DEDICATION ASSEMBLY
Starting the year on a good note is always one of my goals when I return to school. Starting on a good note looks different for everyone. For me, as a Dean I want to make sure that my students, staff and the House that I am taking care of are all on the same page. One thing that I have decided to do this year with our first House Assembly was hold a Dedication Assembly. The idea behind the Dedication Assembly was to use the first meeting to dedicate the new student leadership team, our junior cohort (Year 9 and Year 10) and our senior cohort (Year 11, Year 12 and Year 13).
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| Totara House 2024 @ Dedication Assembly |
The Dedication Assembly is a time for my House to be still and to reflect on what we want for Totara House, what we hope for Totara House and what we are preparing and planning for Totara House. This is our opportunity to support and awhi our House Leaders in the work, leadership and service that they will be giving to our House this year. I invited our leadership team to come up, introduce themselves and then we prayed over them. Following this each year was addressed, affirmed and encouraged for their work and year ahead of them.
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| Totara House Leadership Team 2024 |
I believe that it is important to create a culture (whether it is in the classroom, sports team etc.) where there is a strong sense of purpose and belonging. I wanted to use our first assembly as an opportunity to bring everyone together, to honor those who are leading our team this year and to encourage the team as whole in what is going to be a full on year. Building our foundation on hope, working and striving to do our best.
FINDING OUR HOUSE VALUES
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| Totara House - Chant Practice Term 1 |
Owen Eastwood writes in his text 'Belonging' "If you feel like you don't belong you won't achieve". I have read this quote a few times and it pushes me to question myself - how do you build 'belonging' in a team? I know that the core driver for motivation for students is to 'belong' and to feel like they are part of something. Every year since 2021, the Totara House Leaders spend Term 1 talking to the Year 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 students in the house and they ask them - 'What do you want Totara House to represent?' The students leaders have used this question to get their house to think about what they want their house to stand for, embody, prioritize and value.
Each year we have had our own House values that the leaders and I use to help build relationships with the students, talk about at assembly. It gives our House a sense of 'belonging' in that they have all had a part in what they want the House to represent. I believe that this action can help influence student's sense of 'belonging' to something, it can help them to feel motivated in their own learning at school because there is a grounding there that they can come back to.
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| Some of Totara House @ COS Term 1 2024 |
This year we have received some awesome responses from our Year 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 students. See what the students have to say below:
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| Feedback from Y9 and Y10 Totara House |
From here the leadership team and I will sit down and find the common themes and choose our top 3 values that we will use for Totara House 2024. We can already see some common themes coming through the feedback from the students. We will be collecting feedback from our Year 11, 12 and 13 students at the end of Week 6. We will share our chosen House values for 2024 with our Mentor teachers and the students at our next assembly. I look forward to documenting this as we progress throughout Term 1.
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