Term 1, Week 7

Senior Executive

Head of the River is on next weekend and if you have not been up to Lake Barrington before, please consider coming along on Saturday 26 March to cheer on our rowers.

Back in 2018, I distinctly remember going out in a tinny with the rowers one cold dark morning. The coach gave me a run down on rowing at the School. One thing seemed clear: we never won at rowing, or at least this century we had not. The coach did not believe this was going to change any time soon. We were too small a school to be competitive. We did not train enough. We gave senior students the option of going on an overseas trip in early December.

As I sat and listened, I was acutely aware of how little about rowing I knew. What I did know was that research from the last fifty years has consistently found that teachers’ beliefs and expectations of their students impact profoundly on their students’ growth and development.

While there are too many studies to name here, one which has always stuck with me saw hundreds of students asked to write an essay. All students received feedback. For half of the students, an extra sentence was randomly added at the end of the feedback with these words: “I am giving you this feedback because I believe in you”. Fast forward one year and students who randomly received this sentence were performing at higher levels than those who did not receive it.

As parents and carers, we are most often our children’s first and most enduring teacher. While our relationship as parents differs to that of teachers, the power of our beliefs is also incredibly significant. I was reminded of this recently when an alumna shared with me about the impact her parents had on her entrepreneurial journey. Lauren Holder, a recent graduate (Class of 2019) started her business when she was in Grade 5 and since then the business has evolved and grown to now generate more income than most parents earn in a year. Lauren reflected on just how powerful for her encouragement from parents had been. Instead of shutting down her business ideas they told her to persevere. Lauren observed, “I have had friends come up with their own business ideas but who never chose to progress further after their parents told them it was a bad idea, or that they wouldn’t make any money. I had lots of bad ideas until I came up with a good one. I may have never reached that good idea if they [my parents] hadn’t continued to remain positive and encouraging.”

Like most adults, young people are full of self-doubt about who they are and what they can achieve. They are acutely aware of their weaknesses and from their teachers, coaches and parents alike they need to regularly hear, “You are better than you think you are”. It is easy to do this with young people who appear motivated but it is even more important to communicate positive beliefs and expectations to students who appear to be struggling and unmotivated.

Most of all students need to know that they matter. In a world of hyper-comparison and fuelled by social media, it is all too easy for young people to lose sight of the fact that they are uniquely and wonderfully made. As an Anglican school, we continue to reinforce this message to students as it aligns with our belief that every student is intrinsically valuable and infinitely precious.

Through our words and actions all adults have the opportunity to reframe for young people who they are and how they imagine the journey they are on.

One of the ways we communicate to young people our belief and high regard for their efforts and progress is by the simple act of turning up. Over the next few weeks I would encourage you and your families to do just that – whether it be visiting Poimena to see the extraordinary art of our TCE students, attending the TCE Drama production in Week 9 or even making your way to Lake Barrington to support our rowers over the next two weekends.

I am very proud of how each of our students are progressing in many areas as it is their progress, rather than their performance, which is what we want to measure. I am sure that is what you too will be noticing when you come along to one of these events. I look forward to seeing you there.

Richard Ford
Headmaster

The journey or the destination?

It is hard to believe we are well through two thirds of Term 1. As we move from the end of summer into autumn, many of our summer sports are coming to a close and some are already over. I would like to thank all the many coaches that have helped make the season a success.

As I have mentioned in the newsletter before, Launceston Grammar is moving towards accreditation under the Australian Childhood Foundation (ACF). At present, standards around child safety vary from state to state, and indeed some states have no child safe standards at all. Last year the School also re-examined the educative process around consent education. Whilst consent had always been taught as part the Health and Physical Education (HPE) programme, we partnered with Laurel House to deliver a pilot programme which included 6 one-hour lessons to all of our Grade 9 cohort, as well as sessions in Grade 10 with our HPE staff, presentations to our Grade 11 and 12 students, our staff, and our parent community. It is interesting to note that consent education will become a mandatory part of the curriculum in all Australian schools in 2023.

