Last Friday I travelled to Pt Pirie, to meet with other country Principals around how we can improve our practice as a system. The day was heavy in content, and much of what we learnt was delivered over Zoom or Teams, rather than Face to Face. It was a good day, but an exhausting day and in a lot of ways devoid of human connection.
Leaving at 4pm as I travelled back to Yorketown, listening to various podcasts ( I have been fortunate enough to have some recommendations from parents which made the travelling aspect of my job more bearable), I traversed through Minlaton at around 6:30pm.
I dropped in at the Minlaton Basketball Centre and saw some of our students in action at local netball.
It was exactly what I needed.
A chance to see some of these students outside of uniform and engaging in local sport. We talk about regularly around being ‘others focused’ at our school. What I love about Team Sport is it puts children (and adults) in situations where they must be others focused. To get the ball they need the help of their teammates. To shoot a goal in netball you must rely on more than one person. A coach’s job is to make others better.
Team Sport teaches many great lessons and it is so pleasing to see our community so heavily involved in it.
SAPSASA Football
I am so proud that some of our students are involved at a representative level at SAPSASA Football this week. It has been great to hear positive reports about how they have carried themselves as part of a team, knowing that their actions off the field, are equally as important as their skills on it.
Uniform
Our school uniform is a signficant part of our culture.
It reinforces a sense of pride as well as establishing patterns of discipline.
It allows there to be no sense of teasing or bullying about choice of clothing.
Next week I will be communicating aspects of our uniform in various ways. Pictures, Tables that indicate what days are Sport Days and which days are Formal uniform days. I will communicate these systems and diagrams that you can use or put on your fridge to support your student owning which uniform they should be in on which day.
Our communication up to this point has been only OK. On our end as a school, I want to make it better.
In short - I would like our communities support in working together to improve our adherence to uniform at our school.
Student Free Days
A reminder that next week on the 10th and 11th of June (Thursday and Friday) we have two student free days. The extra student free day replaces a student free day in Term 3.
Growth Mindset Challenge
It has been great to see some early engagement in our Growth Mindset Challenge. Next week I will be asking people involved in the challenge (students, staff, parents) to post a short video introducing themselves and their challenge.
I will send out a note on Monday that will provide details of how to submit these videos.
Some of the challenges the children have set themselves are amazing.
Cooking a 3 course dinner for their family. Climbing a ‘virtual’mountain by monitoring their hill climbs on their bike rides. Creating an Art Journal.
