Last week I got a letter from a parent concerned about the bullying their child was receiving at Shalom. I hate hearing stories like that and, to the greatest degree possible, staff at Shalom will do their best to ensure that every young person coming to Shalom feels safe at school every day. In further discussions with this parent to try and identify where the issues were, she told me that her child reported some incidents to various classroom teachers and did not get the matters addressed well. I asked if the child reported the incidents to their Head of House. They did, once, and it would seem that the Head of House addressed that incident. The parent went on to tell me that their child ‘feared retribution’ if they reported bullying. She also told me that if the child reported every bullying incident, the child would be in the office every day. There are a couple of issues here that I want to remind every parent about –

1. Report bullying incidents to the Head of House – not to classroom teachers who can be dealing with three or four different classes in a day and not get around to responding as well as they’d like to every issue.
2. ‘Snitches Get Stitches’ is a motto widely circulated by bullies. They don’t want anyone reporting bad behaviour. I can’t say this never happens at Shalom but I can’t remember an incident when it did. If a student, or a parent, won’t report incidents, there is not much anyone can do to address the issues.
3. When a student is counselled on the first step of our anti-bullying process, it is reasonably gentle. If a student then repeats that action, we have a very different scenario. A Head of House, or one of the Student Welfare Team (Mr Brown, Mr Robinson or Ms Hilton), need to be informed ASAP.

I wish I could guarantee the behaviour of every one of our almost 1600 students, but I can’t. What I can guarantee is that if we are made aware of an issue, we will respond. If we don’t succeed in changing behaviour the first time, it is crucially important that someone informs us of that. Feeling safe and treating everyone respectfully, at all times, is a foundational principle of a good Catholic school.

Farewell & Welcome… at the end of this week, Mr David Eke will leave Shalom to take up a role with the Diocese. David has been an outstanding member of staff. Among other things, David led our Responsible Thinking Process. David was an excellent member of the Pastoral team and he will be greatly missed. David is to be replaced by Ms Kym Hilton, who joins us from Education Queensland. Kym is returning to the region after a significant stint in Mt Isa.

QISSN & QISSRL competitions always take place in the first week of the Semester holidays. This year, we are hosting the 25th QISSN Carnival which is very fitting given that Shalom hosted the first Carnival back in 2000. The QISSRL Carnival is to be hosted by The Cathedral College in Rockhampton. These young women and men have been training for months in preparation for these carnivals. The QISSN Carnival will be staged at both the Multiplex Complex and Shalom. If you are in Bundy or Rocky next week, you are welcome to attend either event and watch some wonderful school sport.

I will be on Leave in Term 3. Childless now (well, at least they are not at home anymore), Sheridan and I are heading overseas for a while. I’ll be back for the last week of Term 3 so that I can attend the Year 11 Retreat and I will make a guest appearance at the Shalom Formal. Ms Norris will step in as Acting Principal and Ms Freeman will step into the role of Acting Deputy Principal. I am so grateful to have such capable colleagues ready to step up to give me the opportunity to have a little time away from work.

Mr Dan McMahon
Principal
Daniel_McMahon@rok.catholic.edu.au