Principal
Fearless Motivation
This week, I was delighted to experience the joys of our Performing Arts Showcase at the Marie Bashir Hall. It was simply stupendous and as the night progressed, I reflected upon the fearless motivation and persistence our students have. Over and over again, I saw boys on stage playing in ensembles who also debate, play sport and contribute so willingly to SOL service.
It's the same boys each time! They take advantage of every opportunity and when they feel, they do not give up. They persist and improve. This is what I spoke about at our assembly last Friday.
Persistence - nothing can take the place of it. There’s no substitute, there’s no replacement for it.
Persistence - it’s a word that holds so much power.
Persistence - to set a goal, to have a dream, and to not stop until you achieve what you want.
Persistence is a quality of winners. I believe it’s within all of us and if it is within all of us…. it must be within you.
Nothing great can be achieved without persistence, because nothing great comes to those who quit when things get hard.
The will to persist through challenges, the strength to persevere in hard times; that is what will carry you from the bottom to the top, from no way to finding a way.
Not many people have persistence, and that is why not many people have the life they want.
These days, most people are looking for a shortcut, the new secret sauce, the next ‘get rich quick’ scheme, or the next super-secret ingredient, but truth be told, the secret is to get started… keep going and never stop… not through success and absolutely never through failure or challenges; that is exactly when you must persist.
We all want fast wins, but greatness takes time! You can’t rush your greatness; you have to put in the time. If you’re not willing to put in the time you don’t deserve the rewards.
If, in any field of your choosing, you’re willing to go the distance, willing to keep working improving and keep moving forward, you will eventually come on top - it really is that simple.
Set your targets and keep moving forward. Just don’t ever stop.
Read the stories of any great entrepreneur, inventor, sports person. They all have one thing in common – persistence. They stayed in the game longer than their competitors; they refused to accept temporary defeat as permanent failure; they kept going no matter what. And in the end, they gained their rewards.
Life - it’s a journey; a beautiful journey but a tough journey. It can be heaven, or it can be hell and a lot of people would claim it is hell. If you’re one of those people you can climb out of that hell, and the first place to start is by changing your own mentality. That might not be what you want to hear, but it is the only thing that is going to give you a drastically different life.
When you have strong goals, and your mentality is strong, you can face more, you can take more, you will persevere more and because of all of that, you will win more and enjoy life more.
Never stop moving forward! NEVER!
Obstacles… Challenges… Temporary Defeat… Whatever Comes… Keep Going!
Know that the only way to fail is to quit.
Persist and eventually you will win.
Do not stop!
Do not give up! Commit to yourself!
Will the journey be difficult? Yes.
Will you stop? No!
Will you feel like quitting? Yes. But will you quit? No!
You won’t quit if your goals mean something to you! So, make goals so powerful that it makes it impossible for you to give up!
Goals so powerful that when the world is against you, friends are against you, even you might be against yourself, you will dig deep and persist… through anything!
You don’t need talent. You don’t need to be the best. You don’t need to be the smartest. You might even start at a disadvantage… but if you are so committed to your goals that you will persist through anything, I guarantee you eventually, one day, you will come out on top and Yes! It will be worth it!
If you persist, something will give. If you persist, things eventually go your way.
Most people don’t go the distance - you have to be willing to go the distance! It may take you years to get to where you want to go. Most people aren’t committed for years; they’re barely committed for five minutes. I don’t know about you but I think it is better to trade a few years of struggle for a lifetime of pride.
Set your goals, get going and do not stop!
You say you want it? Well, you have to put in the long hours, you have to put in the overtime, go the extra mile, the extra step, the late nights, the sleepless nights, the hard times, the impossible times. Those are the tests sent for you to prove you deserve this.
Life is going to test you; it’s going to throw everything your way. I think these things are sent to see if you really want what you say you want.
Not everybody is willing to give it their all to get what they want; the majority will quit at any sign of resistance. But you have to be in the uncommon group of people that know what they want and won’t stop until they get it.
