Who would have known what 2020 was going to throw at us? We began 2020 by reinforcing our Learning Dispositions, as shown in the poster below.  What has been so incredible is the rapid rate we were able to strengthen student resilience, persistence, optimism and independence by suddenly changing to Remote Learning@OLSCC, as well as all the organizational structures required. We have exercised and stretched ourselves and emerged on the other side with greater skills and learnings than ever imagined in January. And what was most pleasing to see was what students are capable of when we stop creating barriers for them to be curious and creative.  This will be one of our overarching concepts for the 2021 school year – developing the future entrepreneurs through the use of the design thinking process.  This is all about identifying a need and then working out how to address it for the common good and it is applicable in all curriculum areas in all year levels.   

 OLSCC has also engaged with 2 Toowoomba Catholic Schools projects for 2021-2022.  The first is the Religious Education Strategy, guiding our teaching practice in RE, and the other is the Writing Improvement Strategy, following on from our great work in Write That Essay that we began this year.  Already we have experienced significant growth in both of these areas and we plan to continue to see improved student learning outcomes due to our involvement in these projects.

I am very pleased to announce that we have now filled all of teaching positions for 2021 after some very successful interviews this week.  The excitement of welcoming new staff always comes at the significant sadness of saying goodbye to others that are off to new experiences or to address other priorities in their lives.  We wish all of our departing staff all the best for the future and trust they know that they can always come back and visit. Mrs Brennan and Mr Hodge will be finalizing the 2021 timetable now that the staffing is finalised.  Please be sure to keep up to date with emails, SZApp and Facebook and information will be communicated via these means as it comes to hand.

What a brilliant year we’ve had at OLSCC.  It’s been hard, though all things worth doing are hard.  As Theodore Rossevelt famously stated:

“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”

I wish everyone in our community a Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year.  It’s imperative for us, as Jesus taught us, to focus less on ourselves and more on others throughout the festive season.  We can actively do this through daily service to help others.  A little bit of help and a little bit of gratitude goes a long way and keeps Christ’s message in Christmas.

Peter Cuskelly

Principal