Principal's Report

“Overcome to become.” - 2019 Year 12 Motto

At this week’s Senior School assembly, I shared the following story: 

A little boy was playing outdoors and found a fascinating caterpillar. He asked his mother if he could keep it, and placed it in a large jar. Every day he watched the caterpillar and brought it new plants to eat.  One day the caterpillar climbed up the stick and started acting strangely. The boy worriedly called his mother who came and understood that the caterpillar was creating a cocoon. The mother explained to the boy how the caterpillar was going to go through a metamorphosis and become a butterfly.  The little boy was thrilled to hear about the changes his caterpillar would go through. He watched every day, waiting for the butterfly to emerge. One day it happened, a small hole appeared in the cocoon and the butterfly started to struggle to come out.

At first the boy was excited, but soon he became concerned. The butterfly was struggling so hard to get out! It looked like it couldn't break free! It looked desperate! It looked like it was making no progress!  The boy was so concerned he decided to help. He ran to get scissors, and then came back. He snipped the cocoon to make the hole bigger and the butterfly quickly emerged!  As the butterfly came out the boy was surprised. It had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. He continued to watch the butterfly expecting that, at any moment, the wings would dry out, enlarge and expand to support the swollen body. He knew that in time the body would shrink and the butterfly's wings would expand.

But neither happened!  The butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never could fly…

What the boy in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were nature's way of making the butterfly ready for flight.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life.  For without any obstacles, we will fail to realise our true potential.  Hence, I admire the Year 12s’ decision to embrace the motto ‘Overcome to become’, full in the knowledge that there will be plenty of occasions when they will need to overcome self doubt to become confident; overcome disappointment to fulfil their destiny.

Similarly, as parents and staff we must do our best to ensure that all our children/students are accountable for their mistakes and rather than ‘feel concerned and decide to help’, or decide to ‘snip the cocoon’, we should feel assured that struggle and failure only make our children stronger in their learning journey.

Dr Andrew Hirst