What can stop the unstoppable? Nothing.
Not every day will go well, not everything you try will work. You won’t always knock it out of the park and you’ll probably fail many more times than you’ll succeed, but what would happen if you set your goals and targets and just didn’t ever stop moving towards them?
Just think about what you could achieve if you always made that extra effort… sent that extra email, put in the extra work, worked overtime, did an extra set, an extra rep, the extra kilometre. Don’t look back in one year and wish you persisted through challenges.
Set your goals NOW and write a commitment to yourself:
I will persist until I get this goal!
I will not stop under any circumstances until I find a way to make my goal my reality.
Yes, there are people that may be more talented than you, people that have more money, more opportunity, more support, more help, more ability, more everything, but persistence will be your equaliser, your secret weapon.
You have it within you, you ARE special, and you have it within!
Keep moving forward…
Live Jesus in our hearts. Forever.
Surveillance Phone Apps
Giving a smartphone to your child is a modern-day rite of passage. You might trust them enough to use their phone only for games and emergency phone calls, but you can't guarantee that they're always using their phone for the right reasons.
In the last few weeks, I have worked with parents/carers who are at their wits’ end with the way their sons are using their devices. I am not a fan of ‘spying’ on children however, some parents/carers are finding their sons are addicted to their devices and to inappropriate sites. I have had cause for concern with young tweens being exposed to hardcore pornographic material and senior boys who are genuinely addicted to gaming. Inappropriate use of social media is normalising abhorrent behaviour and images and affects the ways that boys relate to one another and their friends outside of school.
For the record you need to be 13 years or older to be on Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook or Discord and yet, in our investigations, younger students do have unfettered access to these platforms and can quickly fall into some tricky situations.
Turning to surveillance apps can put your mind at ease. These apps can keep track of your kid's smartphone usage, and some can even monitor their current location. This way, you'll never have to worry about your child's safety both on the web and out in the real world.
To be clear, I am not advocating that SPC parents/carers should be surveillant of their son’s internet activity. However, for those of you who have concerns and who simply cannot monitor their children 24/7 or when their devices are with them alone in their rooms, these apps may assist you to monitor usage. Perhaps a trial? I have been put onto this by a few parents who use them successfully to monitor their son’s usage and some have even alerted us to the boys using social media during class by hotspotting and avoiding our Wi-Fi restrictions!
1. MMGuardian
MMGuardian gives you total control over your child's web access, messages, app use, and contacts. To get started, you have to download the parent version of the app on your phone, register for an account, and then download the child version on your kid's phone.
Once you download both apps, you can enable all MMGuardian's features. Not only does it come with a map to visually see your child's location, but it also comes with a feature that lets you input schedules and tracks your kid at specific times of the day.
MMGuardian also allows you to block specific contacts and unsafe websites. If you're suspicious that your child uses their phone too much, you can set time limits that will lock your child's phone at certain times.
If you are worried about who your child is messaging and what they're saying, you can use MMGuardian to manage that. This feature makes it a very versatile cell phone surveillance and parental control app for both Android and iOS.
Download: MMGuardian for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)
2. Kidslox
Kidslox is another parental control system that offers tons of features on Android and iPhone. It is also available for desktops for your convenience.
This app allows you to easily lock the apps that you don't want your child to use. You can also set a particular screen time for your kids and block inappropriate websites on their phone.
As a parent/carer, you can also set the daily limit of data and device usage for the kids, or block apps during their study or sleeping time.
Kidslox has cross-platform support that allows you to manage all the devices that your child uses. Moreover, you can also set up a fingerprint ID to make the apps on your kid's phone password protected.
Other than that, Kidslox has a solid location tracking feature as well. You can view your child's location history for a whole week and can set up notifications for when they are in different locations.
Download: Kidslox for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)
Dr Vittoria Lavorato
Principal
SPC boys can do anything!
**except divide by zero