I had the great fortune of receiving a wonderful tale from Mr Crebbin who received it from someone else. Great tales with key messages seem to pass through many hands! I have included the story below.

We are all in the same storm not the same boat

Right now, we’re all facing the same storm, but we’re all doing so in different boats… Some have yachts, others are in tinnies. Some have a substantial crew on board, others are rowing alone. Some have life jackets (higher resilience, stronger relationships, more optimism, use their strengths and more positivity), others don’t even have a working rudder…

I have been using this boat analogy a lot this week to explain why some people are handling the current crisis better than others.

“We are not all in the same boat. We are all in the same storm.” That summation of our current situation originally came from Damian Barr, a British writer, columnist, and playwright. The illustration is by Barbara Kelley.

Upcoming Webinars

Part 2 Glimpse in the Classroom

Pedagogies and Teaching Practices by Karen McArdle will be held on Monday 31 August at 7.00pm. Please use the link here to access the webinar then.

Friendship, Wellbeing, Coping with Lockdown

By Neringa Smith, Junior School Psychologist on 1 September – the time and a link will be provided.

Parent – Teacher Meetings   Thursday 3 September

We encourage all parents to make a booking with their specialist teachers if there are any concerns. PTO closes Tuesday 1 September at 12 noon.

Classroom Happenings This Week

This week I dropped into Year 4T and Year 3S French.

The girls in Year 4T were discovering maps and the importance of using grids for mapping. Learning about world explorers and following their voyages through maps, they discovered that they provide a bird’s eye perspective. With this exploration, they were offered the opportunity to map a familiar place – their bedroom.

They use their feet as the unit of scale and they proceeded to map their bedroom, stepping out the length of the room, the size of their bed and all of the other furniture in the room. I am looking forward to seeing their final products.

Year 3S French saw the girls exploring the word ‘pense’ – to think. They were offered a hidden image and as it slowly revealed a small piece at a time, they had to use the word ‘pense’ to express what they thought the picture was revealing.

The photograph began to reveal what looked like as a family so they were encouraged to include the relational words of family members e.g. le frère etc.

It was an interactive exercise that provided the opportunity for the girls to apply previous vocabulary knowledge with new discoveries. They were completely immersed in the activity and making many suggestions about what they were thinking or ‘pensing’.

I may need to attend more French lessons myself!