Deputy Principal - Student Development and Wellbeing

With Change Come Possibilities

In this week’s Parent Corner, I have invited the Pastoral Guardians to reflect on the positive outcomes they have witnessed from their communications with their respective cohorts.

As we know, whether we want it or not, change is a constant in our lives. Sometimes the change can be challenging or even dramatic. For some, it may be just what is needed to give us a kick start to reconnect with goals and dreams. For others, it might just be uncomfortable.

As a country Australia has endured circumstances in 2019/20 that have caused many to embrace change through necessity, and this in itself is a good thing. Without using the 'p' word, I would suggest that this is what is happening for us as a community, both locally and nationally. Even when the 'p' word wasn’t impacting the whole world, there were many places in Australia which were dealing with their own unexpected change. We can see examples of this everywhere where the impact of natural disasters has led to a positive response from so many.

Let’s look at why change, no matter how it arrives, can be given a positive emphasis:

Change can help us to consider what is important in our lives and evaluate our priorities. For many families, it has been a chance to reconnect and to ‘play’ together.
Change is actually what makes us who we are and, to use the ‘r’ word, become more resilient. There is a lot to be said about what we can learn about ourselves in our capacity to cope with change or those things we need to do to enable our coping mechanisms to come to the fore.
Change helps us to appreciate the positives. Let’s face it, while we feel like we have endured closed quarters for an eternal period of time, Australia really is in a great position for managing the impact of the pandemic. We only need to look at Europe and the United States to get a sense of what it could be like.

While some of your children may have found the initial transition challenging, there will be an equal number who will find the transitioning back to school just as challenging. We need to remind them that resisting the change is never going to enable them to move forward. As the adults in their lives, we need to encourage them to embrace those actions and strategies that are going to keep them moving forward.

Try these:

It is a great time to make your child used to being ready for coming back to school – if that means persuading them to be out of bed earlier, having their uniform ready, working out how they are going to travel to school, then that is a start.
You might like to have a conversation with them about what they are looking forward to, rather than what they aren’t.
Have them work out their lunches for the first week back. What are they going to have for Break 1 and Break 2? A treat wouldn’t be out of the question just to show some support for your awareness of the change.

Just remember, we are all in this together and, whether we like it or not, change in its various forms is here to stay. One thing about the ‘p’ word is that we are all developing habits that are uniquely identifiable and creating an unspoken common language across the population. It is funny walking around knowing that most people are on the same page – keep your distance, cover your mouth when you sneeze, have you used hand sanitiser?

Persistent optimism in times of change is not easy, otherwise we would all be doing it. However, it does inspire integrity and leadership to come to the fore. Just look at our Captains' videos on Instagram, our #dobinadoer nominations, and the work your children have been completing despite the change. As a community, we can be proud of how we have travelled this journey of change, and know that there is something positive for each of us to take away should we need to call on these strengths in the future.

Annette Butterworth