During Week 6 I was blessed with two great opportunities to inform my ongoing professional development. The first of these was leading the peer mentoring program development for the Diocese in a collaborative approach with Mr Gabbett from Mary Mackillop Catholic College, Highfields. In recognition of the need for peer mentoring for school leaders across the Diocese, a lead team has embraced the catholic social teachings of subsidiarity, solidarity and community & the common good to develop a mode of professional engagement that enables a reflection on the Emmaus Pilgrimage (Luke 24). I look forward to this work being embedded in the Diocese of Toowoomba to enhance the collective leadership across the system and all schools and colleges for greater Catholic leadership capacity.

Thereafter I attended the Australian Catholic Education Conference in Cairns with 1500 delegates from schools and systems across Australia as well as some from beyond our shores. The theme of the conference was “Hope, anchored in faith”, and the wealth of knowledge and effective practice that was shared through the comprehensive program certainly catered for the learning of all delegates. Hope, the foundation of a Catholic worldview, allows us to place our trust in the promises of God, as well as ourselves to create places and spaces in our Catholic schools for all students to find a place they belong. This hope allows us to be challenged, to aspire to continual growth, and to always strive a better life for each future generation. Sr Nathalie Becquart XMCJ (Xaviere sister, Missionary of Christ-Jesus) was appointed by Pope Francis as Undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops in 2021, and she spoke to the conference in the opening keynote about Synodality, its role in the church, and challenged all leaders with the question: “What if every Catholic school became an ‘Emmaus community’, with Christ walking alongside students, families, leaders, and educators in their search for truth and meaning?” 

This was a strong underlying platform upon which the remainder of the learning at the conference was based. Much inspiration was drawn from world leading education experts such as Dr Simon Breakspear, Prof Dylan Wiliam, Dr Steve Constantino, Federal Minister for Education Jason Clare MP, as well as Most Rev Mark Edwards OMI Bishop of Wagga Wagga, Fr Friedrich Bechina, Most Rev Anthony Fisher OP Archbishop of Sydney, and many others. 

Much of my learning from both experiences will continue being developed throughout the next term and will be incorporated into the planning of OLSCC Annual Action Plan for 2026.

At both Week 5 and 7 assemblies, I addressed the students regarding how blessed we are at OLSCC to be immersed in a safe, supportive learning community each and every day when we step onto our College grounds. The most important aspect of this is that we, as a College community, see one another with a lens of togetherness. Our current world entices us to focus on our own self far too often – social media influences and influencers, marketing, promotion, self-help and wellbeing initiatives. We are constantly bombarded with ways we can be individually better, to stand out from the rest, to make more money and have more material possessions than others around us. The unfortunate reality of this bombardment on us is that we become too focussed on self. As a Catholic school, we have strong connection to the catholic principles upon which we were established. This word, catholic (with a lower case ‘c’) is defined various ways: universal, all-embracing, all inclusive, relating to all people. The greatness of our College is our collective being. I speak with pride of the fact that students are known at OLSCC, our staff have meaningful relationships with our students to support both their academic and personal development, and our collective community embraces all. Accordingly, I ask all in our community to remember that we are all on the same team at OLSCC. We are all striving to support and inspire our students to be the best they can be, and we can only do that when we are all working together on the same team. 

On Friday the teaching staff of OLSCC engaged in moderation of planning and assessment with our colleagues from Mary Mackillop Catholic College Highfields (MMCC). We had a day of highly rigorous, professional discussion regarding our various approaches to education, with much learned and challenged from all perspectives. I have no doubt that the work done on this day makes every teacher better at their work and further enhances the wonderful work that occurs in classrooms every day at both OLSCC and MMCC. 

Mr Peter Cuskelly