Principal Report
As a member of the Principal Team at Oatlands I recently had the privilege of being involved in our recent School Review.
As Mr Wes Holloway has mentioned in previous correspondence, our school has performed exceptionally well throughout the process.
One aspect that I was very pleased to be part of was the panel’s conversation with our student leaders.
The students were asked questions regarding their: feelings about being a student at Oatlands, how they learn best, how teachers assist their learning and how they get along with their peers.
The leaders were very articulate and addressed all questions in a mature, honest and informative manner.
One topic that came up was ‘Bullying’ where our leaders basically said that they didn’t see bullying happening in the school and if it did happen then they felt that it would be handled effectively by the teachers or the principals if required.
Personally, I was pleased that our student leaders felt this way but I understand that they were only commenting on their own observations.
To say that there is no bulling at Oatlands would be a naive statement. However, the Principal Team, teachers and everyone else working at our school feel that we have the appropriate measures to deal with this issue.
If you as parents have concerns regarding this matter I suggest that you do the following:
- Talk to your children regularly about school, to get to know and understand what their day looks, sounds and feels like. This will assist you as parents in picking up changes in moods and behavior that may be consequences of bullying behavior.
- Encourage your children to speak up at school if they are feeling uncomfortable at school because of bullying behavior.
- Make sure that everyone in your family understands the meaning of the word Bullying: Bullying is the ongoing and deliberate misuse of power in relationships through repeated verbal, physical and/or social behavior that intends to cause physical and/or psychological harm. It’s not a one off thing, it’s an on-going issue.
The sooner issues are dealt with the sooner everyone is able to move on. I hear students and parents say that they don’t want to tell because it will upset the bully and things will get worse. My experiences indicate to me that when students displaying bullying behaviors are put on notice their behavior towards the victim changes as it is not in their best interest to continue the inappropriate behavior.
John Armao
Assistant Principal
