Dear McAuley Families

Last week we celebrated the opening and blessing of our refurbished classrooms and learning areas with guests from Catholic Education and local member Kristy McBain.  The opening highlighted the $2 million plus that has been spent over the last two years on facilities upgrades with more to come as we apply for grants and develop building concepts into the future.  My speech is below for your information.

Our school is firmly grounded in the devotion, dedication and commitment of the Mercy Sisters. Their work evolved directly from the charism of Catherine McAuley their founder.  Catherine McAuley was an innovator, a woman who worked to bring to life her goals.  She saw a need for women to be educated in literacy and numeracy.  She planned, contributed and constructed a house for this to take place.  She was generous, using her own inherited money for this work to happen and continue for the poor of Dublin.  She was collaborative, using and enhancing the skills of others to nurse, teach and journey with those on the often on the fringe of society.

It is that charism that we, the staff and families of McAuley work to continue today and into the future.  That dream of growth, building, innovation and collaboration comes to a reality for us as we move into Senior Schooling next year and work to prepare the Graduating Class of Year 12, 2024.

We are grateful for the support of the Commonwealth Government Block Grant Authority, the financial and personnel support offered by the Catholic Education Office and for the shared vision and encouragement of the teams of experts who collaborated to bring this project to completion.

We are fortunate to have a supportive parent community led by Natalie Bartlett, our Community Council chair who shares our desire for our students to learn and work in the best possible environment, taught by expert teachers and achieving the best possible outcomes. 

I am deeply proud of our excellent teaching and support staff who teach with care, compassion, and expertise to assist each and every student to grow and improve.  Their own grounding in the Mercy Values continues our culture of hospitality, compassion, dignity and justice.  We create and maintain an atmosphere of excellence – all sustained through a spirit of Mercy.

Our dreams become reality through our simple but powerful school motto “Believe, Strive, Achieve…” these renovations and our plans for the future are concrete examples of that pledge and are a fine achievement created through teamwork, research and action.

I am confident that those lay and religious people who have worked in this school for some 140 years would be in awe of the progress we have made and equally in awe of the future we will achieve as we move into Senior Secondary Schooling utilizing the most cutting edge and innovative practices.

We know as Colin Powell said “A dream doesn’t become reality through magic, it takes sweat, determination and hard work…” for that determination, hard work and even the sweat (!) I am very grateful.

Thanks to our School Leaders both senior and junior for your hospitality and welcome to our guests and to our Year 5/6 students who are the first classes to benefit from our renovations.

Special thanks to Miss Mason our REC and her team of helpers who have worked to make today a meaningful and memorable occasion for our community.

We continue to make excellent progress in staffing appointments.  It adds to our excitement to have such high-quality expert staff wanting to work at our excellent school. Following another round of recruiting we have made a small number of appointments in both primary and secondary campuses.

We are almost there with a couple of small gaps to fill!

In a Year 11 update we will be able to soon clarify fees (knowing that CE have offered around a 35% discount on tuition fees for the graduating class of 2024.  A laptop lease program is about to be finalized also where student laptops will be provided at somewhere close to $80 per term.

We have had the expertise of Karen Ruppert here this week.  Karen is the Catholic Education VET representative and is finalizing pathways with apprenticeship (ASBA) students and VET (Vocational Education Training) options.  It is excellent that we can support our students in tailored pathways that embrace opportunity moving forward into the future.

Mary Our Mother Look After Us.

Eamonn Moore

Principal