New Years Resolutions
Starting a new year at school is great time for making new resolutions. The following are resolutions that I would love your son to be making as we go back to school:
- Support the mighty Sea Eagles (I had to get that one in).
- Bring a reading book that he loves to read every Tuesday morning for Tutor group. We have Reading Tuesday every week. Has he got a book that works for him? Make reading a part of every day.
- Learn to ask questions. Start by having him question himself. What does he understand of the work that his teacher is presenting? Then learn to ask questions of the teacher.
- Learn to be organised. Organisation takes a bit of time and a mind set. We need to do a bit every day and a bit every week to be organised including organising notes for each subject. Prue Salter speaks to the boys in Years 7, 11 and 12. She devotes time to the boys in helping them find their own way of creating meaningful notes and then using these notes to help with exam preparation.
- Start to identify his Goals for 2019. We have Goal Setting Day on Wednesday 20 February 2019. His goals can drive the work that he does throughout the year.
- Calendar his assignments and assessment tasks. Calendar the mid year exams. Calendar some weeks of preparation prior to these exams. One of the clues to success is knowing what has to be done by when and then to go about getting this to happen.
- Find a word or time for someone he doesn’t know. Learn to talk to people outside his circle of friends.
- Help someone. Our school is a very inclusive place. Who is not included in our game, classwork, conversation, lunchtime?
- Join a team or plan some regular recreation.
- Join one of the Solidarity activities for Years 9 to 12. Do this a few times. Year 9 make sandwiches for Night Patrol, Year 10 go to Street Level Cafe, Year 11 support Matthew Talbot Hostel, some Year 11 go on Immersion and Year 12 support Night Patrol. There is such great value in supporting those on the margins of society.
- Drop in to the Church at St Mary’s - Say hi to God.
I have one resolution for parents. If I could encourage parents to do one thing it would be to work on their son/s having a Growth Mindset. Carol Dweck has been the leading advocate of this attitude. There is a short youtube clip on Growth Mindset which takes just under 10 minutes. She is a great advocate for the power of "YET" in a child’s understanding of their learning.
My enthusiasm for the Growth Mindset is that it allows each student to see their learning as a journey and not as a dead end based on a certain mark in an assignment. Our school is a great advocate for wellbeing and resilience in particular. Wellbeing is actually the fourth point in our school mission statement.Parents and Friends Welcome
On Friday 22 February we have three opportunities:
- 5pm there will be a meeting of the Parents of the Year 7 Newman Class in the Academic Resource Centre (ARC).
- 5.30pm there is a meeting of all Year 7 Parents (only) in the College Hall.
- 6.30pm We have the Parents and Friends Welcome. The Marist Parent Community comes together to welcome the Year 7 Parents. We need parents who have been here for some time to greet our newest parents.
Principal