Taking ownership and responsibility, and developing integrity.

We must all learn to be resilient and learn that happiness and success is built on perseverance and effort, and sometimes that involves struggling into a difficult head wind. It is not always easy, and often it is hard as parents and teachers to watch the struggle.

It is that struggle that helps create strength and that all-important self-belief and confidence in your future self. We can’t give resilience we have to help build it and acquire it over time. What we can do is offer support and guidance as teachers and parents.

Learning is also about accepting that there will be some real challenges and disappointments along the way. Sometimes we try to protect people including ourselves from failure and the truth. Resilience and developing perseverance or grit need a chance to develop and be enhanced. This is part of our philosophy at Rutherford.

For me, values centre on respect, honesty and integrity, and knowing the difference between right and wrong then choosing appropriately. In the past, in the present, and in the future taking ownership and responsibility for your actions, words and deeds builds trust.

Do we only do the right thing when someone is watching? Or when you might get caught out? Or do you just do the right thing because your moral compass is set to honesty and integrity?

We must learn that at times poor decisions are made and that one of the biggest life lessons is that you cannot talk your way out of a situation you have behaved your way into.

This relates back to honesty and integrity, and taking ownership and responsibility by not defaulting to blame, excuse and denial, or the most dangerous of all operating in half-truths. I also believe that it is about not making assumptions when you have only heard one side of a story and believe that this version of events is completely factual.