The Catalyst of Confidence

In a world where children are flooded with information and seek instantaneous gratification from social media and digital technologies, it is pertinent to remind our children that patience and persistence are crucial to success and to confidence. These important attributes do not stem from only tackling that which is easy, so, as children develop, they must endure failure in order to appreciate their learning journey and grow.

Confidence can be defined as the feeling of self assurance arising from an appreciation of one’s abilities or qualities and, as John F Kennedy once said, “Every accomplishment begins with the decision to try”. Within a school environment, while our core business is teaching and learning, we must address skills such as confidence in order for students to thrive. While some believe that not all children can be confident at a young age, we need to shift our definition to ensure we are not simply referring to confidence being outward and extroverted.

At Toorak, we nurture a variety of ways for every student to build their confidence including making eye contact, not shying away from conversations with adults and older students, being able to accept compliments and acknowledgments with pride, and presenting in front of their peers. Our focus is centered on one’s inner confidence and self belief and is perpetuated through multiple opportunities to experience success in front of others. Our commitment as educators is to encourage our youngest learners to be risk takers, to lean into new challenges and to embrace unfamiliar opportunities. With this approach, we see our students defer less to 'opting out'. They realise that the norm is to try and possibly fail and learn to appreciate that the most rewarding things in life are often the most difficult.

Our young learners must also be supported to understand their brain and how it can work with or against you. All Junior School students participate in morning wellbeing sessions where they hone in on how they learn whilst identifying the crucial role of their amygdala (a component of the limbic system in the brain which influences and controls emotions). Students become familiar with the flight or fight response and appreciate that rehearsal, consolidation, practise and perseverance sets them up for success.

To amplify nurturing confidence as a learnable skill, our Year 6 students participate in a year long leadership program which assists in their understanding, appreciation and accountability as a leader. Recently they have been dissecting traits of known leaders and identifying what makes him or her inspirational. By doing this, our girls have been able to articulate, reflect and aspire to be someone that is a role model to others in our community and beyond our Toorak gates.

Miss Melissa Schoorman - Head of Wardle House, Deputy Principal