Message From the Principal
It has been fantastic to begin moving back to a sense of normality in school life – come Monday we will be officially mask-free across the campus!
We have lots of new people in our community, and after two years of disrupted learning, and minimal opportunities to spend time together, I wanted to touch briefly on who we are and what we value as a learning community. I am hoping that you have seen on the cover of the student daybook our four values – faith wisdom, compassion and respect. These values guide who we are and how we behave.
I could spend time giving you a definition of each, but instead I want to look bigger than that, at what holds our values together. One thing you should notice about our values is that they are all outward facing; they reflect the nature of Jesus. By that I mean they are for the benefit and service of others. When we are all compassionate, and respectful, wise and faith-filled, then it builds exponentially across the community.
I know that when we think about it, that’s how we want to be treated, and how we want to treat others. But as the political journalist P.J O’Rourke once said “everybody wants to save the earth, nobody wants to help mum with the dishes.”
What does that mean?
Often, we have the right idea, we think about big things like climate change, pollution, war. But many of these things are actually beyond our direct day to day control, and so it’s easy to think about those big ideas, but in the little daily things that are the reflection of those issues – like helping mum or dad do the dishes, cleaning up your mess, avoiding single use plastics, being kind to that person in your class who makes annoying comments, we can overlook those things and not see the connection. We think globally about the big problems but we don’t act locally to make a difference and serve others in the smaller things.
So, I will rephrase O’Rourke’s statement – Everybody wants to stop climate change, but nobody will put their rubbish in the bins.
Everybody wants to stop the war in the Ukraine, but nobody will stand up to the bully in your class who’s picking on someone.
When we talk about who we are as a College and what we value, it is in the little things we show what we really believe. Our actions speak louder than our words. For our students, whether it’s ensuring you put your rubbish in the bin – or picking up someone else’s mess, or helping someone who is struggling in class. Our actions show if we really are respectful, compassionate, faithful and wise.
How can we as a community, and as individuals demonstrate what it is we value and believe? By serving each other, living out our values and making a small difference in our big world.
