Welcome to the website of St Thomas More College.

Our aim at St Thomas More is to provide an excellent all-round education for every student. Our College opened in 1974 and from inception developed a strong commitment to the pastoral ...

Supporting our High Achievers through the Academic Extension Program

The Academic Extension Program offers high achieving students in Year 8 and 9 dedicated classes that seek to support them as they pursue greater depth and breadth in their key learning areas and aspire to excellence. 

Academic Extension classes offer a faster pace of study in the acquisition of knowledge stage to enable students to focus on extending, refining and using knowledge meaningfully through the development of higher order thinking skills.

While all students need to be challenged, students in the Academic Extension Program work with like-minded peers and access extension activities that unpack the mandatory Year 8 and 9 curricula at a more sophisticated level.

Within the classroom context, students are encouraged in their creative and divergent thinking and take part in complex individual and collaborative problem solving.

Teachers of students in the Academic Extension Program meet regularly to share expertise, to feedback student progress, and to coordinate activities across the key learning areas. This ensures closer monitoring of student needs and allows teachers to discuss and plan for individual mentoring of students.

The Academic Extension Program acknowledges the need for differentiated curriculum and learning opportunities for high achieving students and provides a positive, challenging and supportive classroom environment in order to achieve this.

What’s in a Vision Statement? Live it, Learn it, Love it

Last week I attend a meeting of Brisbane Catholic Education Principals. The day included a presentation by Professor Frank Crowther. Professor Crowther spoke of the importance of school vision statements and the way schools promote their key values through their vision statement. He began by taking us on a tour of school signs and the statements which are invariably placed under the name of the school. What do these statements mean? Are they simply marketing grab lines? Do schools really do what the statements promote? Interestingly, he began this tour of school statements by recounting the time he drove past a school with the statement ‘our students are the pride of the suburb (location withheld)’ written under the name of the school. Now aside from the challenges of measuring such a statement, it does provide an interesting starting point about what do schools really mean when they make a vision statement under their school name.

On assembly this week I spoke about our vision statement - Faith Learning Community. These words have been on our College signs, stationery and advertising for some years. Last year we added the words Live it, Learn it, Love it to the words faith, learning and community. Our purpose was to show that faith, learning and community are not just words, but are words we ask our students to enact at our College. These actions make our students better individuals and our College a better place. They underpin what we do in providing a holistic education - an education with the intention of developing in our students, a faith that is lived, a promotion of learning and a love of our community. This is because we believe that education at St Thomas More is not simply preparation for life but is about life itself. A life underpinned by our faith, our learning and our connection to community. This is our vision for our community and it tells others what we value in our College.

Being a Catholic school with staff and students who have a clear vision does not mean that we will not face adverse challenges. But it does mean that when do have times of hardship, we have a set of values and a connection with each other that will see us through the hard times. In times of challenge we take comfort in our faith that God will be there for us, and that our faith will be our guidance and strength.

This sense of connectedness during hard times was exemplified by the community of St Columban’s last week. We heard the terrible story of the knife incident and saw the through the media, a College in shock and disbelief. 

In the aftermath of the incident, Principal Ann Rebgetz’s letter to her school community, refocused the community by referring back to their College vision - Act with respect, Learn for life - through faith and understanding be caring for each other. By referring back to these statements in her letter, the community  gained much comfort and reassurance during this difficult time.

So I return to the school vision statement that says our students are the’ pride of the suburb’ and ask you to see the difference. Our vision must be one that calls us to action and one that we turn to when times get tough. The letter to the St Columban's community  showed that their College vision is not just a grab line under their school sign, but one that is lived by their community. I trust that all in our community know the importance of Live it, Learn it, Love it – as we build our faith, learning community.