What a huge last 2 and 1/2 weeks. Time has been moving so rapidly it is so important to be able to stop, reflect and have a chance to think about the best way forward.
Over the past 2 weeks there have been a number of very exciting events at college and I would like to touch on a few of these.
Our Academic Program
It is so pleasing to see our students and teachers working effectively in the classroom. There have been a number of times over the past few weeks where I have been taking a potential family on a tour of the college and without making any announcement we just visit the open learning space. Each time without fail I have been so proud of our students and teachers for creating such a compelling environment where the students are free to express themselves in a safe and supportive environment. Thank you one and all for putting in so much effort!
Our students in the high college this week received their iPad’s which has been a very exciting time for everyone involved!
It was especially rewarding for me last night to visit with a number of families of our college community and discuss how things are going. What a fantastic turnout for our first parent information night!
Special Visitors
Over the past two weeks we have had two special visitors. John Hutchison, Captain of the Central Coast Mariners was kind enough to spend some time with us and we had a great Q & A session with him. Bruce James from Pele Sports helped organise this visit. One of the questions that stood out in my mind was when an IFS student asked John if he had his time again would he have done anything differently. John’s response was, “I would have worked harder as a junior!”.
This week we were lucky enough to have Josh Rose, Central Coast Mariners player, also visit our college. Josh ended up spending almost 3 hours at college and had a great session talking with our students. Of course there were lots of questions like who is the longest in the shower on the Mariners team and who is the worst sport (Josh would not tell us), however, it was so great to see our students have the opportunity to talk and meet with Josh and John and we want to thank them both for taking time out of their schedules to visit us.
I think one of the highlights for our students when Josh visited was his offer to act as a mentor for them. He was kind enough to give his number to a few of our very excited students and I was very pleased to see such a fantastic role model for our students make himself available in this way!
Let the Games Begin
Two weeks ago some of our senior boys played a game against Valentine Football Club’s Under 17 boys. They did us very proud and to see such respect, hard work and support for each other was fantastic. The boys played a great game of football and I enjoyed watching them play.
This Tuesday we entered an open age group gala day at Soccer 5’s Tuggerah. We had 3 boys teams and 1 girls team. By the end of the day everyone was very tired, however, they played some fantastic football and once again I was very proud of our students. We had a very exciting end to the day when one of our boys teams went to a penalty shoot out against St Edwards and thanks to some cool heads and an amazing save by our goal keeper the day ended on a very positive note. Well done to our senior students!
This morning Julie, Shane and I took our year 5 and 6 students (as well as a couple of year 7 students) down to play Hornsby North Public School in a friendly. This was the first hit out for our younger age groups and they all enjoyed themselves.
Thanks again and have an eventful end of the week!
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