Strong Communities: Connected Communities
Our focus for this year has been Growth and the importance of us all to grow together in God’s great image. Whilst I often liken Growth to Change, I attribute this to the need for all of us as a community to continually adapt to the ever-changing pressures of life and ensure we move in the same direction.
Our students experience changes every day. One day at school is often different to the next, not for a change in routine, or a change in classroom teacher; but for how we choose to interact and respond to each other through our learning, our conversations, our ideas, our play time and our connection to God. No one day is alike.
“You’ll never influence the world by being just like it”
As I am new here, I have enjoyed learning more about our students and where they come from. Discovering the diversity of our students and where they call home has been one of my favourite parts of the year thus far. So many of our students have had to undergo some form of change or growth to get to where they are now. Early starts on the bus, a changing of schools, making new friends, adapting to a new learning environment has seen mass change occur across the school in so many microsystems. God calls us to change, to adapt and to grow. We grow through the strength of His words, we grow through the kindness of His love and we grow through His grace and blessings within our lives. ‘Grown in grace and knowledge.’ 2 Peter 3:18. I can see that daily.
“Growth is uncomfortable. Because you have never been here before.”
I have learnt this lesson early here, that our families have a true love for this school and a deep connection with our Emmanuel community. It is this connection that drives me to ensure we progress each year, not in huge leaps and bounds but in little sustainable steps that may seem insignificant at first but have a big impact further down the path. Little steps are doable; they happen more quickly and often evolve into our daily routines. Growing a little every day, challenging ourselves everyday makes change management more achievable.
Our staff are passionate about educating our students not just in their curricular, but also as worldly, Jesus loving humans. One of our core values is Courage and we strive every day to give students the opportunity to be courageous in their learning, to try something different and to not be afraid of failure. I believe that failure is necessary. It is necessary to learn from, to know how to move forward and to not repeat our mistakes of the past. Failing is a key part of life, it is ok to fail, we just fail forward.
‘Failure is only the opportunity to begin again- only this time more wisely.’ — Henry Ford.
How can you help:
Encourage your child to be courageous and to try something new. There is no harm in trying.
Listen to them and ask questions, lots of questions.
Give them challenges and opportunities to fail; through this they will learn. Through learning they will grow.
Brad Pharaoh - Principal
