St Paul’s Vision and Mission Statement

Vision:

 We walk together in faith towards

a future filled with hope and love.

Faith - we are growing in God’s love

Hope – we are creating our tomorrow

Love – we have love for ourselves, each other, our creation and our learning

Mission

Our Mission is to provide our students with a high quality Catholic education filled with opportunities to thrive academically, emotionally and spiritually. We foster respectful relationships that nurture a safe environment and promote responsibility. We work in partnership with our community to lead strategic school improvement and stewardship of our charism and our resources.

Our charism and our school expectations

The Vision and Mission Statement embodies key teachings of St Paul (1 Cor, 13:13) regarding ‘faith, hope and love’. The Vision Statement is brief and can therefore be simply articulated to the school community. Key words and phrases from the Vision Statement are visible within the school – foyer, courtyard and classrooms. The Mission Statement further outlines our core business as a Catholic school and encapsulates how our school’s ‘3 Bs’ (Be safe, Be Responsible, Be Respectful) can be transferred in a mature sense.

Outlining our ‘preferred future’

The Vision Statement gives a strong sense of a preferred future and hope by including the words ‘towards’, ‘future’, ‘hope’, ‘creating’, ‘tomorrow’ and ‘learning’. The Mission Statement includes the phrase ‘filled with opportunities’ that promotes the idea that the opportunities are evolutionary and will continue into the future. The visual of ‘walk[ing] together’ and the phrases, ‘respectful relationships’ and ‘work in partnership with our community’ provides a sense of a three-way partnership between school-students-parents and the partnership within the St Paul’s Parish and the wider community. There is a focus on hope for the future for our relationships with God, each other and our earth.

The Vision statement conveys a strong message that learning is important at St Paul’s – we are ‘creating our tomorrow’ and we have a ‘love…[of] our learning.’ This is supported in the Mission statement, ‘opportunities to thrive academically, emotionally and spiritually’.  Embedded in this is the intention that our students will develop a love for their learning and develop the skills and faith needed to navigate their unknown future. Love of God’s creation and ‘stewardship’ is also included to give a sense of hope for the future of our physical and environmental resources.

As a tool for decision-making

It is always important that decision-making comes from a firm foundation and having a clear vision and mission for the school enables this process. This Vision and Mission Statement has strength in that it encompasses the school’s Catholic ethos and charism of the school, it sets ‘love’ and ‘respect’ as the basis for relationship building and conflict resolution and it has a strong focus on meaningful, future learning opportunities for students. This guides the Leadership Team of the school in their decision-making i.e. How does this situation /opportunity allow our students to grow in their relationship with God? How does this learning assist our students in creating their own tomorrow? How does this situation /opportunity help our students in developing their self-efficacy, their relationships with others and their stewardship of God’s creation?