Yuma Orana community,
As this will be the last leaflet for the term, I thought it would be good to look from a whole of school perspective, at what has happened and what is still to come in Term 1 2024.
There has been a continuation of many of the usual Orana educational programs and community events to start the year. There have also been several changes for students and staff. We saw new arrangements for Class 3 and Class 5 with the consolidation to one large class per year group rather than two smaller classes. This has taken some adjustment but the students and staff have adapted well. We will continue to monitor these arrangements and make changes according to the needs of the students and the school overall. We saw new staff welcomed across the school and changes to programs to adapt; such as changes to the languages taught according to specialist teachers’ strengths in primary and high school. This was in line with our foreign language policy of seeking to provide an Asian language and a European language for students across the school. On the whole, this has been taken on enthusiastically by students and staff. I have managed to see the students in action more and more as the term has progressed and it has been very pleasing to see the level of engagement and focus on learning tasks. I have been in the fortunate position to engage directly with students in areas of interest for me such as music and movement. In my short singing sessions with high school and Year 6 students, and Bothmer gymnastics lessons with Classes 4 and 5, I can see that there is a strong culture of participation, reverence, individual learning, social understanding and a sense of fun.
There have been some themes that have arisen in Term 1 at Orana and in other schools in the ACT. Recently, it has become evident that students have varying degrees of capacity to adapt to change. Some have responded, to recent years of great change, to be more adaptable whilst others are triggered into a negative spiral by even the slightest change or discomfort. This sensitivity to change can sometimes extend to whole families. There has been much discussion on resilience in children lately and the effect the adults around them have on their capacity to cope. There is a need, in some cases, to reinforce the message that children need to be given the opportunity to try and fail and pick themselves up and try again. This applies to social, academic, practical and physical challenges. Another theme related to resilience is the concept of hope. With short termism in young people on the rise, it is important that we, as adults, provide children with hope in the future. This, of course, is balanced with the need to be truthful. There is an art to doing this in an age appropriate way. In my experience Orana parents, carers and staff, do this in a conscious way. However, there are occasions when we as adults forget about the effect our behaviour, when stressed, has on children. There are many stressors in our community. As a community of adults, we can support each other to provide a healthy, calm environment of hope and truth for our young people.
It has been heartening to see opportunities for us as a community to gather together in recent weeks. Thank you to the P&F for organising a casual afternoon tea for new families and the Ironbark working bee. It was wonderful to meet and talk with parents at these events and work together in helping the school in practical ways. We look forward to celebrating together the opening of our new Ironbark Music Building on Wednesday 27 March. The bulk of the work on the building was done before my arrival and we will have an opportunity next week to thank all those involved. It will be a great honour for me to be involved in this opening and celebrate learning through the arts at Orana. In a recent article in the Canberra Daily I elaborated on the concept. Here is the link if you are interested: https://canberradaily.com.au/07-march-2024/. The article is on page 11.
There have been many challenges in Term 1 and much work still to do in the coming year. However, there is a sense of coming together of the bodies of the school such as College of Teachers, the Board and the P&F. We are all in discussions and listening to each other as we share our strengths and ideas for improvement. There have been opportunities for individual parents, staff and students to give us feedback too. We will be setting up some formal structures for communication within the school which we hope will improve things. In Term 2, there will be the formal reinstatement of parent representatives for each class/year group and communication processes shared with all members of the community so that we have a healthy structure and practice for communicating. In the primary school there will be weekly updates from class teachers and the Leaflet will change its frequency of distribution, reducing to two editions per term for whole school matters. We hope this provides a good balance for parents and staff.
Thanks to the many who have contributed to making this term work for us all. I look forward to continuing the conversation.
Kind regards,
James Goodlet – Principal
