This fortnight, our disposition of focus is resilience – the ability to bounce back when something doesn’t go our way. How relevant and necessary is this for a happy and successful life! With our upcoming Athletics carnival next week, we spoke together about the importance of resilience in the face of strong competition. I know every classroom teacher is also explicitly teaching their students about resilience in their learning and embedding this across the curriculum and our students have proven to us many times what a resilient bunch we have here at OLSCC. Children have a wonderful capacity to respond to the curve balls that life throws at us all – if only we let them. A parent’s first instinct is often to do all they can to smooth out life’s bumps for our children. Those bumps come in many forms. Will I get the report card that I was hoping for? How am I going to go running against my mates at the Athletics carnival? Will I be able to face the crowds as I perform at the Eisteddfod, or at the strings showcase with my guitar ensemble? What will I do if I forget my library bag? How will I manage if my water bottle leaks or I forget my lunchbox?

Each of these presents as challenges of varying degrees of severity to different students. Our goal at OLSCC is to have our students embrace these challenges and learn to thrive on them to work out “what to do when I don’t know what to do”! It is essential to develop these skills in the Early Years to succeed later in their schooling and beyond, in life. To do this, we must accept that sometimes our child needs to experience “being stuck” and not race in to rescue them. As a parent – this is often super hard, but worth it! I encourage you to be brave for your child – allow them to wallow in the learning pit when necessary. It will help to build skills to know that the next time they face a similar challenge, and once again find themselves “in the pit” they have the strategies necessary to get through it. Your child will thank you for it later.

The Year 3 cohort had an extremely successful visit to Australia Zoo last Friday. Whilst the day was long, the students were exceptionally well behaved and fully engaged. Next week, the Year 4’s head off on a day trip to Miles Historical Village. I extend huge thanks to the teachers and school officers who go to great lengths to organize these out of school experiences that our students find so engaging and exhilarating.

Katrina Walton

Assistant Principal Early Years