A reflection on being educated at St Thomas of Canterbury College

A Deputy Principal’s perspective

The complexity and mystery of human existence, the continuous discoveries and understandings of the cosmos within which we exist, the developments in technologies, the developments in human relationships (Geo-Political, social – economic and personal), our acknowledgement that the natural resources and climate change will have and are going to have a profound influence on our future.

A St Thomas’s education must engage with these hugely complex ideas and realities. So, it is critically important that the leaders and teachers create and teach a curriculum that is agile, complex and developmental and enables and encourages our students to engage with these complex issues and realities.

The work and research that has been undertaken for the past 18 months on co-constructing a curriculum at the junior level to respond to the complex needs of our students as well as acknowledging the complexity and realities of a diverse present and future world.

Sitting beside this curriculum development is our collective wisdom and our Catholic philosophical and theological heritage, assisted by the discoveries in the human developmental and cognitive sciences, have taught us that, our young men need to learn and understand that their existence has a purpose and meaning, that they can love and are lovable, that giving and forgiving, respect for others and self, and that learning is often difficult and not perfect.

These things are core to our curriculum. The acquisition of knowledge, the understanding of success and achievement must be understood and seen in this light. The values and attributes that underpin our curriculum; being hopeful, compassionate, engaged, spiritual, ethical and conscientised, are imbued in the curriculum for the express and intentional purpose to create graduates that are conscious of who they are and the purpose they bring to the wider world ie students of St Thomas’s are to make this world a more just, compassionate place. From a theological point of view, a St Thomas’s education brings to the modern world the incarnation present in the daily grind of life and in the moments of joy and celebration.

Paul Donnelly

Deputy Principal of Identity and Innovation