Welcome back everyone! I hope that families all managed to spend a little time together building a few shared memories over the break.

Yesterday our staff spent the day in Professional Learning and planning.

Our teaching staff spent several hours developing their expertise in 'responsive teaching', where one continuously checks student understanding as a lesson unfolds and pivots when they are struggling to achieve mastery or achieving it quicker than anticipated. At the same time, our Diverse Learning team were exploring strategies for building independence in students.

The whole staff spent time refining our shared vision for supporting students with complex needs. We talked about the importance of our individual roles and the impact we can have.

In the afternoon, classes spent time preparing for the first day back while key staff participated in Diabetes training to ensure we effectively support students with diabetes across the school.

Our pupil free days are always used productively. We take every opportunity to ensure our staff have all the knowledge and skills they require to support the growth of our students.

Coming Events

We welcome family and friends to our school this Thursday for Grandparents Day. Our students are looking forward to sharing their learning with them and, if possible, enjoying an early lunch together.

Later on this term we're looking forward to our 50th Anniversary celebrations. It's very special to celebrate such an occasion. In a community such as ours, there are so many connections to our past. We are who we are because we stand on the backs of those who have gone before us. We're looking forward to celebrating our story. Please keep an eye our for more information over the coming weeks.

Developing Independence in Children

Many years ago, when my children were younger, I heard a parenting expert say that the primary role of a parent is to make themselves redundant. This ended up being one of the beliefs that underpinned my parenting style for years after.

What does making myself redundant mean?

It doesn't mean to disappear into the background or separate myself off from my children to force them to stand on their own two feet. In fact, it is quite the opposite.

For me it meant to set my children up for their future, where they will no longer need me to get by in the world. My aim was to ensure that my children have the confidence, knowledge and skills to live their own independent lives; to face challenges with resilience, build and sustain healthy relationships and contribute positively to the world and the lives of others.

In simple terms, building independence is a long term game played every day as I make simple decisions to walk alongside my child towards independence.

A simple model apply is "I do, we do, you do". Applied to a simple task such as packing lunches:

As you can see, it's a long game, broken up to a series of steps that begins with showing our children how to do something and leading them to eventually do it themselves.

I'm sure you have successfully done this many times without knowing it: teaching them to walk, to ride a bike, to brush their teeth, to get pyjamas on, to kick a ball, to eat with a knife, to walk or ride to school, to go shopping in the supermarket. All parents already do this.

At my end of parenting, with children in their late teens and early twenties, I've still used the same process around skills such as taking their car for a service, making a doctors appointment, navigating their online banking, purchasing and paying their phone bill. The process of building children's independence continues all the time. We will always stay connected to them. We just get to be prouder and prouder as we watch them make their own way in the world.

What I have noticed is that starting early with expecting and supporting my children's independence has made it much easier for them later on to give new life skills a go. Success builds on success. If they can learn to be independent at the small things, they can learn to do it for the big things. Building independence starts early.

At St Thomas Aquinas we understand our role to support parents in building their child's independence. The literacy, numeracy and general knowledge they learn helps them to engage effectively in the world as they grow. They have an opportunity to develop independent social skills for maintaining healthy and resilient relationships. We reinforce values and faith that supports their strong moral compass as they make decisions in life. We don't replace parents, we work alongside them, to provide a safe space for children to explore their ever growing independence. We are, and will remain committed to, supporting our students' developing independence.

Have a fantastic first week back for Term 3!