It is now three weeks into Term 4! Welcome to our new families – I am glad you have joined us and are partnering with us as we educate your children for lives of transformation and service. I hope that your children have settled in well to the rhythm of school life at Heritage.
Our Deputy Principal, Head of Senior School Mr Dougal Parsons wrote to our Year 12 students during the recent holiday break to encourage them as they prepared for their final exams. In that letter he encouraged them to “finish well”. Only 12 months before they began their journey Mr Parsons encouraged the same students to begin as they intended to finish. It is the seasonal nature of school that we get many opportunities to begin and finish. School offers the opportunity for young people to prepare and practice for their lives beyond school. Beginning something new is a part of life, though perhaps without the regularity of term breaks. Our desire is to shape students who begin and end well in all of their endeavours - this makes for great adults. Our task is to prepare highly capable students of Christian character, and it is our belief that beginning and ending well is the outworking of this.
The apostle Paul writes to his protégé Timothy “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”. Read in context, we know that Paul is writing from a gaol cell in Rome. He intends to finish well, knowing he is facing death. Our context is quite removed from Paul’s, but we can learn from his words. Paul’s context puts into laser focus what is important: Faith in God. For us, as Christian educators, we want to shape an understanding of the course work for our students through the lens and framework of faith in God and hope found in the death and resurrection of Jesus. This is the beginning of wisdom (according to Solomon) and for our students this sets up a life that must end well by, as Paul puts it, “keep[ing] the faith.”
We are very proud of our HSC students. M prayer for these students, who are now in the midst of their exams, is that they are able to enunciate their understanding of the coursework clearly in each examination and for each question, and that they might find the freedom to do their best because they know that they are children of God and loved.
I pray this might be the case for all of our students. Please encourage your children to begin and finish this term well, to have high expectations for their learning and help them develop a clear view of who they are and where they are going.
Our staff, who are a wonderful team of dedicated educators, engaged in a positive Professional Development day on the Monday of the beginning of term. The day was primarily focused on improving and broadening our repertoire of teaching and learning approaches. This is part of our “Designing for Deep Learning” program which underpins our “Student Formation Framework”. If you haven’t heard about this special approach to education at Heritage Christian School, I encourage you to visit our website to read about this here: Student Formation Framework - Heritage Christian School Port Macquarie. In short, we believe that students who are good at learning will be good at life. Our Student Formation Framework seeks to help students acquire the 6 global competencies of Collaboration, Communication, Critical thinking, Creativity, Character and Citizenship. These are understood through our school values and Christian worldview.
We know that if we can develop these skills in our students, they will be able to engage more deeply in their NESA accredited subjects which in turn will prepare them for their exams. Importantly it will equip them for life: for their careers; for their volunteering; for their service to others; for their Church life; and for their relationships. Prayerfully we hope that they will experience the love of Jesus as a part of this.
The teaching staff are really excited to see these things play out in their classrooms, and so am I.
Praying for a rich term of learning.
Matt Cohen
Principal
