What a lovely celebration we had last weekend for our 40th Anniversary. Thank you everyone who was involved in helping to make it a special day, especially members of our Community Council, families and students from the choir and our current staff, who were just wonderful.

I would like to include here my welcome speech that I feel reflected the feel and spirit of the past and present community members who gathered that day:

Welcome to St John the Apostle Primary School.

Welcome to staff, students, families past and present. We are very glad to see you.

We would firstly like to acknowledge the Ngunnawal people, who have walked on and cared for the land we celebrate on for thousands of years. We acknowledge their deep spiritual attachment and relationship to country. We acknowledge Ngunnawal elders past and present and also extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples present.

In 2004 my wife Moira and I first stepped foot in the foyer of St John the Apostle Primary School to enrol our son Eoin, who would begin Kindergarten the following year.

We had moved from Adelaide in 2001, joined the St John the Apostle Parish, and wanted our children to experience a parish-school connection that would provide a foundation for their own faith in the future.

Soon after, our daughters Roisin and Saraid followed, and the year after Saraid graduated from Year 6, I began my time here as Principal of St John the Apostle Primary School.

It has been a privilege to be members of this school community for fourteen years. Our time at the school and parish will always be one of the fondest and warmest set of memories in our family story… and I know that we are not alone in this experience.

Families, staff and clergy from the last 40 years will have shared very similar experiences. All of us present today, and many more who would like to be here but are unable to, will have stories to tell of their time at St Johns: of laughter, of tears, of joy, of hard work, of compassion, of kindness and of passion. But mostly,  as Fr Michael Fallon msc would say, one of the long line of msc priests we have been blessed by, all of these experiences have come from a place of love: love for our children, love for our families, love for our colleagues, love for our community. God’s love has been present here in this community for a very long time.

As I look out at those who are present here today to help celebrate our school’s anniversary, I think we are all here for very similar reasons. Each of us has been part of a story that has been unfolding for 40 years. We are like wonderful characters in a great classic novel, who each appear, quite purposefully, in different chapters. Some of us appear early, some of us appear later, and some of us appear repeatedly through different stages of our lives, in and out as the themes are threaded along the journey. And yet each chapter, each person in the story of St John the Apostle Primary School has contributed to its richness, its depth and enabled it to become, of itself, a powerful sharing of God’s love to so many.

I felt this most keenly when I spoke on Friday with Ken Evandan, founding Principal of St Johns in 1979. It was like talking to an old friend, who has stood in the place that I was standing, who knew the trees that I looked out upon through the window, who knew the very bricks of this hall we celebrate in today. While we have never met face to face, we both knew we were connected together in this great story.

While each of us here today first came to St John the Apostle Primary School for our own needs, whether for our work or our children or both. I like to think we each recognise we have received something much more, something else that we never expected. Among this school community we may have found friendship, acceptance, confidence, opportunity, knowledge, skills or simply love and belonging.

And so St John the Apostle Primary School (its people and its life) has become a chapter in our own personal stories and in some small way, helped us each to become the people we are today.

Let us gather together in Eucharist, thanking God for the story and the community of St John the Apostle Primary School. Grateful for the work and commitment of those past and present and asking God to continue to allow us all to be united in love, truth and courage.

Class placements for 2020

A reminder form last week that if you would like any particular educational needs for your child to be considered as we construct the classes, please put this in writing to me at Matthew.Garton@cg.catholic.edu.au by Friday 8 November. Your emails will remain confidential. Request for particular teachers will not be considered.

Thank you all for the privilege of being part of this community.