Operating and Understanding Our Strengths

As I reflect on my school years, I often would hear the phrase 'why can't you be more like...' I'm not sure if that was your experience, or even if there are times that you may still feel like that today. As a College, we are committed to a strengths-based approach to education. We want to reaffirm within each of our students that they are unique, that they don't need to be like others and to show them how to be the best version of themselves.

A strengths-based approach is founded on the principle that each of us have 34 strengths in which we operate. These strengths have been based on years of research by the world's top psychologists and is a way of helping each of us better understand ourselves and others. As a school, we have committed to training our staff so that they can work with greater appreciation and understanding of the students and how best to motivate and engage them to succeed in their learning.

Each student in our Senior School has the opportunity to undertake the strengths testing and profiling, so as to assist them in working more collaboratively with their peers, be more effective in their study habits and possibly even think of future career opportunities. Each of us work more effectively at different tasks, experience a greater feeling of success in different ways and find certain aspects of life far more satisfying - all of which can be attributed to our strengths.

So the next time you wonder why you are more competitive than your spouse, or why someone organises their closet in a certain way or how different we are in social settings these are all examples of how our strengths play out in different areas of life. This new approach has an incredibly positive impact in our school, and helps us all to have a better appreciation of ourselves and others.

Darren Cox

Principal