Our dad’s group Male Connect held their 5^th annual Paper Planes and Pizza night on Friday 28 February. This group focuses on Year 7 students and their fathers, father figures and significant male role models. In total, we had 88 attendees, which is a great turn out. Events like this cannot happen without the support and care of many staff. So I would like to take the opportunity to once again thank Terase Killin, Keith Mills, Nathan Marks, Mark Bonnici, Brandon Karakatsanis and Vic Olbromski from IT, Kylie Beynon, Brenda Donnelly, Trent Claridge and maintenance team, and Dan, Jane, and Kasey from the canteen.

The purpose of Male Connect is to involve fathers, father figures and significant male role models from the community into the school to work with our students and become positive mentors to not only their own child, but others as well. There is an increasing amount of research that shows initiatives like Male Connect,

“recognise the importance of school partnerships with families. The research shows that by specifically targeting fathers, ‘schools will see significant additional benefits for the children and for the school as a whole’ and The Connection between father’s and their children inevitably becomes stronger”.

To further our understanding of this, we had the pleasure of our guest speaker Dr Wayne Warburton (wayne.warburton@mq.edu.au) who presented his research on adolescent development and gaming. Dr Warburton is happy for you to contact him if you would like further information about his research and programs he runs for adolescents and gaming.

Positive feedback was given by those present indicating that it helped them understand how to have a better connection with their child and help alleviate the possible ‘addictive’ aspect of their child’s brain by changing patterns of behaviour.

After lots of running around playing basketball and table tennis while the dads were listening intently to Dr Warburton, the students were eager to get together with their dads and show their prowess in making planes and throwing the furthest. The overall winner was Lachlan Maxwell with a whopping 18 metre throw. All in all, everyone had fun, even the adult men gave it a shot to show “how it’s done”.

This event takes place every year with our new Year 7 cohort. We can’t wait for the next one and continuing making the connection between Year 7 students and their fathers and significant male role models in their life. So if you know friends, family or you may have another child entering St Edward’s in 2026, please pass on the message that this takes place.

It was great to seeing all those who attended the event. It is greatly appreciated and warming seeing you so involved and engaged with your children.

With Gratitude
Marcus Missio-Spiteri (School Counsellor)