Editorial

Term 4 is underway, and many of our staff are in 2025 planning mode while still investing in their students. It is a very busy 2024 term, with many activities coming up, and they want to finish the year well.

Of course, at this time of the year, we think of our Year 12 students, who are facing big exams and feeling very much under pressure. I wrote to you recently because the press picked up that there was a petition against Plenty Valley no longer allowing the muck-up part of the end- of-year celebration for our seniors.

Unfortunately, words like entitled and spoilt were used to describe our students in response to the paper and radio articles. That is an unfair characterisation of our students.

This year the Year 12 students have come up with the idea of a “Leave a Legacy” tradition and they have raised money to purchase two benches for our bus bay. They want to leave an ongoing contribution to the college. This was also the group who produced leadership that enabled our college to raise a massive $24,000 for Cancer Research. They have also been a cohort who have been very involved in the life of the college and supported each other.

We are rightly proud of them but that doesn’t mean that all of them are altruistic all the time. That just wouldn’t be human. One of the things we do here at PVCC is to set our expectation and model Godly character but give our young adults some room to make mistakes. That is how we humans learn. Occasionally it doesn’t look so good at the time, but we see their character grow as they learn from their mistakes. In my experience, sometimes it is years later that the learning finally kicks in. Parents know that is always true.

Our college community is the same. Most of us do the right thing most of the time but occasionally some of us don’t.

Only Drop Students Off and Pick Students Up from the front Main Carparks

Accidents happen when people do unexpected things like drive their cars where they are not supposed to be. One of our students was almost hit by a car in the area near the Junior School and Administration Office because a parent chose to drive up the hill to drop off their child. Please do not do this between 8am and 9 am or 3pm and 3:45pm when students are walking unescorted in that space.

Ribbons and Helicopter Parents

Did you know that the generation who received encouragement ribbons just for participating in competitions are now entering the workforce? This is the same generation who had helicopter parents who flew in to “fix” things for them if there was some personal or academic challenge happening at school or anywhere else. As employees, this generation tends to need constant positive reinforcement to be able to get through the week. They are not good at resolving work challenges by themselves and expect someone else to step in and fix it for them. Employers report they are not as resilient as previous generations.

I remember what it was like, as a parent when our most loved child has a difficulty we do want to fix it. But it appears that immediate fixing can create other issues later. However, there are times when we should step in for safety reasons. It is a fine line knowing when to step in and when to let them go, to develop strength and resilience, as they sort it out themselves. It is important that we take a long view of our child’s development.

Being a parent is one of the most important things we will ever do and there is no instruction manual. At Plenty Valley, we want to partner with parents in the nurture of their child. We recognise that God has given the parents the responsibility of nurturing their children, but teachers are trained to understand how children develop and learn so we can help you. That partnering is an essential part of being part of the Plenty Valley Christian College community.

Welcome back to our partnership as we journey toward the end of the year.

New Leaders in 2025

In 2025 Plenty Valley Christian College will grow to about 950 students. To ensure that we serve those students well we will now have Principals in both Primary and Secondary schools.

After a robust application and interview process, I am delighted to announce that Mrs Rebekah Kearney has been appointed Primary Principal and Dr Chris Prior will be our Secondary Principal next year. Most of you will know Mrs Kearney who has taught at PVCC for 10 years and served as Early Years Coordinator and mostly recently served as Head of Sub-School. Dr Chris Prior has served as principal at Mountain Districts, Bayside and Heathdale Christian Colleges. He has been working at PVCC, helping us out, for the second half of this year and it seems he has enjoyed his time with us and is keen to stay.

I can also announce that in line with our, soon to be published, Strategic Plan we are appointing Mr Craig Ogden as Director of Christian Formation at the college.

They will join me as the newly titled, Executive Principal, Mr Daniel Symons as Director of Learning and Teaching and Mr Peter Bain as Business manager making up the new executive structure of the college.

The rest of the leadership structure will remain in place for 2025, and we are currently advertising for a Head of Sub-school, Early Years to replace Mrs Kearney.

It is our hope that this new leadership structure will strengthen each of the schools and create a robust structure that will effectively serve our families as we grow toward 1250 students on this campus of the college.

John Metcalfe

Principal