This week during Pastoral Care students in Years 7-9 spent their Pastoral lesson exploring the privilege of leadership and the opportunities available to them to contribute to the College through these various positions in 2023. Over the coming weeks students in Years 7-10 will have the opportunity to nominate and elect the student representatives for their year group for next year. I encourage you, as parents, to spend some time talking to your son about his strengths and passions and consider ways in which he might be able to contribute to the College through a leadership role. Many students hesitate to nominate themselves because they lack confidence or experience in these roles. Leadership provides not only opportunities for the boys to contribute to our community but also provides opportunities for the boys to grow in confidence and develop important skills including learning to work collaboratively and creatively in the interests of others. I can assure you that experience is not a prerequisite for a leadership position in 2023, in fact we encourage those who have never been a student leader to consider applying this year to extend themselves and be a voice for others in our community.

This week’s parenting ideas article by James Anderson provides an important reminder to each of us as parents of the importance of supporting and encouraging our children to try new things and create new opportunities, fostering a growth mindset. This is a powerful article that provides valuable insight, well worth the read.

Pivot

You may remember that earlier this year a number of teachers engaged with the Pivot Platform as a tool to bring about improvement in classroom practice. The Pivot Platform used a 25 question survey based on the AITSL Teaching standards and identified for each teacher participating 3 areas for strengths and 3 areas for improvement. Teachers have made effective use of resources provided by Pivot to enhance teacher effectiveness and have now commenced the second cycle of surveys to determine the level of success. The results of these surveys will be available to staff on Monday November 21. Staff will then share these results with participating classes.

Mrs Hughes
Director of Pastoral Care & Wellbeing