Emmaus College, a school that sings

Karen Jebb has ‘the best job in the world. There’s no doubt about it!’ she says. The Catholic school principal of 17 years is passionate about education, learning and leadership, and more so, in ensuring her students always know ‘how loved they are by God’.

Speaking of her vocation to be a teacher and principal, Karen says, ‘Catholic education brings a real richness and depth to it, an acceptance of the whole person’. ‘I just want every student to know they’re loved for who they are, that they’ll find their passion in life and that you get much more out of life if you give. That’s what we want our young people to leave us with, knowing that they can contribute to the world with hope and with a real optimism.’

This is a message that has been central to Karen’s teaching and principal career, which spans more than 30 years. Her love of teaching started, however, many years before. From a young age, she grew up in a practising Catholic family home. She attended St Damian’s Catholic Primary School in Bundoora, followed by St Monica’s Catholic College in Epping. Here, she developed a ‘real passion for learning’, particularly in the areas of maths, science, physics and computers.

‘I pursued teaching because I really loved learning and I had some really good teachers that inspired me,’ she says.

I had a real passion to want to know more—I’ve always had that, and those teachers really promoted that in me, and they helped me to learn. I could see what they were doing that made me a better learner.’

Karen’s first full-time teaching role was at Santa Maria College in Northcote, where she worked for nine years. She says, ‘Once I started teaching, I just loved it right from the start and I was happy to teach anything even though I had my areas of expertise. I put my hand up for anything which gave me a real breadth of experience.’

‘I was really lucky because I came in with the teaching method of computers and the College wanted teachers to embrace the technology within their classes. So in my first couple of years I was in a whole lot of different classes helping them teach computers across the curriculum.’

Karen applied her computer teaching knowledge in English classes, in Science classes, and in various Humanities classes. ‘It was fabulous because I saw such an array of teaching in my first few years. It couldn’t have been a better transition into teaching,’ she says. ‘I saw what was possible. I saw the way different people taught and I embraced all of those different things.’

Having excelled as a teacher at Santa Maria College, Karen was encouraged to take on the role as Year 8 Coordinator, and later as Year 11 Coordinator. This then led her to MacKillop Regional College in Werribee where she was appointed Curriculum Leader in the computing department, along with various other VCE leadership roles including Acting Deputy Principal Learning and Teaching for one year, and then appointed officially to the role for the next three years.

‘That really took me on a path of significant leadership in the school,’ she says. ‘I was the only female in the male leadership team, so I was able to bring a good perspective to that and a different way of thinking.

‘I became really passionate about leading in that area and in really improving learning outcomes, looking at the curriculum, looking at our program, and then looking to the future particularly with technology. We became a leading school in that area.’

Wanting to increase her expertise in leading Catholic schools, Karen also studied a Diploma of Religious Education and went on to do a Post Graduate Degree in Theology through University of Divinity. Those studies ‘really added to that richness of my leadership in a Catholic school setting,’ she says.

Karen took on her first principalship role at Our Lady of Sion College in Box Hill, where she worked for 11 years, followed by five years at Genazzano College FCJ in Kew.

New beginnings at Emmaus College

At the start of this year, Karen commenced her role as principal of Emmaus College in Vermont South, which has a second campus for the Year 9 students in Burwood. Having commenced the role in the midst of Victoria’s COVID-19 pandemic, she’s already had to lead the school through a number of lockdowns. She says, ‘On the whole, given the circumstances, it’s going well.’

‘We started the year thinking that we got through the worst of the pandemic last year, but it hasn’t really gone away,’ she says. ‘But what I’ve found at Emmaus is a real openness to adapt. It’s a very collegial staff, a very positive staff and although it hasn’t been easy, and there have been challenges, the staff have just embraced it. We have the processes in place, so the staff and students have pretty well seamlessly transitioned into it, which is phenomenal.

I think more than anything COVID has taught us that we’re “people” people. Relationships are important, those social connections are important, and I think there’s a real craving for that at the moment – being around people.’

Karen says daily ‘wellbeing check-ins’ with the students has been crucial during this time of school lockdowns and remote learning. They have access to a pastoral teacher, a team leader, the assistant principal and Karen, who personally enjoys keeping in touch with the students.

‘I had a beautiful meeting recently with our senior student council to check in with them.

We have Emmaus Day coming up, on 5 September and we’re not sure if we’re doing that on campus or not. So, we’re trying to come up with some ideas as to how we can celebrate the day. The students connected in, they had great ideas, and they’re enthusiastic. Those things just make your job such a delight,’ says Karen. ‘They’re resilient and they want to do great things for others.’

Karen says during the challenging moments, it’s the students themselves who provide so much life, energy and passion for what she does as a principal. ‘In Catholic schools we have so much going for us because we have young people who journey with us. They might be less connected to their parish, but they’re very well connected to the school and they have such a great energy and enthusiasm. Young people love social justice; they love helping people out.

There’s so much out there now about mindfulness and things like that but Catholic schools have been doing that forever. It’s been about our faith and about our spirituality. It’s about taking time to reflect on God’s place in our world.’

‘Our young people do have a natural spirituality; they do have a natural faith. It’s about giving them the language and the opportunities, and really putting them up front and centre about it and engaging them in it. They love it. They love it through music, they love it through dance, and they love the quiet times, too – those times of meditation, stopping and thinking.

‘If we can do that through a Catholic lens, in a faithful lens, getting them to understand that God loves them, that God is a significant part of their lives, then that just sews that seed for them as they go beyond us. We have them in a secondary school for six years, and our job is to really sew that seed, to sew that passion, to sew that understanding of God’s faith and God’s love. They’re loved unconditionally. They’re special for who they are.

‘There’s that dignity of every single student and who they can be. That’s the message and it’s an exciting message for our young people.’

Emmaus College recently celebrated the ‘turning of the sod’ in what will become their new Creative Industries building, focussing on music, media and technology education. It will feature a sound studio, a recording studio, a theatre and 16 instrumental classrooms. Karen says, ‘We really want to build our music program in the school,’

A good music program is really important in every school. I want us to be a singing school. Singing brings so much joy, not only in faith but also in life. It’s good for your mental health to sing and people in general love music, so I really want to see how we can take that journey forward.’

Affirming this with Scripture (Exodus 15:20), Karen says, ‘Miriam is a beautiful Scripture character that brings up the tambourines and dances for joy in God’s light. I think that’s a really lovely image for us.’

The motto of Emmaus College is ‘To know Christ’ with students choosing a different theme each year in which to know Christ. In 2021 the theme is ‘New beginnings.’ ‘It’s fitting,’ says Karen. ‘A new year, a new principal, and each time the school comes out of lockdown, it’s a new beginning!’

And for Karen, she continues her ‘new beginning’ where she began – with her passion and commitment to student learning and flourishing.

‘My faith and doing what I’m called to do keeps me energised,’ she says.

‘And I want to keep that message to young people at the forefront: that God is actively a part of our life and to really embrace that. And to see themselves as people who bring a passion to the world – that kindness and gratitude – and that we’re here for a purpose, so embrace every minute of it.’