Social Justice

Fundamental to our school’s vision and mission is the call to be the face of Christ through our MJR (Making Jesus Real) program. The core values of this program are kindness, justice, compassion and forgiveness.

At St Patrick’s, we have a responsibility to help the less fortunate in our community. The students are given a myriad of opportunities to help the poor through daily and class contributions to our Mission fund. Every day the students are given the opportunity to donate to the coloured letterboxes as well as the class project compassion box during the season of Lent.

At St Patrick’s, we participate in the following fundraising initiatives:

Project Compassion
Winter and Christmas Appeal – for our local community of Cessnock
Farmers Appeal – cake stall initiated by students of St Patrick’s to help our drought-stricken farmers
Catholic Mission Day – a presentation by Richard Cootes
Mini Vinnies Day – held in Term 4 each year - run by Year 5 and Year 6 students
Lots of Sock’s Day – Down Syndrome Awareness.

St Patrick’s encourages the students to propose other areas for social justice work at a local level. From year to year, this is in response to the needs of the local community. Winter and Christmas sees our school participate in an appeal for canned goods for our local community. Each Christmas, the students visit the local aged care facility to sing carols, chat and spread some Christmas cheer. The staff of St Patrick’s are exceptionally proud of the students here and their independent willingness to be the face of Christ.

The three levels of leadership at St Patrick’s are:

School Leaders

To meet and greet visitors
To introduce guests at school assembly
To speak at assemblies about the school
Be prepared to formulate a speech for an event
Lead morning prayer and liturgies
Represent school at functions both CSO events and in the wider community
To facilitate school assemblies daily and Friday assembly
To be positive role models in the school
To be attentive to the needs of the students and teachers within the school environment
To meet and greet visitors
To facilitate school assemblies on weekdays and Friday assemblies
To hand out certificates
To participate in school liturgies
To represent school in wider community
To be available to support teachers and students

Sports Leaders

Organise sporting events i.e. School Athletic Carnival, Swimming Carnival etc
Hand out equipment each day at lunch time and retrieve equipment at end of lunch
Support sports committee personnel
To ensure that safety pads are placed around poles each morning
In charge of the retrieval of balls etc. that go out of bounds
Maintaining the sports equipment and Sports shed in an orderly manner
Organising ‘House of Chants’ and coordinating students on sports carnival days

School Committee

Organise the Mission Well to be put out each day and then count it each Thursday/Friday. Present a report at the Weekly School Assembly as to how much raised
Monitor the tuckshop lines
Make sure both flags are raised each day and also lock school gates and teacher car park gates at 9.15am each day. Gates are unlocked at 2.45pm each day
Report to librarian each week to see if any jobs need doing and also read out library awards at weekly assembly.