Dear College community,

It's difficult to imagine that we are already more than halfway through Term 1. When I look back on the start of this year, it's truly incredible how much we, as a College community, have already achieved.

This week we launched our new parent app, which I hope is already being embraced. As I mentioned at Monday's Know Your Norwest, from the start of Term 2, this will become the main communication tool between the College and parents, so please ensure that you download it soon, if you haven't already, so you can start to familiarise yourself with it.

I have been overwhelmed this week by the growth of the College, particularly by the encouraging attendance at this week's Year 7 Welcome evening and at today's Grandparents Day, where our students strengthened their cross-generational relationships and celebrated the amazing role that grandparents play in the lives of our students and College community.

And finally, sport at Norwest has well and truly taken off this year. Here are some highlights:

· We have 15 Primary students and 23 Secondary students qualifying for CSSA State Swimming. We have also had a number of Age Champions at Zone Swimming, of particular note was Harry S, who broke almost every zone record on the day;

· Years 3 & 4 students are persevering well and gaining strength and experience in their new teams;

· Years 5 & 6 students have started strong, with two wins each in both soccer and netball;

· The standout Secondary team has been the Intermediate Boys Basketball Team, with two wins under their belt.

What a great start to the year. I'm looking forward to seeing where the remainder of 2021 takes us as a Community.

Mrs Felicity Marlow
Principal

You may be someone who has no time for either of these or are just happy to live each day as it comes. I am not one to set new goals each year. I find them restrictive and invariably see myself failing at what I selected. A few years ago, I embraced the idea of a word or a theme for the year, something to be intentional about throughout the year. Last year, and I have chosen to carry it over to this year, the theme is ‘Progress Over Perfection’. These three simple words have helped to refrain several situations. It has been a phrase that I have used in my interactions with students, staff and my family unit.

As parents, we encourage our children to try something new and persevere in that venture. We may also choose to try something new at times. Sometimes this goes smoothly, gaining confidence and an interest in something new. At times, we may feel scared or uncertain, worried to begin or continue in this new venture. We might start with enthusiasm and drive, highly motivated to start the task.

As time goes by, reality can begin to set in. The effort is no longer easy, and the task becomes more challenging and requires more drive and persistence. When the job is hard, we have a few choices to select from:

continue to try and dig deep and find the motivation to go on,
admit defeat and give up entirely, or
see that you had made progress towards a goal, that perhaps you are closer to that goal than where you were before you began.

The journey towards something new is rarely easy and smooth. If there are mistakes, learn from these and push on. We can encourage our children to do the same.

When attempting something new, try making a decision away from a perfectionist ideology, and encourage your children to do the same. Embrace from the very beginning that there may be easy times and times that are harder, but both can be a part of the journey.

Perfectionism can get in our way of experiencing new things or learning new skills or knowledge. Trying to achieve perfection requires tremendous energy, focus and time. It can make it more challenging to make a change. With perfectionism, the inner critic’s voice can be loud, telling us of our faults and failures when we fall short of our goal. It can give us reason to abandon our attempts or leave us with a sense that we will never have the resources to meet that goal. Perfectionism can create procrastination. We may put off starting that new project because we fear failure. When we are after progress, you can permit yourself to fail and to keep moving forward despite failures.

Focusing on progress over perfection can make it easier and more enjoyable to reach our goals, to try something new. It is empowering to look back at the journey and see the obstacles that were overcome to achieve a new goal. A mindset of progress encourages us to look for the new things learnt, not of failure. It helps us to see each learning experience as a part of the process of achieving goal.

Perfectionism isn’t sustainable because life is ever-changing. There will always be trials and speed bumps in our life, each providing the opportunity for new learning. By focusing on progress, you can more easily overcome obstacles because you can see them as part of the learning journey. You know that the path to success isn’t a straight line, but instead one with ups and downs.

Excellence is not perfectionism. Giving your best in everything can ensure progress in whatever you pursue. It does not mean that if you let go of the need to be perfect, you will work less hard or settle for the second-best. Excellence is about giving the best you can provide.

Recognising progress over perfection helps us to celebrate our successes, no matter how big or small. By taking small steps regularly, we will get there. So let’s think ‘Progress not Perfection’ to help us and our children to be mindful of continually growing and learning.

Tara Waller
Head of Primary Years