The Week Ahead 10 November 2016

Dear Parents,

We have a mid-term School holiday break next week, so today this is a shorter edition of ‘The Week Ahead’.  School opens again as normal next Thursday 17th November. 

As you can see from today’s notices, after the break the momentum and pace of our busy term continues, on both the academic and pastoral fronts.  We hope a good number of you will be able to attend Mr Lewis’s presentation next Friday on our whole-school SEAL (Social and Emotional Learning) programme.

Rehearsals are also now underway for our traditional and seasonal end of term events (please see Music Notices).  We should very much like to encourage parental attendance at the Choir’s public performances beginning towards the end of the month, and there will also be pupil musical performances this year at the Charity Christmas Market (7th December), an increasingly successful parent event over the last two years.  Do let Mr Randall know if you would like to be actively involved in this event, such as running a stall. 

We hope our staff and pupils travelling on the School Art Trip to Japan, departing tomorrow, have an excellent cultural and social experience next week, and indeed that all of you are able to enjoy some happy family time together during the break.

With best wishes to all our Wellington families.  

Michael Higgins,
Master

Working At Home  
 
I regularly have the opportunity to meet a number of parents who have come to see me to ask for advice in supporting their child’s learning outside school. Work undertaken at home is an important part of the education your child receives at Wellington, whether it the longer project-based assignments from the Junior School, or with the more exam-focused preparation that children in the Senior School are expected to produce. The benefits are obvious: children can learn to work independently, to practise skills they have worked on at school and to show their teachers that they have made progress in their learning.

Parents play a key role in such work, not – as some might be tempted to do – in actually writing assignments on behalf of their children, but rather in fostering a positive atmosphere that can nurture a successful learning environment. There are ever-growing pressures on parents and children to begin the path to university admission at an earlier age, and in such a context, the quantity of work is often valued above the quality; I have heard of occasions in which a child’s work outside school has been measured in the time allotted, rather than in the intrinsic quality of the learning produced. More is not always better, and children who are well rested and prepared for home study are invariably the most effective learners. To help your child be productive and remain capable of higher-level learning, plentiful rest (8 hours’ sleep every night is re