30 Jul 2014
Honey Field's Student Principal Speech
Today I'd like to talk about the importance of education and the opportunities our school has to offer.
Schools play a key in developing children into responsible citizens and good human beings - where young talent is recognized and nurtured. On leaving school, we are all set to soar high in life, and enter adulthood in pursuit of our dreams.
Education provides us with knowledge about the world. It paves the way for a good career. It helps build character. It leads to enlightenment. It lays the foundation of a stronger nation. Education lifts a society – Education makes you knowledgeable. Knowledge makes you aware and open-minded.
Education enriches people's understanding of themselves – gives us knowledge of the world around. It develops in us a perspective of looking at life. It helps us form opinions and develop a point of view.
We at Austinmer Public are extremely lucky to have the opportunity of a good education. We are nurtured and supported by our teachers and parents and are encouraged to do our best at all times.
Being a principal with Liam is such a big honour. Liam and I have been doing principal duties for the past two weeks and it has been fun but very demanding. Now we understand what Mr. Petersen goes through to benefit our school.
What's exciting is we get to celebrate Education Week here at Austinmer like all schools around New South Wales. Our great teachers help us improve in all areas of schoolwork, social interaction and physical activity.
Austinmer Public School is a privileged school. We have interactive whiteboards and computers in every classroom, which gives us a closer insight of technology and allows us to interact more easily with the world.
We also have a beautiful library, which not only has an array of old and new books but a program of book swapping during Education Week that helps maintain a freshness and variety of our library.
More importantly, our school inspires to seek learning and become good citizens. With our Serfie system, we are taught values and virtues, which cultivates us into mature and civilized adults - Gives us insight into making the right decisions in life - Gives us self confidence and develops our ability to think, analyze and judge. These values make us solid and reliable individuals in society and potential future leaders.
Learning is a lifelong process. The process of self-learning continues throughout one's life. This is well - supported by a speech made by U.S President Barack Obama. In his national address to students across the nation, he said: "Every single one of you has something that you're good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That's the opportunity and education can provide."
Liam Empson's Student Principal Speech
It is a privilege and honour to be nominated to be the student principal together with Miss Field during Education Week. This experience allows us to have some insight into how important teaching and other leadership roles are in ensuring that we, as students, all receive a quality education and positive and well-rounded learning experiences that set us up for life. Also, I never thought I would be Mrs. Reid, Mr. Taylor and Mr Phelps boss, YES!
As we all know our school is based on our PBS- (Postive Behaviours For success.) program. Being in the role of school principal and with my experience as a student I would like to share what these positive behaviours: safety, effort, respect and friendship.
Safety- making sure that we all look after each other and that we are all comfortable to speck up if we are hurt in anyway and to know that fellow students and our teachers and other school staff will led a helping hand and keep us out of harms way. Letting the person know I they are saying something nasty and letting the teachers know is an example of this and is captured within our "no tolerance to bullying policy". Please don't be scared to speak up, it may really help someone.
Effort- means trying your best sand applying yourself to everything you do and giving these experiences and opportunities a go! Also, helping fellow students "have a go" and realize what they are capable of. At last years 5/6 camp we faced many challenging and unfamiliar activities like rock climbing and high ropes, while some of us might have been anxious about tackling theses challenges we all gave it a go!
Respect- is how we feel about each other and how we treat each other in the school community. Every one of us has so much to offer and we are all very different. Acknowledging and appreciating theses differences is a key to demonstrating our suspect for each other. Respecting our teachers for the additional effort they put in every day for us like Mr, Taylor's daily jokes!
Friendship- the best part of all! We are all so fortunate to have the opportunity to meet and spend time with each other as friends. Some friendships formed at school may come and go and some may last a lifetime but what is important is that we value and support each other as we come into contact with each other during our time at Austinmer Public School. I have been fortunate enough to meet a great friend at APS that unfortunately had to return to his home in America. While he has been gone for more that 12 months we have remained friends and stay in regular contact. I also developed great friendships within my year and with those in years below and above.
Our PBS is a great framework for how we should behave and interact in our lives at school, home, work and play. It's been a pleasure working with Honey this week as my fellow student principal and we would like to thank all the teachers and students for their support.
Thank you!
From Principal Field and Principal Empson