This evening we had our annual pumpkin carving extravaganza.
This was also our third House Competition.
We put forward our best pumpkin designer and carver for this task who were Henry and Junqi.
They made a gruesome creation and we hope it scored well.
We have now moved onto the second pillar of our wellbeing programme and our focus is on Protecting against Bullying and Respecting Diversity.
Bullying is a tragic part of many students school lives. A reported 1 in 5 students may experience some form of bullying. It is also an unnecessary part and avoidable!
In our small groups, we first sought to understand what the student’s definitions of bullying were. A few struggled to put into words their thoughts on this and from the different nationalities and backgrounds, we had different definitions.
When a person uses strength to harm others
When someone seeks to harm
Its an action against others to harass a single person
A repeated, unwanted, aggressive behaviour
Threatening, forcing and dominating weak people
We then discussed our views on this and agreed bullying had to be a repeated offence. That the act had to be unwanted and that it was an imbalance of power.
Our formal definition is
Bullying is a deliberate and repeated unwanted aggressive act or word, involving a real or perceived imbalance of power. Bullying can be verbal, social, or physical, and includes communications made in writing or electronically. Students who bully use their power to control or harm others. Power can be physical strength, popularity, or access to embarrassing information.
We then continued to discuss situations in which we have felt the impact of this. How this made us feel and what we did about it.
We then discussed what we as individuals and as a community could do to try and prevent bullying here.
The student’s thoughts were:
We need to be respectful of others opinions
We need to show an understanding of differences
We need to smile more
We need to be more resilient
We need to educate people on the harm of bullying
We need to show a zero-tolerance towards bullying and if we see something, then we should say something
Last weekend we finished our water programme as the water temperature starts to drop and we brace ourselves for the upcoming winter. Throughout the last months, we have enjoyed wakeboarding, banana boating, kayaking and paddleboarding. We are very fortunate to be so close to the lake and to have these activities on offer each weekend.
Last weeks heros were Vansh and Mikhail.
We are delighted to announce that Leo was inducted last night into the National Honor Society (NHS)
The (NHS) is a worldwide organisation established to recognize outstanding high school students. More than just an honor roll, NHS serves to recognize those students who have demonstrated excellence in the areas of scholarship, leadership, service, and character – the four pillars of the organization.
