PRINCIPAL REPORT

From the College Principal

Dear Parents, Guardians, Friends, Staff and Students,

I hope this finds you well.  

Firstly. I would like to thank you for supporting the school for a very smooth beginning to the school year. In general, students have settled back into the routine of learning quite well. Unsurprisingly, after last year, students are happy to be back at school and engaging with, not only their teachers, but their friends as well. 

So, whilst students have returned to school full of enthusiasm and energy, we, as well as my colleagues at other schools, have noticed a couple of differences to what we would normally see at the start of any other non-COVID year.  

A number of experts, particularly Kirsten Douglas, a senior clinician at Headspace, have noted that, in general, all members of society, but particularly our children and vulnerable people, are experiencing heightened feelings of anxiety and vigilance because of the uncertainty caused by the pandemic.  

This chronic, heightened level of vigilance and anxiety can have some negative impacts on student learning and on the performance of all of us in our interactions with other people.  

As Kirsten described it to the principal forum I attended last week, when the limbic system in our brain is in a heightened state of arousal, we are more likely to exhibit behaviours that come from that system, that is, those commonly called fight or flight. This is because information (or stimuli) has to pass through the limbic system before it gets to parts of our brain such as the frontal lobe, which deal with executive functions such as emotional regulation. This means information may be reacted to by individuals before the section of the brain responsible for higher order thinking and emotional regulation can kick in, and the reactions generated by these “lower” order parts of the brain are often fight or flight, and are typically accompanied by a large emotional response. 

This can result in all of us experiencing a loss of resilience or control at times. You may have seen this with your own children. You may have asked them to do something around the house which they have done a hundred times before, but which after COVID, has resulted in an emotional reaction which was either confrontational (fight) or avoiding (flight). 

The worst case scenario is when this emotional response fires up the first person’s limbic system, and the result is a screaming match or similar.

In talking to colleagues across the school system, there certainly seems to be more of this type of emotional dysregulation going on in schools at the moment.  

So, what can we do to help? Given these moments of emotional dysregulation often have underlying anxiety, or a heightened sense of stress of vigilance as a root cause, interacting with your children (and us with our students) in the calmest most caring and kind way possible is a great start. This means the troublesome limbic system is less likely to fire up, and result in a messy emotional response. 

When managing behavior or expectations, asking questions rather than making allegations is also a good strategy. An example from the classroom, which could easily be adapted to the home, might be this. Rather than saying, “Richard! You haven’t started your work, get on with it please.” a better approach might be to ask calmly, “Richard, is there any reason why you haven’t started your work?” Framing things as a question forces the student to think of an answer, which immediately causes them to use parts of their brain which includes those bits which drive executive function, including the ones concerned with emotional regulation. At home, you might substitute “cleaned your room” for “started your work.” 

If we are all aware how the current environment is impacting all of us, I hope we can all take steps to avoid firing up each-others’ limbic systems by exercising as much care and kindness as we can. To avoid all doubt, I am not advocating ignoring unacceptable behavior, or lowering expectations. I am just asking all of us to think about how we go about doing those things. 

All the best. 

Yours sincerely,

Richard Minack

Principal