Principal's Report
News
I've just returned to my office after a spectacularly fun, colourful and exciting Harmony Day assembly. It was just amazing to see to the colour and splendour of so many people proudly showing off so many cultures and family backgrounds. I wanted to write a newsletter piece about this amazing community and the harmony in which we all live. The piece below is based on my graduation speech from 2014 and I hope you can all draw something from it as a celebration of the way the world should be.
I want to reflect on the community that we have built here at Lyndhurst and what that means for all of us. When new families come to our school, I proudly tell them that, at last count, we have 44 language groups and 12 religions from 32 countries of birth represented in our small community. 65% of our students list English as their second language. In this small corner of a small state in the sparsely populated continent of Australia, we have a microcosm of the world at large, a cross section of the innumerable cultures and societies that populate our planet.
I often get the question about how we manage with a school of such diversity and yet, to me, it’s never been that way. It’s never felt like something with which we've had to cope. Rather, it’s been an extraordinary learning path for me and an incredibly enriching experience.
Author, Doug Floyd, once said, “You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note.”
Here, we have quite a chorus going. There are so many different notes, all playing at the same time and yet the result is harmony.
When I watch the students, I'm struck by their natural acceptance of differences, their acknowledgement of the diversity around them and their innate ability to just “get along”. It’s one of our Keys to Success in the “You Can Do It” program but takes on a whole other level of significance in a community of such amazing diversity.
And yet, it is not through some program or some formal education process that we have arrived at this level of harmony. For the students, it just is. It’s their community. It’s their school. It’s their shopping centre. The differences and the diversity are all around them. And it’s certainly not that they are blind to the differences, it’s more that they recognise and celebrate the strength that the diversity brings us. The diversity within the students is extraordinary in personality and preference and yet the children manage to bond into a secure, comfortable group that can mix and match at will, with different groupings and various combinations.
Poet and writer, C. Joybell C. says of this, “The downfall of the attempts of governments and leaders to unite mankind is found in this- in the wrong message that we should see everyone as the same. This is the root of the failure of harmony. Because the truth is, we should not all see everyone as the same! We are not the same! We are made of different colours and we have different cultures. We are all different! But the key to this door is to look at these differences, respect these differences, learn from and about these differences, and grow in and with these differences. We are all different. We are not the same. But that's beautiful. And that's okay. In the quest for unity and peace, we cannot blind ourselves and expect to be all the same.
Because in this, we all have an underlying belief that everyone should be the same as us at some point. We are not on a journey to become the same or to be the same. But we are on a journey to see that in all of our differences, that is what makes us beautiful as a human race, and if we are ever to grow, we ought to learn and always learn some more.”
It seems that our children have worked that out for themselves. Last year we were witness to two awful tragedies both at home and overseas. I don’t want to dwell on these. I do, though, want to make the point that, for me, the hope that tragedies like this come to an end, is with our children.
In their time at this school, short though it may have been for some, we teach them leadership, we teach them to be outspoken, we teach them to stand up in the face of injustice and all of that has happened in the midst of this wonderful community.
Civil rights activist, Cesar Chavez, said, “We need to help students and parents cherish and preserve the ethnic and cultural diversity that nourishes and strengthens this community - and this nation.”
He was taking about America but the message is the same.
Children’s writer, Jacqueline Woodson, wrote, “Diversity is about all of us, and about us having to figure out how to walk through this world together.”
It seems that our students are well on the way to figuring out how to walk through this world together. They do that with the support and strength of this community behind them. With these children as our future leaders, I have nothing but great hope for our world. We have a lot to learn from them and they have much to offer.
To the students of our 2015 senior grades, we look to you to be our leaders. In a graduation speech competition, a young Mexican girl made the following statement and I think it says it all. “It is you, and only you, who determines who you will be and what you will do for the rest of your lives. Do not follow where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” I hope that our students will all make new paths and leave a trail for others to follow.
We have an amazing group of children with extraordinary range of talents. We encourage them to show confidence, be persistent, use their resilience and be organised but, most importantly of all, get along with people.
Their futures are bright and our future lies with them.
Gifted Awareness Week
Gifted Awareness Week is being held from 15–21 March 2015.
General News - Manners
I’m a bit of a stickler for manners. At school, we constantly remind children of the need for manners and we are aware responsibility to model good manners and train children in their use. Manners are such an important social protocol. They affect how people think about us, communicate with us and treat us. Later in the newsletter is a great article that I found in an internet blog over the holidays. It’s worth a read by all parents. As it says in the article, “Helping your children master these simple rules of etiquette will get them noticed - for all the right reasons.”
Parent Participation
At Lyndhurst, PS, we actively promote the involvement of parents in the education of their children. Here is a piece by parenting expert, Michael Grose, regarding your role as a parent in your child’s education.
Dear Parent,
The single most important step you can take to help your child learn is to be an active participant in your child’s education.
Active participation includes: talking to your child about their day, hearing young learners read, helping with homework and making sure kids go to school happy, healthy and with plenty of sleep.
The second step is to become involved in your child’s school. This is harder than ever due to work and other commitments, but you can still be positively engaged in the life of your child’s school even when you work. Here’s how:
1. Find out what your child’s school is trying to achieve and show your support for it’s aims. What is your school focusing on over the following three years? What are its specific values? Answer these two questions and you’ll be streets ahead of most parents I know.
2. Support a broad, balanced curriculum that offers a variety of experiences rather than a program that narrowly focuses on the 3Rs.
3. Direct conversations through the correct channels such as your child’s teacher, the principal or the school’s governing body. Thoughtless gossip and car park committees merely tarnish a school’s reputation.
4. Get the school diary and place open days, interview days and other important days in your own diary so you can plan ahead.
5. Meet with your child’s teacher at the start of the year and ask for practical ways you can help at home. Every teacher has their own style and way of doing things so understand the expectations they have of you and your child. Make sure your child’s homework routine fits that of your child’s teacher.
6. Encourage your child to take pride in their school, and don’t ‘bag’ it yourself. Your positive advocacy of your child’s school will send a powerful message about school and learning.
7. Model learning and reading. Your kids need to see you learning new things and reading so they become normalised. In particular, boys are more likely to latch on to reading when their dads read to them and also read at home themselves.
There are lots of ways you can support your child’s learning. However you can’t go too far wrong if you start with these basics; take a real interest in what kids do at school and be an active, risk-taking learner yourself.
Michael Grose
If you like what Michael has to say, you can get regular email newsletters from Micheal by going to: www.parentingideas.com.au
Greg Lacey
Principal