This semester we have been working towards ways to acknowledge and celebrate student success while maintaining our Benedictine values. Benedictine tradition suggests that we should learn to appreciate the dignity of hard work and develop a sense of pride and intrinsic value in knowing we have done our best because it is the right thing to do; not necessarily for the reward of doing so. Knowing we have done our best and having respect for the dignity of hard work should be reward enough. 

At St Benedict’s we have made deliberate choices round a number of things we do and don’t want to do like not having the generalised ‘Student of the Week’ award that many schools do at Assembly time. Our Foundation Committee (staff and parents) felt that these awards became more of a case of ‘who’s turn is it for the award this week?’ as opposed to something that students actually strived for or were motivated by in any way. We don’t hand every child a Participation ribbon at Athletics or Swimming carnivals as there is a time for competition and there is a time where participation or engagement as we prefer to call it, is the goal.

Therefore as a school we are developing other ways to acknowledge good behaviour and student success in other ways including our Peace stickers, Green Slips and showcasing positive student engagement through a variety of channels including Assembly class showcases, Facebook posts and newsletter articles. We are well aware that these approaches are still developing and are not as consistent as we’d like but would love to hear your feedback. Please feel free to email me directly if you have anything you’d like to share - either how well you think this approach is developing and the value you see for our kids to not only be motivated by rewards or to share your concerns about how this is developing. Communicating with parents about student behaviour and school success is an important element to what we are building and your sense of how this is going is important for us in determining our future focus.

Best wishes to our students who participated in Reader’s Cup this week and to Mrs Whalley and Miss Durnford for supporting their preparation over the last few weeks. It is fabulous to see our students having a go at these competitions.

Have a fabulous weekend. I am away with the leadership team for a Professional development opportunity for a couple of days next week but will be back by Wednesday. Miss Smit and Mrs King will be in charge for those couple of days.

See you all next week.

Cheers

Penny Collins