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St Bede's College
 
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Greetings from St Bede's

Mr Justin Boyle —

Yesterday I made the following comments to the boys at assembly as a summary of a productive Term 2.

Bleak weather, shorter daylight hours and sickness, not to mention 3 cancelled sport days dampen spirits, so the community is to be congratulated for keeping it together and finishing the term well.

Academically for you seniors, your progress should be taking shape and now there is an urgency in that there are only 12-13 weeks of tuition till your exams. If there’s work to catch up on spend some time in the holidays so that you begin the term in better shape. Conference days and careers evenings help your planning also; I hope the Year 13s programme this morning helps to settle your thoughts as well for what you might do.

Two school mass’ on Feast Day and last Friday to culminate the Sacramental programme were highlights and the occasions were only special because of the manner in which you participated.

Congratulations also to all of you who represent us in all the winter competitions – I don’t think I have a dog show of seeing all of you and as I said the cancelled Saturdays haven’t helped, but I’ll try to. I say this often but don’t wait until the end of the season to show your appreciation to your coaches and managers, nearly all of whom do it for free!!

On the cultural front we have been very busy too – despite the fact that we haven’t got a PAC, and next term we will look forward to the CanTeen concert which launches the 1st of 3 parts of our campaign.

I hope the visit from John Parsons struck a chord and more particularly the message of keeping yourself safe on-line and acting the same way, whether you are off-line (face to face) or on-line – behind the screen we can be far braver than we are face to face. The message of keeping your chin up on-line and thinking twice before you post something that can potentially follow you for the rest of your lives. Employers go to social media to make decisions.

Yesterday, we ran the first of the My Future Self series beginning with the ‘Inspire Breakfast’ in the Dining Hall. The breakfast connects Old Boys with current Year 13 students, offering their insight into career choices, life experiences as well what our year 13’s should aspire to as they prepare to leave the college. The old boys presenting to the Year 13’s were relatively recent old boys, which made their experiences all the more relatable and engaging for the Year 13’s. Liam Bartholomeusz – Bid Coordinator at Downer NZ, Reilly Price – Insurance Broker and Jason Morgan – Business Banker at ANZ, all had a very common thread with the words of wisdom they offered our students; the relationships you develop and the networks you create are critical to your direction, no matter what you do, whether it be university or collecting rubbish, do it to your absolute best as a good work ethic will get you a long way, be open to opportunities.

I’ve just begun the interviews for new boys for 2019 – people are attracted to this place because we are a strong community – they sense that when they walk in by the way we treat each other and the general “good feel” about the place – that good feel doesn’t just happen – it’s something we must never take for granted, and it boils down to, maintaining self-respect, respect for each other on or off-line, being honest to ourselves and others especially when we make a mistake.

Until next time

Justin Boyle