The View

Friday, 19 Mar 2021

Opportunities for Optimism
I love spending time in my garden. I’m not a highly skilled gardener, so in the words of my husband, I offer new plants as living sacrifices to the sun God. It’s a beautiful miracle when my new plants grow roots and thrive. Recently I planted seeds in carefully prepared...
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Friday, 12 Mar 2021

Optimism is a Fantastic Word
Optimism is a fantastic word that helps us to think of greater things and aspire to greater things to come. We Austalians are well regarded by the nations as having a larrikin - give it a fair go - attitude. It is this strength of attitude that has seen...
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Friday, 05 Mar 2021

To Be or Not to Be ... Entitled!
“Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven’t planted.” - David Bly  Julie Fournier, Founder and CEO of BallisPsych, wrote an insightful article which resonated with me for our students! The Entitlement Cure: Not everyone gets a trophy is a powerful article for teachers and parents...
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Friday, 26 Feb 2021

Dance Moves
It was I994, the Channel Tunnel had been opened, Forrest Gump was on at the cinemas, and I was standing in front of 100 plus people ready to bust-out my dance moves. It was not quite “run Forrest, run!”, but rather “dance Stuart, dance!” Many options presented themselves in the...
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Friday, 19 Feb 2021

Go High
It’s easy to respect people that we admire, that we see as worthy of respect. Respect, after all, is earned. But what if respect was simply our default position? What if we showed respect to others, not because of their behaviour, their skills or their personality, but simply because they...
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Friday, 12 Feb 2021

Strength Through Diversity
My 13-year old daughter was about to embark on writing an essay showing empathy and giving a voice to an untold story. We sat together, brainstormed and contemplated where she would begin and whose story she would share. In the end she wanted to learn more about her great grandfather...
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Friday, 05 Feb 2021

Belonging to a Family
When my youngest son was a pre-schooler he felt a bit left out. His brothers belonged to sports teams, went out with friends and got to go to school but he was stuck at home with his parents. To help him feel special I began a tradition of taking him...
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Friday, 29 Jan 2021

You Belong Here
All humans are wired with the desire to belong. We were created for community and we seek to connect with others.  Belonging is sometimes thought to be the same as fitting in; that is, we belong if we share characteristics or have things in common. But if we seek to belong...
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Friday, 04 Dec 2020

Press Forward
In Britain’s darkest hour during World War Two, as British pilots came under devastating assault from Nazi Germany’s Luftwaffe, trusted and tried methods of the past were failing. They were suddenly asked to embrace something altogether un-British in the face of imminent invasion, the unorthodox arts of subterfuge. Championing this...
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