Published on: 11 August 2022

  • Celebrating our boarding community
  • Campus traffic and student safety
  • Academic testing
  • Guest presenter Mike Dyson

Tradition is a powerful way of weaving students, staff, current and future families into a single community. For more than 100 years Christ Church has been ‘home’ for boys from local, regional and international locations with the boarding community becoming their second family. Last Friday night we held our boarding community celebration and the talents of our boarding students were on full display. We were privileged to hear music from pianists and the rock band, a presentation on the impact of COVID-19 from one of our international students, a reflection on our recent NAIDOC event and on boarding. We are continuing our annual plan of engagement with families in regional areas – most recently at Karratha, this weekend at Mingenew, and with Dowerin and Bunbury before the years ends. I hope to see many of our current and prospective families at these events together with our old boys.

Campus traffic continues to require our attention and joint efforts to resolve. Can I please reinforce the following:

  1. No parent parking in the staff car park at the conclusion of the school day
  2. Parents of Preparatory School students must use the drop off/pick up loop for safety and traffic flow reasons
  3. Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten families may enter the car park and proceed to the Yellow Dot bays specifically located near the Preparatory School for easy access with our youngest students
  4. Senior School students are encouraged to walk a little way to catch a bus or train, agree with parents on an off campus pick up location, scooter, ride or walk home

Term 3 is always an exciting time of academic testing at Christ Church. This term some boys will be challenged in their higher order thinking and problem-solving skills, while other boys will sit standardised tests for teachers to gain valuable data to tailor their teaching. Tests this term include the Australian Mathematics Competition, ICAS and PISA Testing, Da Vinci Decathlon, International Chemistry Quiz and the Biology, Chemistry and Physics Olympiads. We include these challenges in the boys’ curriculum as they improve tenacity, boost confidence, allow them to compete against students other than their school peers. Boys will receive a range of results and some will miss out on accolades – this contributes to the development of their adversity quotient, see here for a short article on AQ.

Tomorrow morning I am looking forward to parents joining me for a forum on Building the inner man. If you would like to attend, please go here for details. If your son is in Years 4 to 12, the Wynne Centre for Boys’ Health and Wellbeing is bringing Mike Dyson, founder of Good Blokes Co, to the School next Wednesday night at 6.30pm parent event, bookings can be made here. Mike works with us on the Year 9 OQD program and his work supports our building good men philosophy and approach.

Alan Jones
Principal