Tree Planting

Our buddy classes have been planting trees together in the Paperbark Forest in our Nature Playground this week. This special activity links in with our 2019 Values Program – “Branching Out with Jesus”. Our buddy classes will nurture and care for these trees this year.

Nature Play Fun

Our Nature Play Space has been buzzing with creative and imaginative play this past week. Students of all ages are thoroughly enjoying this space. We have seen adventurous play, sand angels, water streams and damming in the sandpit, mini chefs creating mud pies and mud soup, and lots of climbing and children challenging their own abilities. What a blessing it is to enjoy this new space in our school.  

Swim Safe Week

Our Year 1 – 7 Classes have been enjoying their Swim Safe lessons at Waterworld this week.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t mind a challenge. Especially when I challenge myself. We live in a world with all sorts of KPIs and benchmarks, which are all great, but they mean little unless we decide to take the challenge, step in to it and see what we can achieve. I spent many years teaching Year 12 and one of the sayings I would share with the students was, “Bell curves are there to be broken.” A bell curve, in this context, is a projected or expected statistical spread and range of results, particularly when it comes to Year 12 grades. My challenge to them was for them, individually and as a class, to not be bound by the expectations of statistics and to achieve beyond predictions. Such things only happen when we challenge ourselves.

This week is Swim Safe week at Prescott Northern and there have been many students stretched outside their comfort zones and asked to do more, and be courageous enough to go further, than they have before. Interestingly, for others, the very same activity holds little challenge. One of the things we can help our children learn is to take whatever situation we are in, and learn, develop and grow. These are skills which will serve them well later in life as well. Persistence, determination, resilience, these are vital skills for our kids.

I have noticed children using our new Nature Playground to develop the same sort of skills. Much thought, design and planning has gone into the various parts of the playground. Some pieces have challenge levels that some children will struggle to be able to do. That is completely intentional. Learning happens for us, at the point of challenge. We do well to help our young ones face, battle and continually work on, challenges in the playground, pool and classroom, as that's what life is about.

I watched a piece recently on Nelson Mandela, former South African president. He faced many challenges and afterwards would comment,

“Difficulties break some men but make others. No axe is sharp enough to cut the soul of a sinner who keeps on trying, one armed with the hope that he will rise even in the end." (Nelson Mandela)

I hope this week provides many opportunities for us as parents and teachers, to allow us to encourage our children to do their very best, to achieve more than they even dreamed, to “break the bell curve,” in spite of the challenges they come across on the way.

Joshua 1:9 “Strength! Courage! Don't be timid; don't get discouraged. God, your God, is with you every step you take."

Have a great week with your kids.

Mark B

God's Not Dead

Have you ever thought that you were invincible, anything was possible through your own strength, only to find that your best is nothing?

When things are going well and we are succeeding in life, it is easy to forget about God and think that we are living to the full but we still have an empty feeling.

Life can be like the ocean at times. You can be pounded by the relentless pressures of life as wave after wave crashes down on you, but with God, He can turn what seems a hopeless cycle of living from one wave to the next into an exciting opportunity to experience the highs of life. Instead of being pounded by the waves, God gives us the opportunity to stand up and ride them and enjoy life with Him if we can only learn to surf.

The surfer can see the swells of life rising up behind them, but instead of being overwhelmed by the waves, they start to paddle. This is equated to praying. He paddles (or prays, in this analogy) and the wave becomes something of beauty as it rises up, the surfer is picked up by the wave and he is propelled forward. It is faster and more graceful than he was ever capable of in his own doing. At that precise moment, he is able to stand up and ride the wave and enjoy the thrill and enjoyment that it brings.

In Matthew 19:26, "Jesus looked hard at them and said, "No chance at all if you think you can pull it off by yourself. Every chance in the world if you trust God to do it."

While we can’t do things on our own, God takes what we have and makes it into something that we could never have imagined. I encourage each and every one of you to ask for God's power in your lives, and let Him take the ordinary and change it into the extraordinary.

God is Good,

Phil Lillehagen

Chaplain PPN

Chess Club

They performed at Citiwalk in Universal Studios in Hollywood, Disneyland, California Adventure Park and they were the first non-Disney performance team that Disneyland shut the main street for them to perform a street dance, flash mob style in front of 'It's a small world'.

They had an awesome time, an experience they will never forget and we are very proud of their outstanding efforts. 

SIGNUPS for 2019 BASKETBALL!

Basketball is happening again this year! Please sit with your parent/guardian and complete the form. Click the link to begin!

https://pnorthern.click/2019basketball

If you have any questions, or are able to help, please see Mrs Charleson.