Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to 2023!

It has been wonderful to welcome all of the students to school this week. I would like to extend a particular welcome to the families of all of our new students. We look forward to working with you all in supporting the learning and wellbeing of your young people this year. I hope you have all had a good break and enjoyed some special family time over these last weeks.

This year….

2023 is a significant year on several counts. It is the year we celebrate 10 years of JPC. We opened in 2013 with just 100 Year 7 students in temporary premises and here we are, 10 years later, with just on 1000 students across Years 7-12. We have top class facilities situated in beautiful, mature grounds that have flourished over the years. We are indeed privileged! We will be keeping you informed of celebrations planned for the year.

We also welcome our new Parish Priest in the Holy Spirit Parish, Fr Troy Bobbin and Assistant Priest Fr Eden Langlands. Fr Troy is very committed to working closely with us and it has been great to start to get to know him.

A new timetable… and a diary

Following the comprehensive review of Independent Learning Time last year, we begin the year with a new timetable and a new structure for ILT for students in Years 7-10. Students in Years 11 and 12 will not do formal ILT. Instead, they will use the skills of ILT in their non-scheduled lessons, completing homework and assessments. At this early stage, all students appear to be managing the new timetable well.

Each student in 2023 now has a JPC Student Diary which gives them lots of relevant information and enables them to record homework for each lesson and to plan assessment. They need to have their diary with them in every class and use it well. It will be a great support to them in managing their learning. Should it be lost or damaged, they will need to purchase a new diary at a cost of $25.

A change to the Year 11 Conference

This year, for the first time, we are taking Year 11 students away for the Year 11 Conference. This takes place this week on Thursday and Friday. We have a carefully chosen and expanded number of activities and events and we are confident that the experiences will be very beneficial to our Year 11s as they settle into the senior years. I am looking forward to spending the time with them.

Congratulations to all students in the Year 12 Graduating Class of 2022!

We are again delighted to announce that every one of our Year 12 students who completed their senior secondary education in 2022 achieved a Senior Secondary Certificate. This has been the case for each one of our Year 12 graduating classes and is an outstanding result – not generally achieved by ACT Colleges.

70% of our cohort were Tertiary (T) students receiving an ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank). Their results were equally impressive. 14% of them achieved an ATAR above 90; 29% above 80 and 75% of them achieved above 65, enabling them to easily access university if they chose. All T students achieved at the top end or above their estimated ATAR scores, with many achieving well above their estimate.

Congratulations to the top 5 T students: Ivy Keating, Eva Kolak, Darshan Rajinikanth, Gabrielle Jordan and Abigail Bawagan.

We wish the 2022 cohort every blessing in their future endeavours and thank them for the contribution they have made to building our community at John Paul II College. We look forward to hearing of their exploits and successes over the coming years as they pursue the next stage of their journey.

Key Messages

I trust you will enjoy hearing from different members of staff in the coming weeks as they introduce themselves to you and write articles on various topics. In this Key Messages, Simon Abbott, newly arrived with us and LLWB for Kennedy House, will tell you a little about himself. We are very fortunate to have him with us.

Finally, my best wishes to all for the year ahead. Our consistent message to all of our students is to start as they mean to go on. We hope to see them implementing great work habits and great study habits as they encourage each other in being the best they can be.

We all look forward to working with them and yourselves in the year ahead. 

Catherine Rey
Principal

Hello to JPC families.

My name is Simon Abbott and I am super excited to commence at the college this year.

I started teaching many years ago at Canberra Grammar School and then moved to a role as Sportsmaster and Head of HPE at PLC in Sydney. Since then, I have been working in welfare and justice and have worked with many marginalised young people.

I hope to bring this experience to JPC and as well as teaching HPE, be available to all young people who may be experiencing any difficulties or confusing times.

Mr Abbott
Leader of Learning and Wellbeing, Kennedy

Given the success of the Pooch Pal program we are pleased to let you know that we will be continuing our program at JPC for 2023. As convenor of the program, I am so proud of what we have achieved with our Pets as therapy program. Pooch Pals dog therapy program has been successfully running at JPC for the past 6 years. Staff and students who do not wish to interact with the dogs never have too and we certainly know that not everyone loves our fury pals so we are of course mindful to be respectful of all our community members. Our Pooch pals perform a variety of activities are really busy on their work days! 

Louie belongs to Mrs McNamara and is a Male, black Pug. He has been part of the program for 3 years and is a wonderful calm little cuddle buddie!

Ashley belongs to Mrs Middleton and is a black, female Greyhound who has retired from racing and looking forward to continuing to providing a calm and gentle presence for the students at JPC. 

Batman is our newest recruit and is starting his training to work in the program. He belongs to Mrs Candy, he is also a beautiful Greyhound. He has a friendly, loving personality and enjoys meeting new people. He loves to makes new friends. He will be completing his training and induction program over the semester.

If you have any question about the program, please email Chauntell.mcnamara@cg.catholic.edu.au

Mrs Chauntell McNamara
Leader of Learning and Wellbeing for Van Thuan

REMEMBER YOUR LOCK

Students, it is a requirement to have a lock on your locker. Make sure you bring a lock next week.

JPC is not be responsible for items going missing if you have not put a lock on your locker.

Locks are available to purchse from the College office.

All year 7 students have been issued a lock. If you did not receive one please see your House Leader.

Celebrate JPC Athletes

We are working on a colours reward system to celebrate our JPC athletes. To do this accurately we will be issuing a survey to parents at the end of each term to gather information. It is important that parents please complete these forms, as it is our only certain way of accessing the most current and relevant information about our students’ achievements. Please complete the survey based on TERM 4 2022.

Link - https://forms.gle/K3TFGDvHdrj1DS738

Finally please continue to send the updates of those exciting sporting achievements as they happen so that we can share and celebrate on our socials and key messages. For those new to the school we have a “Sporting Spotlight” section in the Key messages digital newsletter that is sent out every Friday.

If you have any questions or concerns please get in touch my email is danni.jewell@cg.catholic.edu.au

Mrs. Danni Jewell
Sports Coordinator

JPC Netball

Trials for JPC weekend Netball are next week on Wednesday 8 February.

Please bring full PE uniform in order to participate. Without uniform you will not be able to trial.

Any issues or questions please contact Mrs Darmody (kym.darmody@cg.catholic.edu.au)

For an example of sporting spotlight click here - HERE

ENROLLMENTS FOR 2023 NOW OPEN!!!

Ever wondered about learning to play a musical instrument??

Here are some great reasons why you should sign up!!

2022 Outstanding Fees

If you have a balance of fees, 2022, please forward payment via BPay immediately. Bpay details can be found on previous statements.

Split Billing

For split billing, please ensure you have completed the required form and forward it JPC.Finance@cg.catholic.edu.au as a matter of urgency, as Term 1 fees will be invoiced next week. 

If you have a student not returning to JPC this year, please notify the College office as soon as possible.

Thank you 

Email - JPC.Finance@cg.catholic.edu.au

Parish Newsletter

For the latest news Click here or you can view it on the Parish App or visit the website below.