Welcome back to the school year.  We warmly welcome all of our new families and girls. It certainly has been a very hot and humid start and we can only hope that the weather will settle over February so that the girls are feeling more comfortable. Fortunately all of the classrooms have air conditioning so the girls and staff are able to continue working and the learning isn't compromised. We have opened the Mary Sheil Centre during the breaks so the girls can sit in there, however conditions are less than pleasant. The irony is not lost on many of us as we use our electric air conditioners for longer and harder due to the excessive heat brought about by climate change due to our insatiable appetite for non renewable energy!

I would also like to welcome our new staff to the College. Mr Luke David is the new Mathematics Coordinator, Miss Emma Randell is the Dance Teacher and Mrs Vanessa Singles is our new Music Teacher, Ms Aoife Gallagher is a Mathematics Teacher taking Mr Ashkar's classes for Term 1 whilst he is on leave, and Mrs Leanne Knox, our new part-time Science Lab Assistant. We have a few staff returning from lengthy leave. Mrs Shobna Sharma, Mrs Melissa Arena and Ms Sophie Georgiou. We are delighted to have these staff members returning to the College. Over the holidays Mr Ghanem was able to secure a permanent position elsewhere, which means he is no longer at the College. We will be inviting him back to say farewell. Photos of the new and returning staff are included in this edition of the Inside Out.

The building project to coming to a conclusion. The staff have now moved into their new facilities and finding the spaces very conducive to productive professional collaboration. The new learning spaces will be completed prior to Open Day which will enable us to showcase them to our prospective parents. These spaces are light, airy and flexible and will accommodate our 21st century learning pedagogies beautifully. We will have an official opening later in 2017.

Since beginning in 2017, we have been celebrating the successes of the HSC class of 2016. A more detailed report is included in this edition for your information. We had our high achievers assembly last Tuesday and again we invited back some ex-students to the Year 11 Parent Information Evening this week. The message which has been articulated consistently has been the support provided by the College  and the value of an all-girl learning environment. Consistently, the girls who have spoken in these forums have said that where they collaborate and assist each other in their learning, they have reaped the benefit. Each student in each course is ranked against the others in the course during Year 12 and this creates competition. When the girls use this competition to strive to achieve their personal best and share their knowledge and expertise with their classmates who seek help, both the individual students and the whole class benefit from the gain. When students use these rankings and competition as a means of isolating themselves and holding back from assisting others because of the threat this poses to their own rankings, everyone suffers. Both College Duxes were able to attest to how their own learning and understanding were consolidated when they had to explain concepts to their class peers. This is a  common quality in an all-girl classroom. Whilst girls love competition, girls will perform best in a collaborative learning environment.

Again, there has been high media attention to the benefits of all girls vs coeducational learning settings. Through the year we continue to welcome girls who seek an all-girls classroom because they recognise their coed classroom is not meeting their needs. In an all-girl environment, the girls can be themselves. As adult women, I think we can sometimes forget the strong influence boys had on our developing adolescent self. Next week, we will have our swimming carnival. The level of participation of the girls and the freedom they feel to have a go is directly attributable to the fact that there are no boys present. This permission to be themselves is repeated in many forums across the College. As the girls develop in confidence, recognise their strengths and abilities, they won't be told they are incapable of achieving something based on their gender.

Whilst an all-girls learning environment has documented advantages for a girl's success, it is still essential that girls enjoy the company of the boys in social events. Here the dances hosted at the College with the boys from St Gregory's College are very well supported. They are calendared each term and create quite a bit of excitement. The girls also have opportunity to enjoy the boys' company in events such as the musical, debating, leadership workshops and other combined activities. Social media now also has provided added avenues for the girls and boys to communicate and socialise in mutually respectful ways. I am currently visiting the Catholic primary schools, speaking to the girls in Years 5 and 6 about St Patrick's and there is always a visible exclamation of relief when I mention the classrooms at St Pat's don't have boys!

We are currently preparing for Open Day which will be held on Saturday 25 February. We enrol Year 5 students who will begin high school in 2019 and have some vacancies for Year 7 2018 at the moment. If you know of anyone who may consider St Patrick's for their daughter, niece, granddaughter or friend, you may like to let them know of our Open Day. More information is in this edition.

2017 is the year of Balance and we will work towards establishing some balance in all that we do. St Benedict would say that a good life needs time to work , time to study and time to pray. These three aspects of living enable us to appreciate what we have and give us time to reflect on the more important things of our existence. I hope you are able to give yourself permission to let go of the things that are excessive in your life and attend to the important things that are depleted at times. I will finish with a reflection on Balance using the acronym B.R.E.A.D

Balance mean state:
Removing excesses,
Ensuring the essentials,
Aiming at purity of heart,
Discerning what's in line with this aim..

Blessings

Sue Lennox