MISSING LINK Term 4 2017
PRINCIPAL’S REPORT Presentation Assembly Speech Term 4 What a wonderful year this has been for the school and for so many of you. It has been a year full of success which you will read about in Missing Link and in our annual report. This year we have made every effort to ensure we focus on individual, year and school progress not just achievement. We have experimented and tried new ways of knowing and doing. We have changed the ways we work to make sure that in classrooms and in our administration we are always willing to try new ideas and encourage our students to do the same. As a school we have become like this because we know that the community, the economy and the opportunities in Australia are being disrupted as never before. Wage growth is flat, traditional university pathways do not always lead to employment and our community is rapidly changing. To be a school that is successful we have to adapt. Each of you has to be motivated and willing to engage – to participate, do your best and be creative. You have to show persistence, grit, energy and a drive to learn. I am very happy to report that, during personalised learning weeks (and YEP for Year 10) students spoke with teachers about their results and wrote
personal reflections on their own reports. The teachers said students were very positive about their motivation and engagement. This is a very good story for our school and students. But we all know that sometimes we face academic setbacks, difficulty and adversity. We all know that we find some tasks harder than others. We all know that some things take more effort than others. To succeed we have to have three important capabilities. The first capability is academic buoyancy, which like a buoy floating in the ocean means we have the ability to deal with everyday setbacks and challenges. In other words, we know what to do when we get stuck and when we don’t know what to do. The second capability is academic resilience and this is the ability to deal with a major adversity that affects our learning. Today, I want to congratulate the students-and you know who you are-whose health, family circumstances or personal issues have made progress this year more difficult. The third capability is the ability to a d a p t t o u n c e r t a i n t y, c h a n g e , variability, novelty and transition. We adapt in three ways – by thinking differently, by behaving differently and by managing our emotions differently in times of difficulty.