As parents, we instinctively want and expect the best for our children. This includes our desire to instil healthy attitudes to work and study.

However sometimes, in our desire for them to succeed, we can ‘over-correct’. Motivated by our own experiences and eager to see our children avoid some of the challenges we faced, we can try to enforce what needs to be learnt.

It is only natural that we would want our children to have the benefit of our experience. With this aim, we seek to build good structures around them that will enable them to succeed. Unfortunately, there are times in a child’s life where they learn more through personal challenge. And, as much as we want to protect them from these events, the reality is that often we need to learn to make the difficult choices ourselves and realise the consequences of our actions.

Building a culture of persistence means working through challenge and even failure. In fact, Paul writing in Romans, encourages us to not only push through the difficult moments but to ‘rejoice in our suffering’ with the promise that from that God will build ‘perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us…’ (Romans 5.3-5). The exciting thing is that we have a redeeming God who can use these events as formative opportunities to shape and mould us, developing our characters.

As a school and home, working together, we have an opportunity to build sound structures that include consistency of expectation and opportunities to face challenges, sometimes to fail, but always within a supportive community. What greater gift can we give our children than this hope established in faith and built on a character that has learnt the value of perseverance.

Scott Ambrose — Principal