From the Chair of the School Board

What a blessing it is to be able to say that we have had a year without lockdowns. With the declining prevalence of the COVID-19 virus, increases in vaccination rates and the availability of specific antivirals, the number of cases and their severity have fallen dramatically. You might be forgiven for thinking that we now are in a position where our overall stress levels have fallen significantly. But is this the case?

The concept of flourishing has become important to organisations generally, and the school has looked carefully at how to ensure it has a flourishing culture. Important aspects of a flourishing culture are mutual trust, transparency and unity. People in flourishing workplaces feel engaged and they believe in both the organisation’s mission and one another.

There is a link between stress and flourishing. Some stress is referred to as “eudaemonic stress”, which is derived from the Greek word “eudaemonia” and translates as flourishing. A level of this good stress can be helpful in motivating us to be a flourishing organisation, but of course, we must be careful to avoid too much or the wrong type of stress, or this can become a form of “distress” for us.

To be a flourishing organisation and to handle our stress properly, we need to be resilient people. The dictionary defines resilience as “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties.” This resilience is what I see in the St Paul’s team, both in its staff and its students. In particular, our Year 12 students, having had their final two years of schooling interrupted by the pandemic, have shown great resilience. They have bounced back brilliantly, and I trust and pray that as they sat for their final exams, their resilience will be evident in the results they achieve. Our staff have also been resilient. They have adapted to changing circumstances and have not allowed the associated difficulties to hinder the performance of their duties and the support and guidance they give to students throughout the school.

On behalf of the School Board and the St Paul’s community in its entirety, I say thank you to all the staff for the resilience they have demonstrated. Their dedication to the school and to the wellbeing and development of the students has been outstanding. I also thank the student body for the way it has responded to changes and challenges. I assure each St Paul’s community member that I and the Board are praying for you.

As I close these comments, let me share with you the words of one of the most resilient men to have ever lived. In the eleventh and twelfth chapters of his second letter to the church at Corinth, the apostle Paul writes about the multiple troubles he has faced. In verse 9 of chapter 12, he attributes his ability to bounce back, his overcoming of stress, to the grace of God. He continues in verse 10 by saying that he actually delights in his weaknesses and says that with Christ’s power, “when I am weak, then I am strong”.

May we all, as part of the St Paul’s community, know the power of Christ to enable us to handle stress and to be a truly flourishing community.

Peter Mackie

Chair of the Board

...resilience is what I see in the St Paul’s team, both in its staff and its students. In particular, our Year 12 students, having had their final two years of schooling interrupted by the pandemic, have shown great resilience.