At the beginning of the Term I would like to extend a warm welcome to all our new families who have joined the College this week. We trust that you feel welcome and that your children will settle in quickly and make some good friends.

Update Message on Notes and Resources from Grandparent’s Day
If your family wishes a copy of the notes for the message just email the College office. The book and MP3 / CD version are on back order but will be available from the library soon. All earlier requests for the notes have been emailed out.
Lessons from Ants
Over the next four newsletters I will be sharing some inspirational messages on Ants. I trust that these will be an encouragement to you as there are some wise lessons for all of us and some challenges also in how we train up our children.

ANTS #1
‘Take a lesson from the ants… Learn from their ways and become wise!’ Proverbs 6:6
The Bible says: ‘Take a lesson from the ants… Learn from their ways and become wise! Though they have no prince or governor or ruler to make them work, they labour hard all summer, gathering food for the winter.’ (Proverbs 6:6-8) While the queen ant is the centre of attention and the mother of most of the ants in the colony, she’s not the chief ruler. The work and survival of the colony is ensured by ‘soldier’ ants. These servant-leaders are older ants that begin each new activity in the colony by doing the work themselves. The younger ants then imitate the servant-leaders and join in the work. There are no supervisors, chiefs, or officers amongst the ants. So when Solomon says the ants ‘have no prince, governor, or ruler to make them work’, it means the ant is a self-starter; this is a picture of the diligent person he describes in Proverbs 10:4. ‘Lazy people are soon poor; hard workers get rich.’ When you see an ant carrying a piece of bread several times larger than himself up a steep slope, it’s a study in diligence! No matter how many times he drops the bread, he goes back and picks it up, and starts climbing again until he gets it to where it’s supposed to go. What drives him? Hunger – God’s motivating force to labour. ‘It is good for workers to have an appetite; an empty stomach drives them on.’ (Proverbs 16:26) The stomach-growl of a hungry man or woman is often God’s way of teaching us the value and importance of being willing to work.

May our children learn from us the value of hard work as they go through life.

Cheryl Bryers, Head of Primary