’s College Geelong has only been possible as a consequence of significant support from my wife Dianne, my many work colleagues, my employer, Edmund Rice Education Australia and most importantly from the local community. Thank you for your wonderful support and encouragement over many years. It has been a privilege to lead the community for the past 17 years. I commend the incoming Principal, Mr Tony Paatsch to the community and wish him every success in the role.
