On Friday, we will farewell our Year 12s at their Graduation and those young people will start external examinations the following week.  One of the rituals we have each year at Graduation, is that we acknowledge our First Nations students who are graduating at the start of the ceremony.  Interestingly, a parent who had attended a previous graduation questioned me about why we construct the ceremony the way we do.  This person thought that this particular ritual, in acknowledging the First Nations Graduates, was a ‘segregation’ of those young people and almost an example of ‘reverse racism’.  The parent I spoke to argued that we don’t have a special ritual for other minority groups like students graduating who come from families where English is not their first language or who have persevered through disabilities or other

adversities.  Whilst that is true, at this celebration, we do ‘highlight’ our First Nations kids.  For most of our almost 250 years as a nation, successive Australian governments, Local, State & Federal, actively prohibited, restricted and obstructed Aboriginal Australians from being educated at all.  This has changed in recent years.  Getting First Nations young men and women to graduate High School is one of the key ‘Closing the Gap’ indicators for progress.  Schools, like Shalom, are doing that.  It is the only ‘Closing the Gap’ key performance indicators where the nation is achieving some success.  It will take many more years of supporting First Nations kids with their education to make up for generations of Australians putting road blocks in the path of those young people. And I hope that one of the many benefits of that education is that First Nations people will be able to write their own history rather than relying on an Indigenous history written by Europeans.   I believe that it is a good thing to do a little more to celebrate the achievement of our Shalom First Nations young people getting through to the end of Year 12.  As Catherine McAuley and Edmund Rice remind us, education is the key to breaking the cycle of poverty and disengagement.  Well done to all of our Year 12s and our graduating First Nations students.

Awards Night is one of our premier celebrations of the year.  It is an absolute highlight.  Tomorrow night, commencing at 6.30 pm, we will congratulate a lot of very worthy young people.  Parents attending that event to support their child or others are asked to be in their place ten minutes before the scheduled commencement and to stay through until the end.  It is a bit disrespectful to others to get up and leave after your child has received an Award.  It is always a good night and we do our best to make it as enjoyable possible.

Student Leaders 2026.. I’m very pleased to announce that the following students have been elected by their peers to lead the College next year. 

School Captains:  Hannah Parton (Hogan House) & Joon McMahon (Adams House)

Vice Captains:  Violet Graham (Lingiari House) & Thomas Elphinstone (Adams House)

I am very confident that the current Year 11 cohort will be outstanding leaders in 2026.  They will rise to the occasion.

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