Dear wonderful Loyola College Community,

Just as quick as 2025 started, we are now fast approaching the end of another fantastic year. It has been an absolute pleasure meeting, working, collaborating and spending time with many of you. It has been a very special time for us and we want to thank you all for these experiences, opportunities and your ongoing support. Loyola has been such a vibrant environment to be in and has been completely attributed to everyone in this college, making this community whole.

The calendar this year was jam packed with so many events where every student had the opportunity to excel and thrive within the school environment. The annual College House events of Athletics, Swimming, Eisteddfod, Debating and many more showed the ongoing active willingness and eagerness of the students to participate. It is always amazing to see all the events filled with so many people and we hope this continues to grow into the future. We had also seen events such as the College Musical Shrek, the ACS Carnivals, the Singapore STEM Tour and so much more which showcased the College’s fundamental tenet of Cura Personalis, which truly is developing the whole person. 2025 also saw the announcement of the new Orange House. This is an exciting new prospect for the College which will broaden opportunities for years to come. This is Loyola history in the making and you’re all living through it.

We also had an overwhelming number of fundraisers this year, in our opinion (not statistical), the most we’ve ever had in a year. This demonstrated the dedication of the student body to assist such great causes from a variety of charities which everyone embraced in huge support. A highlight this year was our St Ignatius Day Walk fundraiser from which donations go to the various house charities including the Caroline Chisholm Society (Chisholm), Jesuit Social Services (Mannix), Redfern Jarjum College (Flynn), McAuley Community Services for Women (McAuley), MacKillop Family Services (MacKillop) and Jesuit Mission (Xavier). We smashed our goal of $30,000 and raised over $60,000 which is an absolute credit to the amazing community Loyola has, always willing to offer a helping hand to those who are in need.

At the very beginning of the year we had set out clear goals for ourselves, to make school a more engaging and enjoyable environment to be in, as well as trying to bring excitement to the College, whilst continuing our proud traditions. We believe we have achieved this in 2025 and set foundations up for a bright future at the College. By being as approachable as we could, we ensured that we could break down barriers and make sure that the student body could be represented in full. We ensured that we upheld the responsibility of the role of College Captains whilst showing the school that it is okay to have fun and a joy to be a student at Loyola College. By implementing and supporting initiatives in the College Committee, Loyola Student Council (LSC) and Service Portfolio’s, we were able to see this vision out.

As a collective, the College Committee was able to set up four major goals: Reviewing Aspects of the PD Program, Revising Leadership Awareness within the College, Promoting Student Voice and Engagement and Reviewing the Teacher/Student Relationships, all of which had rates of success within the College and set out to benefit the future in some way or another. The College Committee also ran the Staff vs Student Netball and Soccer Matches, both raising donations for charitable causes. The Loyola Student Council had two major initiatives: the highly requested Uniform Reforms and the many smaller College Life projects. It also ran a successful LSC Week. On top of this the LSC helped fund the new bus shelter inside the school grounds, which has recently opened. The Service Portfolios also had successful years with their initiatives, such as The Ice Bucket Challenge, The World's Greatest Shave, The Watermelon Eating Competition, Wellbeing Week, and so many other exciting projects, which help solidify the phrase being people with and for others. Thank you to all the students involved. What you have achieved this year is something each of you should be immensely proud of and which you can look back on with fondness. Well done on all the hard work and effort that was put in this year.

We would also like to thank key members of staff who had helped us, guided us, and had their fair share of 1 am emails - Mrs Salmic, Ms Sudano, Mr Luczek, Mrs Paino, Mr Brasier, Ms Solomon, Mr Tran, Mrs Leutchford, Ms Scott, Ms Freeman, and all the other teachers that helped us along the way. It has been a hectic process, and it has always been comforting to know that teachers, such as yourselves, were here to support us, and see us and the whole school flourish. To our biggest supporters - our families. You have and are always there for us no matter what and have given us an abundance of support and love and helped guide us through our journey, not just this year, but every year. Thank you for being with us and helping us cherish every moment. We couldn’t have gotten to where we are without you. And the biggest thank you of all has to go to the students. Each and every one of you are the reason we do what we do, and because of that, makes our jobs so much easier. Your waves, smiles, salutes and bouts of questions are what got us through a crazy year, and we hope we did you, as your representatives, and this College, proud.

It feels like not that long ago we were both just starting our journey as College Captains. Today, it comes with great joy that we’d both like to welcome Angelina Badawi and Simon Adi-Purnomo as next year's College Captains. We are both confident that Angelina and Simon will serve the role to the best of their ability and that they will lead the College to great places in 2026. We would also like to wish next year's leaders the best of luck for the year to come.

We say this now with mixed emotions that our time at the College is almost over. It has been the greatest honour and privilege to serve, lead and be a part of Loyola College. Thank you for trusting our vision and enabling us to lead the best we can. Thank you for creating memories with us that we hope you will remember for a lifetime. As we enter our final weeks at the College we want to wish this community the very best for whatever the future may hold and that each and every one of you lead lives that are full, filled with joy, learnings and love.

Marlo Johnson and Kai Simpson
2025 College Captains