St Patrick's College Mackay - Term 2 - Week | St Patrick's College Mackay

Parent Engagement Session – Navigating Your Academic Journey
On Tuesday 5 May, we were delighted to host our second Parent Engagement Evening, "Navigating Your Academic Journey." A big thank you to those families who attended and contributed to the evening’s success.

Our Assistant Principal, Curriculum, Mr Dean Andric, walked us through the academic roadmap at St Patrick’s. He outlined how we tailor support for every student as they work toward their Queensland Certificate of Education (QCE). The session highlighted our use of TrackOne to keep a close eye on student data and growth, alongside our commitment to explicit teaching strategies, ensuring key concepts and skills are clearly and effectively delivered to every student. Also discussed was formative assessment, showing how consistent feedback gives every student the best chance at reaching their goals.

Ultimately, these evenings reinforce how powerful it is when parents and the College work together.

We look forward to seeing you at our next session on Tuesday 21 July – Parenting Teens with Insight and Empathy.

Parent Teacher Interviews – Senior Campus
On Thursday evening, we hosted our Year 11 and 12 Parent-Teacher Interviews. It was wonderful to see so many families and students in attendance. These meetings are a vital part of building a strong partnership between home and school. We value the open dialogue shared and look forward to our continued collaboration as we support our senior students through this important stage of their education.

Year 7 2027 – Enrolment Interviews
On Thursday, staff at the Mercy Campus met with prospective students for Year 7 2027 and their families. Interviews will continue over the coming weeks so I encourage anyone wishing to enrol in Year 7 2027 to submit their online enrolment application now.

Our first round of offers will be made on Wednesday 22 July 2026. Thank you to the many staff who have been involved in this collaborative process.

🌟 ENROL NOW 🌟
👉 https://enrol.spcmrok.catholic.edu.au/secondary-school-enrolment/start

Opening and Blessing of New Buildings
Our Support Services Centre has been completed and is now in full use. This centre is a permanent space for all counsellors, the Responsive Thinking Classroom, and the Learning Support team. Both the Mercy Hall and the Support Service Centre will be officially opened and blessed by Bishop Danny Meagher at 9am on Wednesday 24 June. More details will follow.

Senior Schooling Information Night
Parents and students are strongly encouraged to attend our compulsory
Introduction to Senior Schooling Information Evening on Tuesday 9 June 2026 at the Senior Campus Hall, River Street, Mackay. The session begins at 6:30pm (canapés from 6:00pm) and will run for approximately one hour.

This is an important session for all families as we explain the ATAR and Blended Pathway options, what they mean for your child’s future, and how the transition to senior schooling works. Understanding these pathways is essential to help students make informed subject and career decisions.

We will also clearly explain the senior syllabus, outline the transition process, and provide an opportunity for parents and students to ask questions and clarify any concerns.

As you would all be aware, next week, our Year 7, 8, 9, and 10 students will participate in their compulsory annual Retreats. These important experiences are designed to provide a dedicated moment for connection, reflection, and growth.

Across all year levels, the programs focus on assisting students in recognizing their inner gifts and strengths, developing self-understanding, and building meaningful connections with their peers. The retreats address critical themes such as community belonging, acting with integrity, and developing a healthy sense of self-worth, purpose, and direction. We look forward to these experiences helping our students grow in all aspects of their lives.

Year 7
The Year 7 Retreat experience will be conducted by Az Hamilton from ‘Just Motivation’, whose aim is to educate, motivate and stir the hearts of individuals to connect with small ideas that can bring about BIG change in the world. The aim of this Retreat is to assist students to recognise their inner gifts and strengths. They will explore how they are called to use these gifts and the impact they can have through their actions and presence. Retreat activities will assist students to personally reflect on how they belong to a community, in particular the St Patrick’s College community, and engage in building stronger friendships with those around them.

Year 8
Students will have the opportunity for self-reflection and to develop stronger friendships with their peers during their annual Retreat days, to be held at The Event Centre, Mackay Turf Club. This two-day experience will be conducted by ‘Project Hatch’, a Brisbane-based Youth Retreat team who convene programs of various topics and themes in schools throughout Australia.

The aim of this Retreat is to assist students to recognise their inner gifts and strengths. They will explore how they are called to use these gifts and the impact they can have through their actions and presence. Additionally, students will look at, through various activities, the importance of acting with integrity and authenticity, which will enable them to make a difference to others.

