Northholm Grammar is excited to be celebrating its 40th Anniversary. Our students have returned with great energy and enthusiasm, our teachers are committed to establishing a pathway to excellence for our young men and women and our parents are supportive in fostering a learning environment that challenges and supports their children.
Our ‘Challenging Minds, Creating Futures’ Strategic Plan clearly articulates the importance of a Holistic Education (Pastoral Attentiveness) through our strategic direction to ‘energise the School’s holistic approach to the education of our students through the refinement of the co-curricular program, the significance of the House System and the development of our approach to character education and student wellbeing’. Our strategic direction in the endeavour is further articulated through four specific objectives.
A Northholm Grammar Education firmly believes that character and resilience are as crucial to young people’s future success as academic qualifications, hence our commitment to an educational philosophy based on ‘academic intentionality with pastoral attentiveness’.
Underlined within the approach is the significance of pupils learning about the importance of positive personal attributes – such as self-respect and self-worth, honesty, courage, kindness, generosity, trustworthiness and a sense of justice. We aim at building on the great work already being done by many schools to ensure young people build strong and positive relationships and embrace the character and resilience needed to deal with life’s inevitable challenges.
The Northholm Journey for our students consists of the following growth stages: Knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential and sowing seeds that benefit others. You can see by this definition that student success is a journey rather than a destination.
No matter how long you live or what you decide to do in life, you will never exhaust your capacity to grow toward your potential, nor will you run out of opportunities to help others. When you see success as a journey, then you never have the problem of trying to “arrive” at an elusive final destination. And you’ll never find yourself in a position where you’ve accomplished some final goal – only to discover that you’re still unfulfilled and searching for something else to do.
Another benefit of focusing on the journey of becoming our best instead of on arriving at a destination or achieving a goal is that you have the potential to become the best version of yourself today. The very moment that you make the shift to finding your purpose, growing to your potential, and helping others, success is something you are right now, not something you vaguely hope one day to be.
Fundamentally education is about making sure the next generation have everything they need to realise their potential. That means offering them a broad and rich curriculum which gives them the knowledge and skills that will set them up for success in further study and the world and work. But it shouldn’t stop there; a young person’s time in education should help to build their confidence and resilience, helping them to deal with life’s ups and downs.
