As we move through another wave of interruption to the way we lead our lives we have been called upon to be agile and resilient. Beyond just responding to the shifting sands of COVID-19 and the impact of the restrictions on the School, 2020 has demanded an enormously flexible and creative mindset. We have been trying to make the most of this crisis to progress the School to deliver an offering which meets the needs of not only our current students, but of those to come in the future.
This time of disruption has affirmed for us as a community what has always been important at Carey. The first of these is connection. A period of isolation has heightened our awareness of the need for connection to each other. We have all missed the opportunity to be physically immersed in the same space with each other, which has led to a feeling of deprivation when only connecting through technology. Although better than nothing, there is so much missing when we are not able to be in the same space, read each other’s body language, work closely together and collaborate to build an understanding or create something together and share each other’s energy. As we emerge from COVID-19, connection will be important to us. We’re thinking creatively as to how this will be achieved for all students at all year levels.
Secondly, the growth of each individual. Each of us learns in different ways and at different rates. Each of us has strengths in different areas and we need to support our students to unearth theirs as they journey through our broad curriculum. Personalising the learning program for all to support growth for each child at their rate rather than the rate of the cohort is our aspiration as we come out of COVID-19.
Our ability to care for each other, our community, our country and our planet are critical skills for the future. The desire and capacity to care for others is perhaps the most important value we can instil in our students. We want our children to understand the interdependencies which exist within our world so that they can play a positive role within their world, give back, and contribute to the wellbeing of others.
We have embraced the partnership we have with our families and this year, and, more than ever, we have called upon you all to play a more active role in not only the support and encouragement of your children’s learning, but also, in many cases, the delivery. We are especially aware of the additional demand this has placed upon you.
In this last three weeks of term, we are delivering a series of evening engagements aimed at supporting you as parents with some targeted wellbeing sessions in the evening. There is a series of four workshops from Dr Arne Rubinstein, starting tonight, Thursday 20 August. Dr Rubinstein has been working with young people and their families around the world for 25 years and more than 250,000 people have attended the programs and seminars he has created. This course on Transformational Parenting has been created specifically for the Carey community and will help you and your family to:
- monitor the health and wellbeing of each other on a regular basis
- strengthen your relationships
- identify key challenges you each face and how these can be addressed
- create a vision for how you want to be both as individuals and as a collective in the future
- celebrate and acknowledge the individual gifts and talents of each person.
It kicks off our 21-day Invitation to Wellbeing in which we will explore mental health, nutrition, creativity, physical wellbeing and spirituality. Read more about the Invitation to Wellbeing.
I encourage you all to look out for the links in daily messages and join us in our journey to staying healthy and strong over the coming weeks.
Jonathan Walter
Principal