Year 9
Students will have the opportunity for self-reflection during their annual Retreat which will be conducted by Ms Jo McDade from Retreats by Design. The Year 9 Reflection Days are designed to help students grow in self-understanding, build meaningful connections within their year group, and deepen their awareness of God’s presence. It provides a ‘sacred’ - a moment to reflect on who they are, who they are becoming, and how God is calling them to live with courage and heart. The program moves students away from the busyness of daily life to foster deeper awareness and community connection.

Core Objectives
● Self-Understanding: Helping students reflect on who they are and who they are becoming.
● God’s Presence: Inviting a deeper awareness of faith and the calling to live with courage.
● Community Building: Fostering meaningful connections between students, peers, and staff.

Year 10
With mental health and wellbeing of grave concern for many, it is especially important for adolescents to develop a healthy sense of self-worth, purpose and direction. Reflection Days are critical opportunities to address issues such as unleashing their full potential, finding direction and purpose through goal setting and dreaming, building and sustaining healthy relationships and avoiding the traps of addiction. This time is also an opportunity to establish and strengthen relationships with peers. Students will listen to the inspiring story and important advice of Glen Gerrayn and apply the concepts he discusses to their own lives.

I look forward to visiting classes next week to reflect with students on their Retreat experiences, and I invite families to also discuss with their students the important topics that will be covered in their Retreats.

Blessings to all,
Andrea

The Wholeness Dimension
We call this final dimension the wholeness dimension, because it is the reconciliation of these two families of emotion that give us a sense of wholeness. It is important to note that these are not opposites, but rather two colours that when combined indicate how ‘complete’ you perceive yourself to be. It is possible to be in grief, and at peace at the same time, discouraged and optimistic.

Sadness is simply our neurological response to loss. Our ability to deal with loss with low arousal versions of sadness (disappointed) and maintain a positive mindset holding low levels of happiness (peaceful) will point us to a long and fulfilling existence.

Happy – A Summary
Happiness is the emotion we all like the most. It indicates we are calm and safe, which then allows us to feel things like love and connectedness. Happiness is not an emotion we can, or should, always be in, but finding ways to induce happiness can be very useful. Laughing for no reason can be a great way to inspire happiness in yourself and those around you.

When does it help? Happiness is the body’s way of regulating other strong emotions. This is why people often laugh after they’ve been scared at a sudden loud noise. Happiness also mitigates for extreme anxiety or sadness, but be careful - sometimes we need to feel the other emotions, and trying to make others happy when they are sad, anxious or angry can be uncaring and unempathetic.

What happens inside my body? Happiness is largely a reaction that happens in the brain and face. When happy, you can smile or laugh, and when mixed with a little excitement, can also result in clapping. You might see this after an amazing performance where people will stand, cheer and clap. Happiness produces an overall sense of lightness and peace, and can release dopamine in your brain to reinforce that something is good. When you are happy, all your worries seem to fade away, due to the chemical inhibitors that are also released.

1. PEACEFUL: The most restful form of happiness, peaceful, is the state that allows us the most control over our thoughts and actions. In a peaceful state, the brain is feeling safe, secure, confident and content with the present moment. When peaceful, all the muscles in the forehead and jaw relax, a soft smile emerges, and eyes are not fully open (there is no need to take in all environmental information).

a. This state is also the one experienced when people are working on something they love doing, simply because they want to do it (not because of an impending deadline or external expectations). When feeling peaceful, time can seem to fly past, as our internal time monitoring system is less active.

2. PLEASED: Pleased sits between the very low arousal of peaceful, and the slightly more intense happiness of optimistic. When we are pleased it is usually a level of happiness with a nice situation or a favourable outcome. The results haven’t necessarily exceeded your expectations, but you are pleased with the result. In this way, it is possible pleased can often be tinged with a hint of disappointment.

a. Pleased to meet you. Pleased to have achieved what we have achieved. Pleased that we are feeling better. When we are pleased we hold a small sense of hopefulness, and feel good about what we have achieved, or the situation we find ourselves in. The brain isn’t necessarily pumping dopamine (the feel good drug) into our system, but we are aware that things could be worse. In this way being pleased is akin to being grateful or thankful.

