From the Head of Teaching and Learning

Winter has always been my favourite season. The low temperatures and shorter daylight hours, beg for retreat indoors to a cosy warm home and hopefully, if I’ve organised myself properly, a long slow something delicious cooking on the stovetop and even as was the case this holiday, a new needlework project, to keep me contently homebound. My favourite author and poet; Emily Bronte, captures this winter wonderful, beautifully in her poem; ‘Spellbound’.

‘Spellbound’ – Emily Bronte

The night is darkening round me,

The wild winds coldly blow;

But a tyrant spell has bound me

And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending

Their bare boughs weighed with snow.

And the storm is fast descending,

And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,

Wastes beyond wastes below;

But nothing drear can move me;

I will not, cannot go.

Likewise, I hope that the Winter Recess, afforded your child/children, the opportunity to retreat and recuperate after a busy semester of learning in readiness for all that Semester 2 will offer. 

The highlight of the semester, our Foundation Day celebrations and particularly the Foundation Day relay, on the return to school Tuesday, was a wonderfully energetic jolt for our students back on campus, to participate fully in their HEROIC School community. Continuing this momentum of immersive learning experiences; for the remainder of this week and next, our HEROIC Literacy and Numeracy Festival transpires. Please keep a look out for notices on the PH App, for updates about our daily events. A couple of notable highlights include…our inaugural K-12 Book Character Dress-Up and our Edible Book Festival, with proceeds of the gold coin donations, going to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and Canteen.

For our Class of 2024, the Winter recess was not quite as restful as other previous holidays, as much study, revision and attendance at home and at School, Holiday Workshops and Pre- HSC Trial ‘Trials’ took place. I acknowledge the wonderful commitment of my colleagues, who devoted many days of their own break to ensure that our most Senior Students feel well-prepared to ‘HEROIC’ally face the challenging examinations that they will shorty undertake. I too acknowledge our accelerated students in Dance and Mathematics, who whilst still in Year 11, will face these gruelling examinations, well-prepared by their teachers for what lies ahead. To the rest of Year 11, I wish them a very successful term, culminating in their End-of-Course Examinations and for those courageous students aspiring to leadership positions for 2025, all the very best with their preparations. 

In the Junior School, our HEROIC Headways program designed to tailor explicit strategies in literacy and numeracy for our Year 4, 5 and 6 students, continues and we are excited about the program in store for Term 3. Finally, this week, for those of you with Year 3, 5, 7 or 9 children, we have been advised that schools will shortly receive the individual student NAPLAN reports which will then be sent home. Upon looking at the initial findings of the NAPLAN data, there are very positive indications that Pittwater House continues to trend upward across all five domains in: Reading, Writing, Numeracy, Grammar and Punctuation and Spelling. We believe, our students’ impressive NAPLAN results, are testament to our innovative Deep Learning model and our dedicated teachers who frame these learning experiences for our students, so they develop the 6 competencies of character, citizenship, collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking to be ‘good at learning and good at life’. 

After all – it is this well-roundedness and balance that we seek for every one of our HEROIC students at Pittwater House - this enigmatic Pittwater House difference. I hope that the semester ahead is one which makes a HEROIC difference for every one of our students; from Pre-Kindy to Year 12.