Michele Marquet, Acting Head of School

Dear Parents and Carers,

Last Friday evening, the Cranbrook 1sts Debating Team won their final debate against Waverley. The Packer Theatre had a very healthy audience of passionate supporters, a mix of parents and staff, but mainly students who had come to support the team as they strived to top the CAS table.  It created a great atmosphere – School spirit abounded – and our team did us proud, winning the debate unanimously.

What struck me most was the way our students supported the debaters: by attending in such good numbers, by rousing applause and enthusiastic foot stamping at appropriate moments. I saw evidence of the same support offered to Junior School students at the Book Week Dress Up day last Friday. Genuinely encouraging comments and appreciation of others and their creativity could be heard from their peers as the students arrived in their outfits.

This support is something I see in abundance: Cranbrook students celebrating the broad range of interests and passions of their peers. As someone who has been at this School for more than a quarter of a century, it is also something that I know has been a hallmark of our School, and as a community, we must actively continue to encourage.

The outside world gives increasingly mixed messages about celebrating individuality. On the one hand, our society tells us to be ourselves, but throughout society, and often exposed online or through the media, there are copious examples highlighting the inabilityof people to disagree with someone who holds a differing view with any civility. We see examples of people who deride entire nations, religions, genders or ideas different to their own. It can be hard for those messages not to infiltrate the thinking of young people and, unchallenged, they can shape their mindsets so unhelpfully in the long term. You can start to see it in the way young people may speak to and about others. Our language can be such a powerful tool for good, but also a means of hurt and cruelty.  In Chapel, we’ve heard it described like this: ‘With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.’  (James 3:10-11). This is an important message to reflect on.

Young teenagers often struggle with using their words respectfully and well. Teenage years can be the time students say things that their parents and teachers could never imagine coming out of their mouths when they were younger. These are years where our teenagers are working out who they are as people, ‘trying on’ different ways of being, and until they have worked that out it can be hard for them to accept others for who they are. Developmentally, this is the age range they are least intuitively empathetic. It is also when peer acceptance is at a premium. Often, it is only a certain group of peers from whom they seek to gain acceptance and so, in turn, they may make poor choices to try and impress someone else, thinking little about the impact of what they say on the person to whom the comment is directed. Other students who hear this type of put down and know it is wrong to speak that way, can be unsure how to respond and support others. Helping to reshape this pattern of interacting and to build the skills needed to change the behaviour can be a long and arduous process, but our School continues to be committed to working on this through our Student Wellbeing Programme. A group of our Senior School students spoke powerfully at last week’s Assembly about the language of hate and its impact – but also, how simply it can be turned around by what we say to others and how we support them. As we head towards coeducation, there is continued momentum building amongst our students to help us to consistently welcome others, no matter who they might be or their perspectives.

Parents can work with us in a number of ways; one is by having conversations with their children about the language they use, particularly around the difference between banter and putdowns directed to others for the benefit of an audience. Another is to actively support the approach being taken by the School to help shift that behaviour.  We are truly grateful to so many families who work with us in these difficult areas of trying to change unhelpful behaviours and habits and reinforce positive ways of engaging with others.

At Assembly, I reminded the Senior School students that to truly celebrate individuality we need to wholeheartedly listen; to genuinely acknowledge others; to celebrate others’ successes; to allow everyoneto be themselves; and to think about the words we use and choose kindness. It is an ongoing challenge for every human being, and one where we will stumble along the way, but it is also one our School must continue to pursue as we seek to live out the School motto: Esse Quam Videri.

Kind wishes,

Michele Marquet
Acting Head of School