Deputy Principal

Welcome back

Term 3 brings the start of a new school semester. It is time for our students to evaluate their learning from Semester 1. Over the last few weeks of last term, parents/carers and students had the opportunity to go through their school reports and gain a valuable insight into their learning by attending parent/teacher meetings. For some students, going through this process reinforces the hard work that they have put into their studies and the positive collaboration that exists between students, teachers, and parents/carers. For others though, it is a time to reflect on some of the things they have done well and just as important some of the things that they need to improve on.

There are some students who believe that the only time they need to do any work is when they have a test or assessment the next day. They leave things to the last minute and then they try to get everything done the night before. For many students this does not work, and their results are a direct correlation to the amount of work that they have put into their preparation. 

Consistency is the key for our young men. However, getting that message through to them is not always easy. As a parent myself I have had to have the same conversation with my own son who is in Year 10. While he puts the work into some subjects and gets good grades, there are other subjects which he says he is not interested in or are boring and therefore does little work. As a parent I am sure a lot of you will share the same frustrations. My son has a Mathematics assignment due next week. So, over the holidays we made him sit down and work through it. The frustration of watching him try to do an assignment without working through set examples was heightened by us trying to enjoy a holiday with our children.

I do not know all the answers to the issue I have raised above. What I do know as parents is that it is important that we hold our children accountable. There were days where my son wanted to go out to see his friends, yet we made him stay home to work on that assignment. We made a deal with him that he had to do some work each morning on the assignment before he went out. My son thinks he is a good negotiator - ‘I will do it tomorrow’, he promised. Yes, as parents we told him ‘You will do some more tomorrow, however, you will also do some today if you want to go out’. There was no negotiation.

I am sure that I thought it would be easier to parent my children as they get older. Who would have thought I would have to ask my own children to do their schoolwork? I do know that playing a long game is important. Holding him accountable is important. My son has had to write down his goals for Semester 2, academic, co-curricular and social. That is something tangible we can hold him to. Your sons should be working through their goals with their homeroom teachers. Ask them to see their goals. We need to continue to ask questions of our sons and be involved in their education. While it may not be easy, the alternative for some students is that they will say do not worry, it will be all right. For some that is true, but for most boys they need our support, and they need us to hold them accountable. Our sons need to realise like we do as parents that their hard work will pay off in the end. They may fight against it but eventually, by the end of Year 12, my experience is that they will say ‘thank you’.

Adrian Byrne

Deputy Principal