It’s well documented that the greatest influence on a child’s life is their parents or caregivers. As teachers and staff, we know that if we want our students to succeed, to be well-mannered, to be kind and thoughtful then we need to work together as one united front with the parents for the best results. We are already a long way there – as you the parents know and understand our ethos, how we operate and have chosen Glasshouse Christian College for your child. The culture of the school environment is foundational to the academic success of children; along with this, excellent educational practices need to be in place, both go hand in hand. 

The Eagle Award is a Middle School initiative where students can work towards achieving a Bronze, Silver or Gold badge for their involvement in the wider aspects of College life such as Arts, Sporting or additional Academic pursuits and this is a great way to acknowledge all those activities and achievements they have outside of their subjects.

The students who received the Term 4, 2021 Academic and Diligence Certificates were recognised at a recent Assembly. This is a wonderful way to honour the students who apply themselves consistently in all of their subjects to achieve ‘Very Good’ for the Effort grade and A’s for their Overall subject grade. Congratulations to these students for this achievement. These certificates are now available on a student’s profile in the same location as their academic reports.

Homework is an important part of a secondary student’s academic progress, it helps them consolidate learning and brush up on assignment work so that students can feel confident about their assessments and proud of what they have completed. Parents’ perspectives on this can greatly influence a child’s opinion of homework. Some strategies for parents are to

• help your child to develop time management skills, which include strategies to manage being able to focus on homework and remove the distractions of social media for that focused time on homework.
• show /work with your child to develop a planner that includes marking on a personal calendar the due dates for assignments and when tests are scheduled and then backward mapping how to chunk the work that needs to be done by setting mini deadlines.
• encourage them to first – when they sit down to spend time on homework,write a list of what they NEED to get done and then add to it, what would be helpful to get done – after checking the planner.
• assist them in emailing their subject teachers if they have questions, are struggling or can’t meet a deadline.
• ask questions that will guide them to find the answers (such as – is there a page in your text book that shows you how to do this? Or an example of what it should look like?) … rather than giving them the answers.
• model how it should look for a part of the work and then leave them to complete the rest of the task (if you are able to do this).
• know when to walk away and allow your Middle School child to work things out.

You may have recently seen this Better Than You Can Remember campaign to encourage us all to eat more veggies. It was a good reminder to me to make sure I include enough in my daily diet. “Vegetables are nutritional powerhouses that can also help us prevent and manage obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease” Dr Robyn Littlewood. The biggest challenge for Middle School parents can be making sure they WILL eat what’s in their lunchboxes. Having your child take responsibility for this can be helpful – and also a challenge! However, rest and diet are important things to focus on and helping your Middle School child learn to take on the responsibility for good choices in this area is an important task for their well being and success in all areas of their lives.

Jacq Vreeling, Head of Middle School