DEPUTY PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

Moving Beyond Groundhog Day

If you haven’t seen the movie ‘Groundhog Day’ you will have undoubtedly heard the term which has come to describe a series of events that recur with very little variation. Our anecdotal data tells us that many of our students are feeling well ensconced in a ground hog day of their very own at the moment. This is understandable but we can’t lose heart and lose touch with our learning. Just as Punxsutawney Phil eventually makes his way out of hibernation, our student’s sense of groundhog day will also end and there are a few things that we can do deliberately to alleviate the tedium that many of us are feeling at the moment and make the most of our learning. 

Firstly we can set up new patterns that maximise focus and attention during the school day. When we go to school we have markers that signal to us that school (and learning) has started. These are simple things like putting on our uniform, making our lunch, going to school and hearing bells. We take these things for granted but they are strongly entrenched patterns that help anchor us in a mindset of being at school. When we are at home we don’t have these small signals and many of us tend to stay in the same place, in the same clothes with very little variation of our routine and movement. Simple things like getting up in the morning and putting on a set of ‘online learning clothes’, making the bed and moving into another space for our learning, even doing one lap of the block before school starts, can have a big impact on the way we start the day. Sticking to the bell times, moving outside during breaks and leaving our phones in another room are all things that help us stay in the zone for learning. Then, at the end of the day having some kind of deliberate action that signals the end of the day, like taking the dog for a walk, shutting your computer and putting it on the charger, going for a bike ride or taking a shower and changing your clothes can be really helpful in enabling us to switch off. Clear delineation of school time and home time is important. 

Secondly, we can work on developing a mindset where we acknowledge how tough this is but where we believe we will prevail. We will make it through this and it will end. We need to trust each other and know that teachers are doing their very best to ensure that students have what they need for their learning. Students need to do their part and actively engage in their learning, doing what they can each day to participate, to stay curious and to develop their knowledge and skills. Mary MacKillop said “do all you can with the means at your disposal and calmly leave the rest to God”. There is so much out of our control at the moment but our learning and our participation in it is well within our grasp.