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.
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