Middle Years 

I would like to congratulate our Year Seven students who participated in the Adventure Day last Monday at Lake Hamilton. Students worked well to build their rafts, and many teams performed well on the water as well. It was pleasing to see many students showing significant leadership with their House teams, and for considerable effort during the pack up phase of the day. During the day we reflected on some of the challenges of transition, and students indicated that they had made significant steps in their transition to secondary school. Our discussion identified many positives including making friends, having a wide range of interesting subjects and feeling more grown up. Some of the challenges were adjusting homework, moving around school for different classes, and getting to know the teachers. We asked students how the homework routines were going and if they were doing too much or too little homework, and we encouraged students to find a healthy balance.

I often read articles on The Parents’ Website https://www.theparentswebsite.com.au/ . This website is published by ISV (Independent Schools Victoria) and I recommend signing up for their emails. Heather Miller’s recent article - The Power of Routine is worth reading. Here are several key paragraphs that summarised why home routines are important.

“A positive, predictable home routine helps children feel safe and secure. And doing the same things the same way at pretty much the same time each day facilitates the acquisition of skills and knowledge bit by bit, day after day. This is as relevant for learning one’s ABCs as it is for learning how to tie shoe laces or learning how to participate in mealtime conversation.

Not surprisingly, children from unstructured homes often struggle in school. After all, schools are worlds of routine. If you follow a routine at home, your executive function is better developed than it might be if your home life is unpredictable. Having learned one set of routines at home, it’s much easier to learn another set of routines at school. And as all routines require impulse control and focus, the very practice of executing routines strengthens our capacity for learning.

In order to support families of school-aged children, I surveyed best practices in child development and operationalised them in a two-hour school night routine, which I call ‘prime-time parenting’. It starts at 6 or 6.30 pm and ends about two hours later, with a goal of ensuring that children ages 5 to 13 get to bed no later than 9 pm”.

On a final note, this week I have reflected on how polite our students are. Each day I have amazing conversations with articulate thoughtful young adults, who are rapidly developing into competent young adults. I like to reflect on the good things in my life, and I must say that talking to students this week has been one of my many highlights.

Julia Winter Cooke