Junior School

Our College has had a focus on developing the standard of students’ writing for some time now. In the Junior School, we do like students to improve their spelling and handwriting as most people would expect, since these are indeed important aspects of writing, but there are many other even more important features of writing. We believe the most important considerations are PURPOSE and AUDIENCE. Some students take this to heart, and recently one of our students wrote a piece with the intention of entertaining a public audience – and was very successful. Patrick Gittani of 6 Red was so successful that he won radio station Hope 106.5’s Very Short Story Competition! The competition was judged by Sydney author Tim Harris who made a great impression when he visited the College in 2018 (unfortunately for Patrick, the year before he joined us). I strongly recommend you check out the text and podcast dramatisation of Patrick’s story - click to view.  Congratulations Patrick!

I have written in previous years about the privilege of difficult conversations. By this I mean that it is easy to walk easy paths together, but that when hard times come, it is a hard but blessed task to keep walking together. I want to revisit this idea briefly, to make this point: although we all have the highest hopes and expectations of your sons, we do not think less of him when he makes a mistake (as we all do from time to time). It is not easy to deal with some of these situations, but to me each such situation is an opportunity to share the love and mercy of God as shown to us by Jesus, and also the expectations of our community about what it means to be a good boy and a good man in this world. Yes, these can be hard conversations, but through them we can come closer to fullness of life. I am grateful for each of these difficult conversations, hard though they are.

A final thought from me this week connects to the great feast of Pentecost we celebrated this last weekend. I was struck this year, as never before, by the contrast of Sunday’s ‘Feast of Pentecost’ with Monday’s return to ‘Ordinary Time’. In this time of COVID-19 we have become familiar with the idea (or at least the phrase) of a ‘new normal’. It made me think of the ‘new normal’ that the Apostles faced after their empowerment by the Holy Spirit. To them, life could not be the same again; the new normal meant they had a message of good news to share, and now had the voice and courage to do so. Can we say the same, in our new normal? I wonder how we can challenge ourselves in ‘Ordinary Time’ to hear and respond to our vocation to live and share the Good News.

Please pray for all Junior School students and teachers as we begin this new ‘ordinary’ season.  

Ben Munday

Director of Junior School

Semester 1 Reports - Student Reflective Comments 

Junior School Semester 1 reports will be published on Tuesday 23 June through the Parent Portal. This year students are drafting, editing and publishing a student reflection to be included in their report. This is an opportunity for them to apply their writing skills and articulate their thoughts on their own progress, effort and application to learning tasks. It will provide insights into their critical thinking and reflection skills and is also an opportunity to ‘take stock’ and set learning directions for Semester 2. Students will conference with their class teacher, but their reflective comment will definitely be their own words. This reflection is another opportunity for ‘student voice’ to be heard at the College.

Dan Fields

Junior School Curriculum Coordinator