Study Skills 2015
On Monday night, a group of parents met with the key speaker from Elevate Education to learn how they can better help our students with effective study skills. This was a follow on event from student and staff sessions that had occurred throughout the day. Each year level had a one-hour session with Elevate and then our staff had a professional development session on the various strategies that our students were exposed to.
At the parent session, the speaker focussed on a range of strategies that parents should be aware of and that we are encouraging students to use. Of interest to me was the concept that students need “small wins” and that these small wins enable them to then have the confidence to tackle the more complex tasks. Secondly, the speaker identified a major problem I see happening among my own students. This problem is that many students sell themselves short in subjects by labelling themselves as “Can’ts”. “I can’t do Maths” is something I hear quite often. By labelling themselves in this way, they rule out the ability to risk achieving by fulfilling their negativity. Failure or “making mistakes” is not a bad thing; as long as students learn from those mistakes. The speaker used the example of the Apple phone and how Apple learnt from their mistakes.
This program was well received by students, staff and parents. The College surveyed the students about the program and of 140 replies, 137 said they would recommend the program to other students. Fifty-five percent of students rated it as an “excellent” program with 59% rating it as “good”. Only 2% rated it as “satisfactory” or “poor”. I am excited that this program will help our students to become better learners.
Legacy Cup – Cleanup Australia Campaign
Unfortunately our Legacy Cup, Term 1 challenge was postponed due to poor weather to Friday 6 March. Today I heard on the radio that 30,000 people acros Australia were involved in Cleanup Australia. One thousand of these were from the Sunshine Coast. So on Friday, if we have 180 GCCC Seniors cleaning up streets around Beerwah, it is quite significant.
I love our township. I love the views over the Glasshouse Mountains and I love the clean country atmosphere that is Glasshouse Country region. We want our students to be as proud of where we live as we are proud of our school.
Sunshine Coast Youth Forum
Next week, four of our Seniors will represent GCCC at the annual Sunshine Coast Youth Forum. They are Troy Fullerton and Jake Williamson from Year 12 and Josh Andrews and James Proud from Year 11. The Sunshine Coast Youth Summit is an annual event organised to inspire and empower Sunshine Coast young people to discuss and develop solutions to issues / topics identified as important within their local community. The Sunshine Coast Youth Summit was first held in 2008, inspired by Kevin Rudd’s Youth 2020 Summit, a creative approach to addressing the concerns of the nation’s young people in order to instigate change. The Sunshine Coast Youth Summit was developed for young people by young people to give youth of the Sunshine Coast a chance to have their say. This year the forum will be discussing the following topics:
| Topic |
| Accommodation and housing |
| Body image and self esteem |
| Drugs, alcohol and personal safety |
| Education, training and employment |
| Environment |
| Mental, emotional and physical health |
| Peer pressure, social inclusion, and bullying |
| Recreational and entertainment activities |
| Sexuality (relationships, health and identity) |
| Transport |
It is important for our young people to speak out about issues that affect them and our community and we want to empower them to do so. They are the leaders of tomorrow.
David Heyworth, Head of Senior School