From the Principal

Congratulations to the following students:

Our Grade 6 students who spent last week in Sydney and Canberra. It was a significant experience for many who would not have been away from home for so long. The teachers have expressed how proud they were of the students over the course of the trip. I am sure Grade 6 parents would join me in thanking the teaching staff for the care they provided the students over the course of the five-day trip.
All our Primary and Infants students who participated in the Athletics Carnivals over the past two days. It was a delight to see so much House spirit and students having a go at many different track, field and novelty events. A big thank you to Miss Keane for her organisation of the carnivals, to the staff and to our Grade 6 and Grade 8 helpers for their support.
The SCC Tigers Netball team who won their Grand Final convincingly on Monday evening.

Last weekend, Mrs Denise Arnold participated in the Point to Pub. Last year she went to the Pinnacle and has declared that it is her intention to do so again next year. Following the event, Mrs Arnold was telling me that there was a young man, Nedd Brockmann participating. She had recently read his autobiography. At just 24 years of age, Nedd has completed a number of incredible sporting feats to raise money to support those who are homeless. The most well-known achievement was the fastest ever to run across Australia, covering 100km per day for 46 days.

In his autobiography, Nedd talks about the contribution of his parents to shaping his character. He describes a time when he had been selected to represent his boarding school at a regional swimming carnival. Nedd had no confidence in his capacity as a swimmer so arranged for his mum to take him home to the family farm for the weekend. Nedd didn’t let the school know he would not be participating. When his mum received an email to say the bus had waited for Nedd on the Friday afternoon, she made him write an apology letter to each of those impacted.

‘To mum it is imperative that I accept responsibility for my actions and understand they have consequences, great or small. She knows that if I don’t, I’ll do stuff like this again. That I’ll run away from something hard or challenging rather than confront it, not just as a schoolkid but for my whole life. Mum never pushed me down a certain career path, but she did want me to be a man of my word. And as I’m learning from her now, that means understanding that spoken commitments carry weight, and that to be seen as someone dependable and loyal means if you say you’re going to be somewhere, you show up.’

Children and young people often make mistakes. It is normal. The main thing that matters is whether they can learn from these experiences. For this to happen, they need to understand the impact of their actions on others. That is uncomfortable. As parents, we want to protect our children from physical and emotional pain and it can be tempting to soften the impact on our children or young people. As in the case of Nedd’s mum, though, she wanted to make sure Nedd would think twice before trying something similar again.

As a school, we aim to follow up with students when they have made mistakes. One option can be a restorative circle in which students meet to acknowledge their actions and to apologise for the impact on others. This is an especially helpful strategy when there is more than one person who has contributed to a situation. While our follow-up may not be perfect and it can be difficult to ‘get to the bottom of things’ when the perceptions are very different, I am grateful for the support of families who work with us in helping children to learn through challenging situations.

Jodie Bennett

Principal