From the Principal's Desk

We are racing toward 2025. With Term 4 in full swing, as we always expect, 2024 is on course to provide the requisite challenges and opportunities for all. Years 6 and 8 Camps have occurred and Years 2, 3, 4 and 5 are at Camp this week. These camps were, and will be, full of fun, challenges and memories to last a lifetime. Examinations are looming for Years 7 to 10, and the Class of 2024 have almost finished writing their final papers. Sitting alongside this, the Class of 2025 is showing us their style. So, there is limited time to sit and muse with so much occurring. This is as it should be.

I have had the pleasure of meetings with fellow Principals last weekend, as we do each Term. Although our meetings are full of weighty issues impacting all schools in our Independent Sector, and indeed across the sectors, these meetings take place in member schools. I appreciate the opportunity to not only view the facilities elsewhere, but more importantly interact with the young people who generously guide us from our cars to our meeting rooms. It is these interactions that show me what is so special and honourable in our profession. For schools can have extraordinary buildings and every resource imaginable, yet the way the students interact with others, and adults especially, is so vital. Being able to engage in conversation, looking people in the eye, using appropriate language, please and thank you… whilst seemingly trite to many, are critical skills. I hope that students are Pittwater House are adept in these areas. On my Tours with prospective parents, the interactions with our students are always noted as a major take-away at the end of my Tour. 

All this gets me to the point I wish to discuss, that of gratitude. For my observations across society suggests that many have lost the art of using those two simple, yet powerful words: thank you. 

Gratitude, where we acknowledge with sincerity others for a kind act, or a favour or gesture seems to be strangely out of fashion. And I wonder why? Surely it is not that we feel so superior and think it beneath us to appreciate the kind deeds of others who we deem ‘inferior’ or think that those supposedly ‘beneath’ us should feel honoured to assist and support us. Is it that we don’t know how to say thank you anymore? There is no place for a misplaced sense of entitlement or self-centredness. If this is so, then our society is heading for an almighty fall. Time honoured traditions and accepted niceties are not old fashioned, they are the core of a just and meaningful society.

And whilst I am proffering these remarks, how difficult is it to acknowledge with a short note, or at least an email, thanks for experiences, gifts from grandparents, neighbourly deeds or service workers. Hearing appreciation for efforts is sadly on the decline. We are all responsible for establishing these guidelines and ensuring our children are schooled beyond school; working together we can ensure that tomorrow’s adults and family leaders make our world, a happier, kinder and more gracious place. And let us be proud Australians, rather than apologists, whilst we are at it.

Never forget that education has the power to transform lives. In all elements of schooling, whether on Campus or in your home, schooling must be a force for good in the world. Beyond the classroom, our need for family and community must be strong in our thoughts and actions. We need to prepare our students for a bright future, aware of the potential and not weighed down and burdened by that which daily feeds our inbox. It is by committing to causes beyond us that we are more likely to see light, rather than darkness. 

I urge everyone to look out from Collaroy. In these final weeks of the academic year, how can we positively impact those in need? Let us reject the omnipresent focus on individualism. 

I look forward to engaging with you in the weeks ahead.