This week is National Reconciliation Week. In a year when we will be asked to vote on the Voice Referendum, this reminder of the reconciliation process is particularly pertinent. I’m sure many of you, like me, watched the clip from Q&A in which Stan Grant explained why he is stepping back from journalism for a while. I thought what he said was pretty powerful. Grant spoke about the toll that social media comments have had on him and his family. Toxic ‘keyboard warriors’ seem to be a malignant cancer in Australia. Stan Grant seems to have attracted awful vilification from a segment of society because of his aboriginality and opinions he has made public. We’ve seen the same thing happen to indigenous sports people who excel. It is so sad and an appalling blight on our society where people still seem to be judged, not on their character or ability but on the colour of their skin. In his final remarks on Q&A, among other things, Grant said:

“Many of you would know by now that I'm stepping away for a little while. Sometimes we need to just take time out. Sometimes our souls are hurting and so it is for me. I've had to learn that endurance is not always strength…. To those who have abused me and my family, I would just say if your aim was to hurt me, well you've succeeded and I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I must have given you so much cause to hate me, so much to target me and my family, to make threats against me… I'm not walking away for a while because of racism. We get that far too often. I'm not walking away because of social media hatred. I need a break from the media. I feel like I'm part of the problem and I need to ask myself how or if we can do it better.”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbITk8cDBjg 

Surely our country and our society can be better. Sadly, anyone in public life seems fair game for trolls. But if we don’t all call that out, every time, might they think that such behaviour is OK?

Reconciliation Week is a chance to again have a look at our country’s ‘Closing the Gap’ aims. There are six areas the Government is trying to address –

• Childhood Mortality
• Early Childhood Education
• School Attendance
• Literacy & Numeracy
• Year 12 Attainment
• Employment
• Life Expectancy

In the most recent report published (2020), in none of those areas are indigenous outcomes anywhere near as good as those for the rest of us. The ‘Closing the Gap’ initiatives look to bring indigenous outcomes closer to those for the rest of the community. The report shows that there are two areas where the gap is closing a bit - Early Childhood Education and Year 12 Attainment Goals. Not so in the other areas. In Early Childhood Education and Year 12 Attainment, indigenous young people are still at a significant disadvantage, but the gap is getting smaller. As I’ve listened to both sides of the Voice debate, I have heard some who support the ‘No’ campaign claim that a successful Voice result in the referendum will ‘divide the nation’. If the statistics related to ‘Closing the Gap’ are accurate, we are already a nation clearly divided on racial lines. I am really pleased that it is in the Education space that we are making some progress. It is as true today as it was for Edmund Rice, Catherine McAuley and Mary MacKillop who all recognised that the best way to get kids out of poverty was to provide a quality education.

School Satisfaction Surveys – these have been dropping into your inboxes over the last week. As of Friday, we had only about 10% of parents complete this survey. This gives the College good feedback from parents about what is working well and the areas we need to continue to work on. I really hope you will find a little time to complete this survey thoughtfully.

This Week we have the Bundaberg Show Holiday on Thursday and we have a Student Free Day on Friday to enable teachers to work together on Curriculum delivery. Saturday night is our College Formal which, I have no doubt, will be another wonderful and joyful occasion.

Attendance Data – as we approach the middle of the year, I am really pleased to let the community know that across the College at the moment, our attendance rate is 92% which is a significant increase from this time last year. This is a really pleasing result and I want to thank parents and care givers sincerely for your support in encouraging your child/ren to be at school, dressed well and ready to work.

Mr Dan McMahon
Principal
mcmahond@shalomcollege.com