Principal Message

Now What?

The end credit scene in Finding Nemo sees the fish from Nemo’s captivity tank roll across the road in their plastic bags and plop into the water of Sydney Harbour.There is a pregnant pause and then the big guy says, ‘Now what?’

Well, we have survived (are surviving) a pandemic, we have flattened the curve, we are now ‘easing restrictions’ and listening daily to the news to see what new old things we are allowed to do again.All of our kids are back at school, not just some of them.The program is kind of getting back to normal, sport training will kick in again soon now that we have moved to the next ‘stage’ of restrictions and so our weekly schooling experience will continue to move back, bit by bit, to a more familiar pattern.

So, what changed?Nothing and everything.I can’t remember talking with anyone who was not, in some way, thankful for the massive pause button that got pushed on all our lives.The relentless commute, the crazy weekly calendar of running kids around to sport and training and parties and school, the weekends filled with shopping, or at least wandering through shopping centres, our busy social calendars, Friday night at someone’s house, Saturday at someone else’s, a BBQ on Sunday, Church, youth, the list goes on.It was nuts.And it all stopped in a heartbeat.

I think the great fear in many people is that we fall too quickly back into the old habits and leave behind the joy and space that many of us have found recently through forced isolation.So, the burning question is, like the fish in Finding Nemo, ‘Now What?’

Certainly, schools are asking serious questions of themselves.What have we learned in doing things differently, what was the experience like for our learners, who flourished, who struggled, what can we drop and never pick up again, what have we found that we now cannot let go?Like all industries we are in an important new world of both behaviour and reflection.We need to do things differently and at the same time we need to learn from the experience.

Over the past few years we have been gently re-working the how and why of life at FLCR.Our capacity to adapt to this new environment is second to none.We are an energised learning community.We are so adept, teachers, staff, students and families, so very good at what we do in partnership, together.These past weeks and months have demonstrated so clearly that something very special is happening here, that we are together so strong, so ready to launch into whatever this brave new world throws at us in service of the students, the kids in our care.

Ultimately, we are loved by He whose name is Love, our foundation is built upon The Rock, the Alpha and the Omega, that is the beginning and the end.We move forward with this great assurance that God is actively at work through each of us.In a world where so much has changed that one thing has not.It is great to be back, I am so excited by the energy and optimism that flourishes here at Faith.Now what?Bring it on, that’s what!

Shane Altmann

Principal