From the Principal Team

A Safe and Happy Christmas Break

It has been a long term and a long year filled with so much excitement, activity and growth. As teachers and students pulled together portfolios this week and Year 6s worked on their memory books, students had a chance to reflect on what they have achieved and where they have come from. 

The reporting models and achievement standards of the curriculum don't always capture this or make it clear to a parent, which is why it's great to view in combination with the portfolios so you have something more concrete to compare and celebrate. 

Parents have access to digital copies of the reports in Compass now and these can be downloaded and stored for later use if secondary schools or other organisations require them. 

I am sure that many families will be starting to head off on holidays, be they adventurous or relaxing, organising for family celebrations, or madly trying to figure out how to make everything work at home with bored and restless kids. However you will be spending your next few weeks, we hope that everyone is able to enjoy the special time with family that is not just an opportunity but an absolute necessity. 

Being the youngest in my family, I am the very unreliable brother who always gets caught up in work and forgets to stay in touch (and always gets reminded about it) but I am looking forward to relaxing at home and having my mother visit from Tassie and spend some quality time with our children. 

Approaching Change with Gratitude and Optimism

As we approach yet another New Year, we will no doubt all be going through those moments of reflection, maybe some goal-setting or frustration about the yet-to-be-started goals we set ourselves last year. 

What should be a bit of harmless fun and 'pressing the reset button' can, however, turn into a bit of a cycle of negativity and self-recriminations. By about January 10, some of us can find ourselves feeling pretty ordinary and that spark of being excited for the new year we may have enjoyed on December 31 has disappeared or faded away. 

Invariably, our children will be following along, too. Learning from us as we model what it looks like to tackle a new year, with new challenges and plenty of change. How we speak about next year; the questions we ask; what we choose to focus on and keep coming back to, will all be picked up and replicated to some extent by our children. 

I felt it a pertinent time to share two articles that look at protective measures that can help us build resilience and, by extension, reduce the amount of time we spend in a negative mindset. The impacts of gratitude and its effects on the brain have been studied extensively in recent years. While many of us will have encountered to some extent practices talking about gratitude journals or other activities, I think the most important act of gratitude we can engage our children in is that of talking and sharing what they can be grateful and what others have done for them. For those who are writing a note or a card for their teachers, it is important to ask 'What is it that you can thank your teacher for that helps you?' A gift can sometimes be the easy way out - encourage children to reflect on how others make allowances or do small things for their benefit. 

Likewise, Optimism when viewed as a habit is a critical strength we can try to model and build for our children. How do we work through the slumps we experience? What do we model for our children when things are hard? Do we show them what it means when we make mistakes and need to apologise? Optimism is about understanding that we may not have control over everything else in our lives but we have control over our actions and our habits and through that we have the strength required to always improve our situation. It is when we notice our children blaming others for our situation, good or bad, or when we generalise one event into being something that 'always' happens that we feel we have lost control and start to lose that optimism. I found the following article a very interesting and helpful read as a parent. 

My Expression of Gratitude

While I'm at it, it seems fitting to take a moment to express gratitude to the staff at our school who put so much of themselves into their work for one reason and one reason only, the children.

For the office staff, who have been a hive of fun and activity this year and always find a way to give me a laugh regardless of the situation. 

I am eternally grateful to Nick Burley, Ricarda Lillis and Chantelle Trend for being a wonderful leadership team that help keep everything afloat and are always bending over backwards to create opportunities for children through the strengths and resources that they have. 

For the Education Support staff, who care unconditionally for the children they support and exhibit patience that far surpasses what should be humanly possible. They are saints. 

For the specialist teachers, who put their heart and soul into their craft and trying to inspire passion, who have so little time with each child each week to do this but return day after day with a new idea or seed of inspiration they are keen to share. 

For the health and wellbeing team, who understand that health is so much more than one activity and have been so impressive at building staff knowledge, skills and resources to support all children in the school. 

I am also grateful for the OSHC staff and our instrumental teachers who provide opportunities for children to spread their wings and be something a little different, in a safe space. 

And finally, to the classroom teachers who work tirelessly to create the learning environments and experiences that we provide. I am grateful to all the staff for the learning they engage in, always determined to grow, improve and understand more about the children they are working with, the content they teach and the art of their craft. 

I am in no doubt that this is by far the most committed, most collaborative and most caring staff I have ever worked with. They each bring a different personality and different strengths, but I am grateful to have each of them here caring for the children at RNPS. 

Take care this Christmas and New Year break. I hope you have the opportunity to find and share the things you are grateful for and see 2024 through those optimistic glasses we all need.

One last thanks

And thank you to those in the community who read the newsletter. We have between 350 and 420 unique readers (sometimes over 1000) each edition who spend on average 6 minutes flicking through the information provided. I know some people don't read it but to the vast majority who allow the small amount of time to catch up on things, thank you. (And thanks to Liz for putting it all together and harassing the teachers for photos!)