Principal's Report

You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realise this and you will find strength.

Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor 161AD-180AD

Here we are passed the halfway point of the term and hurtling towards the end of the school year. The much anticipated Middle School excursion has been completed with rave reviews from all involved; Academy students are completing their Trial Higher School Certificate examinations this week and our Academy II students have only three and a half weeks of formal secondary schooling remaining. 

If the word hasn't passed around I have returned to our school. I will continue to deliver training to the executive staff at both Duval and Armidale High Schools in preparation for their impending amalgamation but from here on in it should not impinge on my time at our school which is and has always remained my primary focus despite my absence. It is interesting that they have made a decision to implement the HOW2Learn framework that we have started to utilise at our school. This just reinforces the notion and the need for all schools to be sharply focused on learning.

I have often argued that the problem with schools is that everyone has been to one and therefore believe that they know how they run. All schools have begun to be different from what we recall from the moment we left them. What I did at high school in the 1980's bears little resemblance to what we do now and will do in the future in schools. The question I guess is why?

Our school system was initially developed as a response to the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The system largely provided workers with the necessary basic skills in literacy and numeracy required to employed in the new industrial enterprises of the age. Whilst this core business of basic skills remains a fundamental underpinning of the system it has long been the case that the sole purpose of the education system is NOT to prepare students for the workforce. It is part of what we do but only a tiny part. We have a much bigger role in imparting knowledge that is considered culturally, socially and economically important by our society.

Advising our children on what might be the 'right' learning path based on what we ourselves did at school 15, 20, 30 years ago is not wrong - it is usually just not all that relevant to the world of now and the future.

To some this sort of discussion might sound frightening; or it might be something that one disagrees with but the core central truth is that change comes to the way we all live and will continue to do so even if we tried to stop it. Our best weapon against this sort of change is to arm ourselves and our children with the best skills to enable them to ride the wave rather than be swamped by it.

I'm very glad to be back.

Have a wonderful fortnight.

The capacity to learn is a gift;

The ability to learn is a skill;

The willingness to learn is a choice.

Frank Herbert (1920-1986) Author of Dune