Similarly, with child safety accreditation there is no mandatory standard currently in Tasmania, however that will change moving forward. Launceston Grammar is utilising the ACF as it is what is considered by many as a gold standard programme to ensure a child safe culture exists in our School. As part of this all staff, and those that have significant interactions with students, have undertaken a 2 hour online training course which provides a certificate of completion which is valid for 3 years. Our brother and sister schools in Hobart, Hutchins and Collegiate, as well as organisations as wide ranging as Surf Life Australia and Rugby Union Australia also use the ACF process to ensure a child safe culture exists in their organisations.

We thank those volunteers who have already undergone the training and as new volunteers come on board our Directors of Sport on both campuses and our Community Engagement Team will liaise with these volunteers to help assist in that online training.

It is an exciting journey, and as part of the process we really encourage student voice and agency within both campuses and are working with our student body to help grow their knowledge around issues of consent, personal safety and space, as well as the power of their voice which we will always listen to. At the Senior Campus I have been very pleased that students feel comfortable making suggestions about what we can do to make our School better as well as what they really like at the School as it is.

It has been great to welcome so many new staff to the campus this year and see the ideas, energy, and vision they bring to help consolidate and enrich so many areas of our campus. I know many of you will have met via video our new Heads of House and Head of Grade 7. Today I would like to introduce you to our new School Chaplain, Reverend Matthew Pickering. You can hear Matthew talk about his time at the School so far in the following video.

Finally, back to the heading at the start of this article, the journey or the destination. Philosophically as an educator this is something I often ponder. What is more important? As Picasso said, “is it more important that a student knows that 2+2 = 4, that Paris is the capital of France, or that they are a marvel themselves that will never be repeated?” Much like we stop to admire the beauty of nature do we stop enough to appreciate the beauty that is us?

Is crossing the line first more important than maybe failing, but in doing so learning so much more about ourselves. An article in the Camden Times in the 1920s suggests; “that when a person wins we see part of their character, but when a person loses we see all of it.”

In saying this make no mistake; I am a very competitive person and like nothing more as a coach than to see my team come first. However, I prefer to lose well having learnt more about myself and given my best, that win poorly with a lack of gratitude, humility or understanding of those helping in the process. Hence the title of this article the Journey or the destination. In a great book I read recently “The Big Panda and the Tiny Dragon” the panda was asked the question, What is more important The Journey or the destination? His answer was simple, …the company. So for all of those who are accompanying our students on their journey toward their many destinations, know that you shape and mould them so that when they reach the end of the journey, whatever that may be, they are better people for it.

Good luck to our competitors over the weekend and next week with state finals coming up in many sports. I hope you have a relaxing weekend with your children and get to talk with them about their journeys and destinations.

God’s blessing

Nick Foster
Head of Senior Campus

Senior Campus

Welcome to another year of learning and growing at Launceston Grammar!

We are a community of learners, and we aim to place high quality, evidence-based teaching at the heart of everything that we do.

At Launceston Grammar, we nurture compassionate, courageous learners who are curious and creative. The following article provides an update of what this looks like in practice and explores the teaching and learning goals for the Senior Campus in 2022.

Underpinning this is research that supports our belief that every student, and in fact every person, can learn. We are all beginners with so much that we don’t know! Understanding neuroplasticity – the idea that our brain continues to grow and change throughout our lives with new paths forming and old paths fading – empowers us as it shows that with effort, we can learn anything, change our behaviour, and reshape our brains.

Meaningful learning requires:

Active student involvement

When students understand the neuroscience behind learning, they learn more effectively; some estimates suggest gains of +7 additional months in a year. This is a form of metacognition. We hope to create a community of self-managing students who embrace their agency and take responsibility for their learning. In addition, we are aiming to increase student voice throughout the school this year, so they are creating their own learning environment.