For the Whole of Their Life.

Junior School News - Week 4, Term 1 2020

Posted 20th February 2020
By mandy eggins

B19 A9098

One body, lots of parts!

One of the most powerful images in the Bible is the one Paul uses to describe the church. He refers to it as a body – the point being that a body is one entity, but with numerous interconnected and interdependent parts. The parts can’t live independent of the body. A big toe doesn’t do very well out in the big wide world all by itself! Conversely, the body can’t exist except as a sum of its individual parts. Well, in some ways it can, but a body would feel very uncomfortable to find itself suddenly minus a toe! Chop off that body’s arm or leg and its wellbeing would be severely compromised!

The body metaphor transfers pretty well to school communities too, particularly those like ours that have Christian mission at their heart. God has gathered together in this place at this time staff, students and parents with diverse gifts and personalities. We do well to celebrate each other’s strengths, encourage them, and maximise the health and wellbeing of the community overall.

Each classroom is a microcosm of our community. In effect, each class is a body within the body. Teachers strive to understand the different personalities they are caring for and to nurture each student’s God-given gifts.

There are numerous different tools available for people to analyse their own and others’ strengths. St Philip’s has been using the Gallup Strengths survey. After conducting a self-evaluation, each teacher receives a report on his or her key strengths – there are 34 of them in total. If you’re at all interested, my top five are Connectedness, Relator, Belief, Adaptability and Maximiser. If you want to know more about what these mean, look them up!

I hope to use my strengths in the most positive way possible for the betterment of St Philip’s. Thankfully, other members of our wonderful Junior School staff cover those other areas of the 34 strengths which are areas of ‘lesser strength’ for me!

How great God is that He has created us as unique people, with unique skills sets and personalities. He could have made human beings to be robotic clones, pre-programmed to think and act exactly as He desires! It would have saved Him much pain and anguish! But instead, He made each one of us to be unique (even twins are unique!), with the free-will to decide how, when and why to use our gifts. How wonderful that at SPCC we are both independent yet interdependent! One body, yet with many parts …

Parent pick-up arrangements

Please be aware that due to Child Protection protocols it is imperative that our students are released only into the care of their parents, guardians or someone specifically authorised by the parent to act on their behalf. In such a caring community as ours it is understandable that a well-meaning parent may offer to take care of or give a lift to a child belonging to another family (for example, the friend of their son or daughter). Unless a specific arrangement has been put in place with that child’s parents, and the school also knows about it, please resist the temptation to be kind in this way!

Mr Keith Dalleywater
Head of Junior School