3. OPTIMISTIC: A slightly more energetic form of happiness than peaceful, optimism is all about hope and positive expectations of future events. When optimistic, people will often speak up more in group setting, and feel eager to ‘get stuck into things’ so they can reach the future state quicker and maximise the positive outcomes. Optimism can turn into irritation or frustration if someone seems to be undermining action with unrealistic negativity or worry.

a. Moving between optimistic, cheerful and peaceful is often an effective way to navigate many life situations where proactive energy is needed. Learning to find these emotional states and resist the temptation to move into an aggressive or fear emotion, helps us keep in control and be less reactive.

4. CHEERFUL: As humans we love to win, and cheerful is the emotion we feel when we are winning. Cheerful has more energy than optimistic, but is still in control of thoughts and actions (that can be lost in delighted and sensational). Medium levels of dopamine (the brain’s feel-good drug) are released when experiencing cheerfulness, resulting in a big smile and often some body movement to release energy (like clapping or thrusting fists in the air).

a. Cheerful, sensational and ecstatic are all emotions that are hard to maintain over a long period of time. Learning to experience these states for a time and then consciously dialling it back to an optimistic or peaceful state can be the key to feeling content and remaining within the family of happy emotions. Be careful not to use them to simply suppress other emotions. Remember, all emotions have their time and place.

5. DELIGHTED: The expression of delight is often mixed with a level of excitement and we are not always in control of our actions. When we are delighted to meet someone we often become unaware of others in a conversation, with our attention firmly fixed on the person we are delighted to meet. We are delighted when something unexpectedly good happens, or we meet someone we admire.

a. When we are delighted our brain releases serotonin and dopamine, two chemicals that make us feel good and immediately enhance our mood. The excitement that often accompanies delight causes our eyes to widen and our movements more pronounced (like shaking hands more vigorously, nodding, or having a slight ‘skip’ in our step).

6. SENSATIONAL: Sensational is sometimes referred to as being in a ‘blindly optimistic’ state. It is often experienced with an unexpected win, or at the beginning of something new and exciting (e.g falling in love). It can also be triggered by large groups applauding or recognising your achievements. It is a high energy state that can be exhausting after some time, which can lead to sadness while you recover mental energy and realign to reality.

a. It can be difficult to see the more extreme expressions of happiness as undesirable, but long bouts of sensationalism or ecstatic euphoria ‘overcooks’ the brain’s reward system and triggers the brain into a more depressed recovery mode.

7. ECSTATIC: Ecstatic is an expression of happiness most often reserved for events in life that are positive, unexpected, or that you have been looking forward to for a long time (like seeing your favourite performer on stage). Ecstatic is an extremely high energy emotional state, and people can feel depressed when coming down from a significant, ecstatic emotional state.

a. When you are ecstatic you are definitely not in control of your behaviours and actions. For some, fainting can be the result of being overly ecstatic, overwhelmed with the situation at hand, triggering a deep ‘sleep’ mode to recover. Enjoy moments of extreme happiness, but don’t stay there too long or work yourself into a frenzied state (where you may not remember much).

Sad – A Summary
Sadness is often explained as the opposite of happiness. It is a feeling of sorrow and usually makes us want to be by ourselves or with people we know really well. Sadness is usually a result of loss, grief, change, disappointment or a feeling of helplessness (when it seems like you are unable to avoid a future negative outcome or event).

When does it help? We need periods of sadness for our brain to recover from losing something that we had, or thought we would have in the future. At a higher intensity level this includes the grieving process - our brain’s way of healing the mental trauma caused by unexpected loss events. Try not to completely isolate yourself when sad - stay connected to loved ones.

What happens in my body? When you are sad you can feel ‘heavy’, low in energy and not inclined to talk a lot with others. Often this means you want to lie down and sleep a lot. Sometimes your body will want to cry, which is what it does when it needs to relieve pain. You may not feel like eating much, and all the muscles in your face that you use to smile will relax. Your thoughts also tend to slow down and motivation levels seem to fade away. It’s okay to go there, just don’t stay there. Take the time you need, but let other people in who can share the journey with you—even if you don’t feel like it, it will be helpful.

