From the Principal

Thank you to the teaching staff who accompanied Year 4 and 5 students on camp last week. While the weather was unpredictable, it would seem the students had a wonderful time with some amazing activities.

Our Primary and Secondary chess teams also competed last week in an inter-school competition. Both teams won their division and have qualified for the state championships. Special commendation goes to Jethro Sih (Year 6) who was undefeated in the Primary division. A wonderful achievement!

Our main event for this week is the Year 10 Passion Project exhibition. I want to commend our Year 10 students on the effort and commitment they have made to developing their presentations and thank Mrs Dianne Vanderplas for her coordination of the project.

Self-disciplined

As I was walking in the supermarket on the weekend, leaving the store was a slightly frazzle-looking mum, trying to wrangle her toddler who was protesting loudly. ‘I don’t know what you are so upset about,’ she exclaimed. The reality is that there was probably no good reason why this little person was so upset. Something had triggered a wave of emotion, and it probably overwhelmed them. Even as adults we will have those days when we are tired or stressed or hungry, when we lose connection with our rational self and can be surprised by the intensity of our response.

Many years ago, I was introduced to Dan Siegel’s concept of the upstairs and downstairs brain. It is a simple analogy that helps us to understand how all of us respond in different situations. It is especially helpful in understanding how children operate.

The downstairs brain is the location for our reactive, intuitive responses to stimulus. It is the source of automated responses. When under threat, our fight, flight or freeze response kicks in. For the toddler in the supermarket, he was operating from the downstairs region of the brain. (I think mum was likely being pushed into that space as well.)

The upper brain is the area for reasoning and reflective. It guides our intentional planning and action. Where the downstairs brain can be quickly activated and uses little energy, the upper brain can be harder to activate and burns through large amounts of energy and can tire quickly. When we are trying to work on higher order skills, it can be especially hard to get going. It can feel like getting a heavy object moving. It can feel like our downstairs brain sabotages efforts to get into the upstairs zone, finding numerous distractions and diversions.

Students need to use their upstairs brain frequently during a day at school. As teachers, we try to create routines that can help this to happen. We know the biggest challenge for a class is getting started on a new task. Getting stuck into homework or assignments can be so much harder if there are not routine and habits that help cue the brain to start moving into the right ‘head space’.

The Year 10 Passion Projects required students to apply upstairs thinking to plan and execute their projects. They couldn’t come together if students only worked on them when they were ‘in the mood’. I hope our students will come to understand how important these planning and management skills can be in many contexts.

Helping students understand more about how their brains work and how they can use this knowledge to pursue their goals is not just about setting students up for academic success. It is about helping them to know how they can move closer to being the person they want to be all they are called by God to be. I am reading John Mark Comer’s book, 'Practicing the Way' which explores the value of making space to embed the spiritual disciplines into our lives so we can more fully experience life with God. Again, he emphasises the role of routines and triggers to build ways of being that support our spiritual growth.

Here is a link to a video that could be used to explain the idea of the upstairs and downstairs brain to students up to about Year 7.

Jodie Bennett

Principal