From the Acting Assistant Principal

Team Hopkins is on a road trip!

We are kind. We are resilient. We are respectful.

And….we’re back!  The year feels like its flying by and with the sunny days that we are having this week, it certainly feels like the end of Winter is on its way!! Bring It On!

Last Monday the staff had a great day of connecting and learning.

We worked through a series of activities to delve into the idea of ‘how do we, as adults and teachers, model our school values in our day-to-day interactions with each other, students and parents?’ 

I shared a story about how as a family, we were about to head off on a beautiful bushwalk in northern NSW, and one of my children decided they didn’t want to come with us and wanted to stay at the car instead. We had this huge discussion about how we were a team, we can’t leave anyone behind, that sometimes you have to do things even if you don’t enjoy them and that as family we value being together. 

Its fair to say, I wasn’t as patient as I could’ve been and by the end of the discussion I was feeling pretty frustrated and just a bit done! My husband had taken off with 2 of my children and I was walking along a bit further back with the reluctant one. That child decided to run off to catch up to the others. 

Well, NSW had had a lot of rain before we were there and the path was muddy – like ‘walk on tiptoes along the edge of the track’ muddy! My foot slipped down the bank and it ended up covered in mud and it was my breaking point. I yelled out to the others that I wasn’t going on the walk and I was going back to the car. I promptly turned and stomped off. I can honestly say that it wasn’t my finest moment of modelling our family values! In fact, I had done the complete opposite of what I had been encouraging my child to do and it was really confusing for them.

It prompted me to stop, reflect and adjust. 

I recently had the privilege of listening to someone talk about this idea of ‘reflect and adjust,’ NOT ‘reflect and judge’. For so long I have looked back over my actions and criticized or judged myself for my mistakes. But after listening to this speaker I feel encouraged to reflect and make adjustments if I have mucked up in some way.

So our teachers spent time thinking, brainstorming and sharing on this idea of - once we reflect on how we are going with modelling the school values, what are some areas that we might need to adjust to make our community even more connected, even more kind, even more respectful and even more resilient?

I have to say, never have I been more proud of the team of people that we work with everyday. 

Our conversations were genuine, our ideas were many and people were committed to making some small adjustments. We are so lucky to be part of such an awesome community of people. Your children are so lucky to be led by such great people. People, who are committed to showing these values to your children everyday.

Take care

Bron Steele