1. DISAPPOINTED: Disappointment is a mild expression of sadness, and often felt when faced with unrealised expectations in yourself or others. “I am disappointed at my marks on my English exam”. People often close their eyes or look down to help shut out the world for a bit and allow attention to be directed internally. Disappointment is also often felt when someone’s self-worth is being questioned, or they feel embarrassed.

a. It can be necessary to allow yourself to be disappointed when you need to. Allowing yourself to be openly disappointed can indicate you are in a safe place, and simply in need of some time and space. Try not to get frustrated at people who crowd your space when you feel disappointed in yourself as this will only make you feel worse. Just realise they are usually just concerned about you and trying to show love.

2. DISCOURAGED: Discouragement is an expression of sadness that helps us recover from failure, pain, hurtful words, or unrealised dreams or expectations. Drooping eyelids, downcast eyes, lowered lip corners, and slanting inner eyebrows all indicate discouragement and hopelessness, with the facial expressions of hopelessness more pronounced.

a. Discouragement is often a temporary emotion that can be alleviated by an encouraging word, or moment of humour, that helps reframe our circumstance and re-insert confidence and self-belief. This is different from more intense sad emotions (hopeless, grief or despair), where this approach can be seen as unempathetic).

3. VULNERABLE: Between discouraged and dejected we reach a state of vulnerability. This is the shaky ground that you reach if the loss you are experiencing is related to self-assuredness, is big enough to have an impact on your daily life, and results in you not feeling as secure as you did before.

a. Vulnerability is triggered when we lose something that has previously provided safety. This could be realising we are not as competent as we thought we were, or someone who helped us feel safe is no longer available to us. Vulnerability is often coupled with anxiety, and the present feeling of vulnerability quickly triggers a worry for what might happen in the future. Separation anxiety is often treated by establishing safe spaces and relationships that make people less vulnerable in the present, and therefore not longer worried about their future safety.

4. DEJECTED: We feel dejected when we fall short of our own expectations, or realise that something we hoped for will not be a reality. This is not as strong as hopeless, as it is usually directed toward a specific event, situation or relationship, and opposed to a more broad sense of general helplessness.

a. At the point of dejectedness in the sadness scale we see increased activity in different parts of the brain such as the thalamus, the amygdala, and the hippocampus - all parts of our unconscious brain. The hippocampus in particular is strongly linked with memory, and it makes sense that these highly sad responses are imprinting an awareness of certain memories in our brain to warn us in the future. When we feel dejected we are on the edge of slipping into a state of depression that is not in our rational control.

5. HOPELESS: Hopelessness is a higher energy expression of sadness, and usually reserved for times where we feel powerless and worthless, or it can be felt following other high emotional states, such as ecstasy, panic or terror. Sometimes people cry as a way of releasing energy and processing memories and emotion. Often there is a need to be close to others, without the need to talk or engage — being connected and safe is enough.

a. Feeling hopeless without reason or explanation can often move you to grief or anguish as you don’t know how you got into the state, and therefore don’t know how to get out of it. Time and patience is often all that is needed to move out of this state, but spending too much time there can lead to the more intense expressions of grieving and despair.

6. GRIEVING: Grieving is often the result of significant change or loss of someone or something important to you. Often people who are experiencing grief will want to isolate from social contact, and keep themselves in dark, comfortable places to privately process their thoughts and situation. People can have unexpected bursts of crying, which releases built up energy.

a. The five stages of grieving are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Going through this grieving process is healthy, and necessary in relevant circumstances, but extended periods of grieving can actually lead to emotional trauma and periods of deep depression. Knowing how to sense when you need to move through the different stages can be the key to mental resilience and finding hope.

7. DESPAIR: Despair is a state where the mind and body are so activated by sadness that your brain shuts down. It is often triggered by extended periods of hopelessness or grief. Being in a state of despair causes physical changes in the brain, overwhelming entire thought processes and motivating people to isolate and sleep.

a. The persistent expression of extreme sadness, or loss of interest that characterises anguish, can lead to a range of symptoms including dramatic changes in sleep patterns, appetite, general energy levels, concentration, daily routines and self-esteem. Unlike grieving, even if you can sense when you need to kick out of despair into a lesser state, it can sometimes feel impossible to do. You can feel like you are simply lost in the dark and can’t find the light switch. If you think you are experiencing long periods of despair, it’s a good idea to see a doctor or psychologist for help.

In our next newsletter we will unpack the differences between feelings, emotions and experiences.