From the Principal
Managing our own screen time
While we are all familiar with the potential impact of excessive phone and screen use by children, and the emerging link between over reliance on mobile phones and mental health concerns in teens, I came across a TED talk earlier this week that has caused me to reflect on the potential impact of adult phone and screen use on children, particularly during their first five years of life.
The TED talk How Every Child Can Thrive By Five is unusual, in that it is hosted by Gold Coast seven-year-old Molly Wright who is the youngest person to deliver a TED Talk. The premise of the talk is that as ‘Our brains develop faster in our early years than at any other time in our lives. It can create up to one million neural connections every second. But for maximum healthy brain development children need opportunities for:
- Connecting
- Talking
- Playing
As well as a healthy home and community.’
When much of a parent or carer’s time is spent focused on a screen, opportunities for connecting, talking, and playing are lost and, if this is repeated throughout a child’s early years, their neural development may be compromised.
This research is of particular relevance to those of us with young children in our families, but also prompted me to consider the impact beyond the first five years – how does our phone and screen use impact older children and teens? While their brains may be more fully developed, I would argue that the need for uninterrupted, full attention from the adults in their lives is still critical. They are also watching and absorbing our use of phones and are likely to model their own use on the patterns they observe. When they are older and have their own phones, finding time for ‘connecting, talking and playing’ becomes even harder to find.
So, how do we reduce the risk to the development of young children, and continue to connect and model appropriate use as they grow?
Recommendations include:
- Be mindful and intentional: Be aware of your own phone use patterns and motivations, and how they affect your children. Set clear and realistic goals and boundaries for your own phone use.
- Be present and attentive: Prioritise your children’s needs and interests over your phone use and avoid scrolling on your phone when you are with your children, especially during important or sensitive moments.
- Be positive and supportive: We should use our phones in ways that enhance wellbeing and benefit children rather than as an escape.
- Be consistent and respectful: Ideally, we should follow the same rules and expectations that we set for children, and model good phone etiquette and behaviour. Having all phones and screens (including our own!) charging on the kitchen bench overnight and away from bedrooms is one oft quoted example of this.
Disconnecting from the many demands that come to us through our phones is also important for our own wellbeing and sleep patterns.
I realise that this is much easier to write about than to action, but as members of a school community that values learning and wellbeing, I encourage you to consider whether your phone use could be having an unintended impact on your children.
– Lisa Moloney
Principal
*Photo credit: Vitolda Klein/Unsplash.
Last week we shared with the School community the 2024 recent NAPLAN results. These results demonstrated the ongoing development of the literacy and numeracy skills of MLC School students. With over 90% of students achieving results in the strong and exceeding ranges for all domains, in all year groups, these results were exceptionally strong. However, NAPLAN is a point in time measure and only one of several measures we use to track student growth.
This week the Junior School held our Term 3 P&F Meeting. Our School would not function as well as it does without this dedicated group of parents. If you can spare a little time in person or online, I encourage you to join this support team of parents at our Term 4 meeting. 
The Importance of Connections
This week Year 7 continued to develop a range of strategies for organisation and time management. In Luminary on Monday, students were afforded the opportunity to review a series of organisational resources and tools to better develop a daily, weekly, and monthly view of their commitments, both academic and personal. Students had their second session working on their Academic Care project. In their small groups they took the next step to prepare their commercial promoting sustainability.
This week I thought you might like to here about Immersion from Year 8 themselves.
Welcome to the end of Week 4, where has the term gone? This week has been busy with assessments, and it has been pleasing to see the students knuckling down and taking care and pride in their work. Looking toward Week 5 (starting Monday 19 August 2024), there are many things happening, with lots of fun alongside the assessment load. Next week we are celebrating Book Week! Students have been asked to bring in a book on Monday to read during Luminary time. Later in the week, Year 9 will have time with the Year 7 students from their same House to explore the themes of Book Week further, as well as develop ongoing connections within their House group.
Over the last week we have been introducing Luminary Representatives with Year 10. Luminary Representatives will be two nominated students from their Luminary group who will take the responsibility for a term for having input, providing feedback and helping to run Luminary time. It is a great opportunity for students to start leading their peers in a safe area along with providing many of the students with this opportunity throughout Year 10 – Year 12. The goal of our Luminary group is to provide that extra level of connection for our students, the goal of the Luminary Representatives will be to attempt to strengthen that connection within their groups. I congratulate our first round of Luminary Representatives. Please see below the nominations for the following Houses.
Welcome to the halfway point of Term 3! Year 11 have received their examination timetables and are working hard on their preparation. The examinations are in Week 6 and Week 7 (weeks starting Monday 26 September and Monday 2 September 2024) and a reminder for parents is that students are required at school only for their exams. Of course, students are welcome on campus outside these times to study in the Senior Centre and library. School uniform is worn for study on site and for the exams. If students are on campus, they must sign in at the Studies Office.
I can’t emphasise enough how important it is that your daughter maintains attendance at school throughout Week 5 to Week 9. (Monday 19 August to Friday 20 September 2024). Yes, trials may be done and content technically covered but this is the period where teachers set about addressing the issues that students faced in their examinations. For example, I’ve been working with the Year 12 English team to ensure we have sessions on how to paragraph and organise an essay correctly, how to develop the comparative element in addition to how to argue a response to a question. We’ll also revisit some texts and look at authorial intent and textual features. Classes will also explore a range of sample essay questions and consider how to respond to them and what texts would be good to use. In my marking I have not come across a single student who wouldn’t benefit from all or some of these lessons. I don’t think there is a single Year 12 student who has got nothing left to learn across their subjects.
Despite what you think about Australian breakdancer Raygun, there has been a wonderful story of team spirit that has come out of all the controversy. So let’s not focus on the breakdancing performance, but rather on the reaction of the rest of the Australian team.
