From the Principal

Creating a sense of belonging where students are known, valued and understood is a critical aspect of developing an educational environment that enables students to excel. Generating a sense of belonging helps to ensure that students are engaged and motivated. In a recent article for Teacher, UNSW Professor of Education Psychology Andrew Martin draws on research that discusses the positive and negative forms of motivation and engagement and how important it is that we all understand the factors which increase the positive and decrease the negative. Whilst this article is directed at providing practical strategies to support educators, it offers some simple insights that all students can apply in their approach to school every day. 

Students’ motivation and engagement are shaped by knowing and targeting the key parts of motivation and engagement, applying strategies that boost motivation and engagement, building good relationships and through explicit learning, which is focused on understanding motivation and engagement.

Professor Martin has developed the following Motivation and Engagement Wheel to help understand these positive and negative aspects of engagement and motivation. In the wheel, positive engagement and motivation encompasses self-belief, valuing, and focused learning through planning, task management and persistence. Whereas negative engagement and motivation encompass disengagement, self-sabotage, anxiety, failure avoidance and uncertain control. 

I encourage each of you to work in partnership with your teachers to better understand what engages and motivates you.  Motivation and engagement are something that we can all learn, which can constantly evolve and is such a critical aspect of discovering our passions. More than this, however being motivated and engaged helps us to feel that we belong.    

On Tuesday morning we celebrated all of the wonderful mothers and mother figures at our annual Mother’s Day Breakfast. The morning's highlight was the amazing performances from the Big Band, Piccolo Choir, poetry readings by Lia Lee and Quinton Poon and a dance performance by Demi-Ann Klocek.

Thank you to all who attended, and I hope that all the Clayfield Mothers have a wonderful day on Sunday.