ALTRUISM THE NEW CATCHCRY FOR THE YEAR AHEAD

Welcome back for another year of learning. It will be a year with a whole new sense of purpose for APC: altruism.

What makes a great human being?

We all know: reaching out to help others. This is the secret ingredient to making a great community –and that means a great school.

It’s also great for us as individuals. Helping others leads to increased happiness, self-esteem, confidence and optimism. It makes us more generous, patient, open-minded, positive and optimistic.

That’s why we’re dedicating this year at APC to promoting altruism, compassion and selflessness.

Across the whole college, we’re going to be emphasising altruism, hoping to inspire students to display great values by being positive, being on time, keeping their word, saying only kind things – especially online –showing gratitude to those whose efforts often go unrecognised, being understanding rather than judgemental, and listening carefully to others.

We’ll be promoting more energy for our Inspire Clubs, with encouragement for clubs that help other students and which do great things for the community –things such as tutoring, donating blood, volunteering, raising funds for charity, cleaning up our environment, and more.

There will be a special new time slot – from 3pm to 4pm on Wednesday afternoons - to allow clubs to reach out to others after school.

There will be lots of exciting new projects for students to get involved in.

You will see plenty of examples of this in this newsletter and those we publish throughout the year.

Learning From Taylor Swift

When it comes to altruism, we can learn a lot from Taylor Swift.

It was impossible to miss the Taylor Swift buzz in the college last week as so many students and staff prepared for the weekend's big concerts.

Taylor Swift's great ability to tell stories through her songs, show confidence and pride in who she is, and, most importantly, show empathy and understanding for others less fortunate, make her a great role model for our times.

I hope everyone who attended the concerts or Taylor-gated outside had a memorable time.

Steven Cook Foundation Principal