From the Principal
This week we have a special lead introduction from Brett Trollope…Head of Middle School
Resilience is something that we develop as we go through life after facing a variety of experiences and situations. It’s these experiences, along with our own individual genetic makeup, that build our platforms for dealing with stressful situations. How we then ultimately deal with these challenges, will vary greatly from person to person.
Think of resilience as a seesaw or a set of balancing scales; negative experiences tip the scale in the wrong direction, while positive experiences can help balance out our scales, or even tip it in the positive direction toward good outcomes.
For our teenagers, COVID-19 has provided an acceleration in the development of their resilience. This is due partly to the ongoing changes they face from switching between face-to-face learning and remote learning, from being able to participate in weekend sport to no sport at all, and from being able to see their family and friends in a social sense, to being restricted to digital platforms for these interactions. As much as anything, it is the sense of uncertainty of the current climate that is providing our teenagers with their challenges.
For these reasons, and many more, it is not uncommon for teenagers to be feeling a little ‘over it’, a little grumpy and potentially not their usual happy and agreeable self; quite some way from this in many instances. What is important for our teens to know is that this is completely normal and that these feelings of frustration and the rollercoaster of emotions that they may be encounter is okay. What is essential is that we, as the adults and educators in their lives, continually provide support and guidance as to how best to deal with these situations as they experience them.
At Tintern, our pastoral program is underpinned by The Resilience Project (https://theresilienceproject.com.au/) where, throughout their secondary years, our students are guided through an age-and-stage appropriate program that helps to build their sense of gratitude, empathy, mindfulness and emotional literacy. This program includes structured teaching around specific skills to do with the above-mentioned attributes, whilst also providing opportunity for experiences both in and out of the classroom that allow for even greater personal development.
The relevance of our pastoral program during remote learning has never been more important in the Middle School. The program has enabled our students to build a greater understanding of themselves in terms of their own resilience, their own way to deal with life’s challenges, as well as developing an understanding of the challenges that others in the community and the greater world are facing.
Throughout the year, our students across the Middle School have participated in personal wellbeing days (GEM Days) where under the guidance of staff, they have been engaged in activities that promote personal development, as well as programs that raise awareness and understanding of others. Whilst both at school and in remote learning, students have completed mindfulness sessions, engaged in targeted physical activity and heard lectures from world-leading adolescent psychologists around positivity and growth mindset. They have also been involved in community programs such as our Solar Buddy Program where they were able to build a sense of service to others in our world and discover how a small act can make a significant impact on the lives of others.
Whilst in remote learning our staff have continued to focus on the connection and sense of belonging to school for students by maintaining a consistent routine across each day. Roll call in the morning has remained an important beginning to their day, along with a regular timetable of classes, albeit adjusted lessons durations to suit the online environment. Pastoral staff have run regular “check-in” style sessions for students in both full class settings, as well as small group opportunities within particular friendship groups. This has provided opportunities for students to connect and share their own personal experiences during remote learning and also listen to the experiences of others.
Tintern has utilised a new electronic platform called Skodel for checking in on the immediate mental health and wellbeing of students during lockdowns to great success. It provides the school with instant feedback to the general feeling of individual students, as well as the ability to group responses into that of class groups, year levels or even genders. This feedback has assisted staff in tailoring pastoral sessions to suit the particular needs of their group or individuals.
Whilst the current COVID world is testing the resilience of everyone, it is also providing us with the opportunity to see some of the best in humanity. The Tintern community is an excellent example of this, as evident by the amazing support and care that we have witnessed amongst our students, as well as from staff and families. It is this care that helps our students continue to build their own levels of resilience and potentially helps to tip their own personal set of scales in a positive direction.
