Principal's Message T2 W2 2021

It Kind of Doesn’t Matter

In sitting down to write this week’s newsletter blurb I took a few minutes to read the last one I wrote. I alluded in that piece to the upcoming end of term shenanigans. We were about to head into Parent-Teacher meetings, our Holy Week Services, carnivals and all the end of term school stuff.

And then we all got locked down … again.

Everything changed.

And we are still catching up.

We have all now enjoyed the Easter break, been off on our holidays, made our way back and managed to complete our Cross-Country events, our Holy Week services, ANZAC services, the list goes on. Our Parent Teacher meetings are planned variously across the College and we are all settling into the new normal, albeit slightly compressed with two ‘four-day-weeks’ magnifying the compression a little.

Change is the new normal. None of us really want to book a flight to NZ in the travel bubble unless we know we will get a refund on our tickets if someone pulls the pin. We are all learning to be agile, flexible, not look too far ahead, make plans that can be adapted or shifted easily. Such is the nature of life right now. Education is no different. We are building and growing kids who can work collaboratively and flexibly in a world that is uncertain and ambiguous. Old certainties are no longer there, we build our expectations on floating rafts not concreted footings. Things will shift, we need to be ready.

If only there was something that was unchanging, stable, certain, solid. If only there was a firm foundation that was the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. If only we could build a school, a learning program, a community on a rock, on The Rock. Wouldn’t that be special?

I give thanks every day to The Rock Of Our Salvation for this good place, for the wonderful kids who attend here, for the amazing team He has pulled together in support of them and for the wonderful community that surrounds us all with care. It kind of doesn’t matter what happens next, we are ready.

Shane Altmann

Principal