The children and their teachers are following aspects of the Olympic Games with interest. Some of the thinking, talking and writing is about the obvious successes but is also about effort, perseverance, self control, resilience, disappointment, gratitude and so on. Our school Leaders reminded us at School Prayer on Monday morning about the importance of self control with some illustrations of when it is and isn’t present here at school. Every term we look at the Key Competencies of the New Zealand Curriculum, unpack their meaning and focus on certain aspects. This term, linking the learning to the Olympics and to our Concept Enterprise, we are working with the children to develop some of these behaviours:

Managing Self

see what needs to be done and doing it
persevere when things get tough
set a goal and work towards it

Learning these behaviours takes considerable time (a lifetime no doubt)  and some of us as adults are still working on it!  It would be great though, if some of what we are emphasising at school could also be focused on and modelled  at home. The children are then receiving the same message but from different people and in different ways.