Volume 6

Year 11 History students from left to right: Isabella Todaro, Emma Speranza, Jimmy Handley and Aiden Milligan 

On Saturday, 22 April, I had the great fortune of joining four of our wonderful History students, Isabella, Emma, Jimmy and Aiden, at a very moving Kokoda Track Memorial Walkway service at Concord. Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Garth Callender gave the ANZAC address. LTC Callender was Australia’s first serious casualty in the Baghdad war after multiple deployments. He spoke about those who had served before him and the bravery of these men and women. He also talked about the support that returning service men and women receive, highlighting that, as a nation, we are getting better at supporting these members of our community. During the service, LTC Callender emphasised the significance of commemorating and honouring the positive aspects and the strong connection between Australia and New Zealand on this significant day for both countries.  

Our upcoming community event, Open Day, is fast approaching on Sunday, 7 May. It's a special day when our students showcase their talents and share their work with the wider community. I am grateful to the students who will lead this showcase and always appreciate their pride in representing our school to visitors. Our students are truly our best ambassadors. I encourage our current families to visit the College on this fantastic community day and join in the celebration.

The “call” comes from God and demands response.  That “response” comes from me or it does not.  God’s respect for my free will to accept or reject is never compromised. Christian tradition teaches that the natural human response to the call of God is to respond, because that is how we are created.  Baptism is the opening up of a relationship with God and God’s people.  It is the beginning of eternal life. How my Christian life is lived becomes a journey of discerned discovery.

Benedict understood this and wrote about it with great poignancy in the Prologue of the Rule:   
Seeking labourers in the multitude of people, God calls out again: “Who is the one who desires life and longs to see good days?” (RB Prologue 14)  And a few verses later, Benedict says: “What, dearest ones, can be sweeter to us than this voice of God inviting us?  See, in loving kindness, God who shows us the way of life.” (RB Prologue, 19-20)  Augustine also wrote about God’s call in his Confessions: “You have made us for yourself O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”  Benedict and Augustine are putting into their own words what Jesus said in Sunday’s Gospel: “I have come so that they may have life, and have it to the full.”  This is what our baptism opens up for me, for us - fullness of life here and now.

God’s call to me, to all of us, comes in many ways.  There is no “better” way than any other.  If I listen in order to hear God’s call to me, I will hear it.  Of that I have no doubt at all. Wherever the call of the Good Shepherd leads me, it will only be life-giving and life-affirming, no matter what happens on the journey.  Jesus warns of strangers along the way, but says the sheep who hear his voice will only follow him, “they do not recognise the voice of strangers.”  

Every member of our Rosebank community is called through their baptism. We are called to be who we are meant to be in the service we are called to give right here and right now.  Whether that call is to be a student, a teacher, oblate, a leader, a support staff member, a caregiver, a parent, a service provider, that is where God calls me to be.  My response is to listen and respond, and to allow the promise of Christ to be fulfilled - life to the full.

Next week the community will honour our mothers and all the women who love and have loved us.  If you are looking for one of the great responses to the call given in baptism, you need look no further than our mothers, grandmothers and all women who give their lives for the sake of others. 

Dr Paul O'Shea  
Dean of Ministry

Rosebank College has made a commitment to support staff across the College with their wellbeing. Staff started on The Flourish Movement journey last year, completing Modules 1 and 2 across staff days in June 2023, and have engaged in the sessions, led by Dean of Learning Mr Gregory Georgiou, during this year’s staff meetings and then again on Monday, at the ‘Flourish and Faculty’ Staff Day.

During the Staff Day last week, the full staff body gathered in the Benedict Auditorium to reflect, discuss and share in strategies from The Flourish Movement. Each member of the College workforce have been encouraged to fully commit to their wellbeing, which has been an ongoing part of the Professional Learning program. Staff say it has led to a greater understanding of how to develop a greater focus on their individual wellbeing, having impacts in various areas of their lives.

The Flourish Movement has been a significant professional and personal development journey, implemented to help each member of staff gain an understanding of strategies for longer lasting feelings of buoyancy,  building positive workplace and family relationships which is reported to be having a positive effect.  With such a commitment to our staff body, we will continue to come back to the tenets of The Flourish Movement to build on the strategies gained as we move through Term 2 and beyond.

Teaching staff also continued on engaging in their professional development with a focus on implementing high yield teaching strategies focussed on at the 6 March ‘Teaching and Learning Day’ and Professional Learning Network meetings. This meant collaborative conversations and activities to share practice and review evidence based, researched pedagogy.

At the 6 March Staff Day, teachers split up into cross-faculty groups to have rich discussions about best ways to develop pedagogy and teaching practice to further build on a culture of learning excellence in their classrooms. Specific teaching strategies known to have a high impact on student outcomes, confidence and wellbeing, were focussed on and presented to staff through the Deaneries of Learning and Professional Learning and Culture. Full staff presentations on research of best practice such as collaboration in the classroom, multiple exposures to building skills and content, eLearning technique, literacy, questioning techniques and learning how to re-engage high potential learners have been topics of NESA accredited workshops and professional learning so far. With a deliberate focus on creating a classroom with a balance of challenge and support, teachers worked together to shape and articulate a common understanding of teaching and learning elements which create a learning environment of excellence, where all students are encouraged to achieve their personal best and fully engage in our Good Samaritan education.

Last Monday’s professional development Flourish and Faculty staff day followed on from the 6 March Teaching and Learning Day, with a reflection on the chosen Rosebank priorities - evidence-based teaching strategies which teachers are implementing into new and revised units of work. As we continue to work together at staff days through the term, and subsequent Professional Learning Network meetings on Tuesday afternoons, we continue to support our teachers to create learning cultures of excellence in every classroom, for every student across Rosebank College.

Since then, Giancarlo has completed the AFC professional coaching diploma, football's highest coaching qualification run by Football Australia. "It was a lifelong ambition when I started coaching that I wanted to reach the highest qualification," he said. “I didn’t think it was possible because coming through the New South Wales system it’s very hard to get on the pro licence course. Everything went my way with getting the job here at the Phoenix and then being accepted onto the pro.” “I’m going to build on the playing style that Uffy has put in, but with my own new ideas. I’m really looking forward to the challenge.”

“A message for aspiring coaches: just work hard, people will eventually see your good work. As long as you have good processes and you’re about the game first, there’s always a possibility you can do well.”

Congratulations to Giancarlo!

Sam Crosby (2000 Rosebank alumni), former Labor candidate for Reid and the current Executive Director at St Vincent de Paul Society NSW, has received the 2023 Fulbright Professional Scholarship in Non-Profit Leadership.

The Fulbright Scholarship in Non-Profit Leadership supports emerging leaders in the NFP sector to undertake research in the United States for up to four months. Sam will use the Fulbright scholarship to meet with prison reform experts, current and former prisoners, not-for-profit leaders, researchers and legislators. Ultimately, Sam hopes to observe and understand programs that can be adapted to Australian environments.

“I am so honoured to be the recipient of the 2023 Fulbright Professional Scholarship in Non-Profit Leadership,” says Sam. “With Australian prison populations increasing at worrying rates, the cost to society in human and economic terms is an avoidable tragedy.

The United States has an enormous prison population but also has some interesting innovations that are leading to real results, and decreasing repeat offences. The Fulbright Scholarship is a chance to speak to the leaders in their fields and better understand programs that we can import back to Australia.”

Congratulations Sam, we look forward to watching where this research opportunity takes you.