Who’s the fastest runner in the world?
The question has bounced around quite a bit of late, with the olympics taking place in Rio and interest in athletics and other sports being pretty high in many peoples’ thoughts. My response has usually begun with “It depends … over what sort of distance do you mean?” Over 100m, it’s Usain Bolt. Over 400m it’s Wayde van Niekerk. Over a marathon it might be Dennis Kimetto. For the Ironman triathlon it’s Holly Lawrence. Normally we mean the short distance. We are fascinated by the flash of power and speed demonstrated in a sprint, not always as enamoured with the slog of longer events.
Life, however, isn’t a sprint. It is the ability to persevere, to keep going in the face of challenges, to push through difficult circumstances that we need in order to stay in the race: but it’s not a race to get to the finish line in the shortest time. It’s more like the challenge is to simply stay in the race, to keep moving in a certain direction and, vitally, to keep focused on the goals we have, even when they seem to move around a bit.
As we move into the final term of the school year, we are challenged to keep focused on the courses and exams we have at school, maintain sport activities and training and uphold commitments that are becoming difficult to continue with. For our children, let’s remember to offer encouragement, some advice on how to keep balanced, encouragement, wisdom about priorities that may shift with seasons of life, encouragement and plenty of encouragement.
Did I mention that encouragement is really important as well? Particularly for those that are writing their Cambridge exams in the next few weeks, there is a lot of pressure to do well, and our encouragement as parents, teachers and adults with influence in their lives is vital to help them keep on giving it their very best.
Some Changes Ahead
Looking ahead to the near future, there are a few things that will be changing, which I hope will keep The Heritage School moving in the direction of improving and providing the best environment and resources for our students’ education that we can. Some of these changes are:
Discipline Policy
Not necessarily everyone’s favourite topic (especially for those that appear to need more of it than most!), but discipline is a vital aspect of ensuring that the environment we live in is healthy, enjoyable and motivating. At Heritage we have a clear set of values and expectations amongst the students and predominantly they very happily operate within those boundaries, to the betterment and good of the whole school community. Inevitably, the boundaries are crossed and clear, predictable responses are necessary in order to motivate students to make correct choices and remain within the boundaries in future.
The new discipline policy doesn’t make any change to the values and expectations at the School, but provide the guidelines for predictable, consistent consequences and responses to deal with behaviour challenges that will arise from time to time. During the next few weeks, this new policy will, together with other appropriate policies and procedures, be made available on our website for you to have direct access to. I will also be ensuring that all teachers and students have a very clear understanding of the policy and it’s implementation: the aim of discipline is always to help maintain the school environment as we want it to be and to assist in leading students toward appropriate behaviour and attitudes.
Uniform Thrift Shop
The Parent Involvement Committee (PIC) is working to revitalise the Uniform Thrift Shop, and I hope this will be up and running soon after the half term break. The Thrift Shop will provide an outlet for disposal of uniform that is no longer needed, while providing a source of quality-managed second hand uniform for those who require replacement of theirs. More details will be coming as soon as they are available.
Parent Surveys
I will be sending out soon a couple of online surveys (very short surveys that will be sent via email) to try and identify relevant areas of our teaching and school life that could be improved. When these come, please do take a few minutes to complete the surveys: the more responses I get, the more likely I am to have accurate representation of your (parents and guardians) views.
Tours and Trips
At The Heritage School, we have been privileged to be able to arrange local, regional and international tours with sport and cultural focus over many years. To further develop this aspect of our educational offering, we will be introducing some tours that will be repeated annually, becoming a regular feature of our programs. details will be available very soon and they include a 9-day Cape Town trip for Year 8 students, a 4-night teambuilding and leadership development excursion for Year 10 students, and a 3-night leadership development camp for Year 12 students. Art and cultural trips to Grahamstown and Europe are also being arranged for Year 12 students. These will occur at different times of the year and there is a mixture of events that are a compulsory part of the students’ curriculum and optional tours.
[vc_btn title=”Visit the Annual Cultural and Leadership Development Tours page” color=”blue” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theheritageschool.net%2FNewsite%2Fhome-page%2Fdepartments%2Fsenior-department%2Fsenior-events%2Fannual-cultural-and-leadership-development-tours%2F|||”]Because the events are annual, families are able to start saving or paying toward them well ahead of time, ensuring that you are able to take advantage of the opportunities without undue financial burden at the time of the trips. Specifics will be made available very soon so you can start planning for next year!
Some Important Dates
As we approach the end of the year, life tends to become a little congested. Please ensure that you diarise the following dates so that they don’t suddenly pounce on you in a couple of weeks or months time:
Thursday 13 October : Speech and Presentation Evening (5:30 for 6:00pm)
Saturday 19 November : Graduation Dinner (5:30 for 6:00pm) – Year 13 only
[/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row padding_top=”0px” padding_bottom=”0px”][vc_column fade_animation_offset=”45px” width=”1/2″][vc_row_inner padding_top=”0px” padding_bottom=”0px”][vc_column_inner fade_animation_offset=”45px” width=”1/3″]
Posted by
Mr. S. Allott
Senior Department Headmaster
[/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner]Share this Post
Comments 1
Lovely changes ! Looking foward to them and as parent you have my support