Middle School Report
With Semester 1 well and truly over, the work toward the end of this year and the start of next year begins. With this in mind it is a great time to have a chat with students about what they can do to move forward.
With the Tokyo Olympics just over, one thing that was a message across many sports was the term “personal best”. For athletes, that shows that they have peaked at the right time and that their training has given them every opportunity to possibly compete for a medal. It doesn’t guarantee one but it gives them their best chance at one. Personal best is something that your student should be aiming for as well. That doesn’t mean necessarily achieving an 'A' but what it means is that the Attitude, Behaviour and Effort (ABE) ratings for each course in their report have real meaning.
These ratings give you an indication of how well that student is applying themselves in class. Are they working to the best of their ability and being a helpful and active participant in the class and also completing work when they are asked? If the ABE ratings are all in the Consistently and Often category then students are giving themselves every opportunity to achieve their personal best.
As I said, this may not equate to an 'A' but it means that they should (and so should you) be very proud of their semester’s work. When it comes to setting goals in Middle School, I think that the ABEs are just as, if not more, important than grades. Please discuss these with your student as moving the ABEs into Consistently and Often go a long way to achieving that Personal Best.
On the subject of the Olympics, I would like also to share one story with you and that is of Australia’s Bronze Medal winning surfer Owen Wright. The article below is by Kieran Pender from 'Theguardian.com'.
After winning the first ever Olympic medal awarded in the history of surfing, Australia’s Owen Wright said he felt like he was “walking on a cloud”.
Five and a half years ago, he couldn’t even walk.
The 31-year-old’s bronze medal, secured after defeating two-time World Surf League (WSL) champion Gabriel Medina of Brazil in stormy seas at Tsurigasaki beach, is a historic triumph. But Wright’s Olympic success is all the more remarkable given what he has had to endure. In December 2015, the Australian surfer – born and bred on the New South Wales South Coast – was free-surfing at a notorious Hawaiian break, Pipeline, ahead of the end-of-season finale. Wright flew to Hawaii in contention to win the WSL title, after claiming victory earlier in the season at the Fiji Pro. He was in good form: in Fiji, Wright had claimed two perfect 20-point heats (surfers are scored out of 10 by a judging panel, with the best two waves counting). Only a handful of surfers have ever surfed a perfect heat, let alone two.
But suddenly, in a split second, Wright’s world – and his title hopes – came crashing down. When Wright took off at Pipeline that day on a 15ft wave, it was nothing out of the ordinary – the surfer deals with waves of consequence every day. Only that day, something went wrong. Wright came crashing down suffering a traumatic brain injury – with bleeding and a concussion.
Back home in Australia, Wright had to learn to walk – and surf – all over again.
In March 2016, when Owen Wright first returned to the water following his brain injury, he could not even stand up on a wave. “It was the [funniest] thing in the world,” he wrote on Instagram at the time. “Funny thing is … I couldn’t get to my feet. So I just [laid] there. It was about knee high and the drop was … well there was none but it felt like I was dropping into 10ft Teahupo’o. I finished the wave and I was so stoked I let out a hoot and claimed it and high fived Kita [Alexander – his partner].”
Five years later, Wright has won the inaugural medal as his sport of surfing – his love, his career, his life – made its Olympic debut. Safe to say there was plenty of hooting on Tsurigasaki beach. In Japan, Wright wasn’t just walking on a cloud. He was surfing on it, too.
Middle School students, it’s all about Personal Best.