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Gazette Januar y 2021
Welcome From Tony George, Headmaster
The Need for Clarity in a VUCA World. This year has certainly highlighted the challenges of a VUCA world: volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. The impact of COVID-19 on the world, our country and our School has been quite unprecedented. We are used to predictability and certainty. We plan our day, our week, our term, our year, and all with the expectation that all will generally go to plan. But that didn’t happen in 2020.
There has been a steady increase over recent decades in our efforts to manage uncertainty. We do this by setting goals, planning, implementation and measurement of outcomes. We encourage this in our staff and our boys. Without planning and budgeting we would tend more towards a state of chaos. However, while planning is good and proper, from the outset of 2020, our best made plans were challenged and thwarted on a regular basis. The events of 2020, which included bushfires and drought and death and a pandemic, are a salutary reminder that as much as we desire to be in absolute control, we’re not. Rather, we need wisdom and discernment that are informed by our values. Wisdom and discernment are different kinds of qualities to that of knowledge and skills. Most of our time at The King’s School is dedicated to the development of knowledge and skills in our students. Afterall, this is the core business of education. However, we need more than knowledge and skills. For while knowledge and skills tend to rely on certainty, in a VUCA world we need more clarity. Clarity depends first and foremost on what we believe to be important and significant, and that requires wisdom and discernment that is informed by our values. The King’s School values begin with Humility and end with Excellence.
