In the earliest days of Berwick Lodge Primary School, in early February of 1990, as the inaugural principal I would meet with our founding school council almost fortnightly for many months – there is simply so much to do when establishing a new school.
The topic of our school motto took up considerable time at a couple of those meetings. We finally settled on Learning for Life as our school motto.
There’s nothing especially surprising or novel in that choice. Nonetheless it is a powerful beacon by which we can frame our teaching and learning programs for all children, not to mention being a concise statement of the culture that we aim to develop and sustain.
The beauty of the motto lies in the crystal-clear clarity of our school’s overarching goal coupled with the flexibility that it at once affords. A very neat juxtaposition – a contrast that creates an interesting effect.
Among the many aims of our school’s educational program for our students, the importance of developing critical thinking minds is central.
Critical thinking is a skill that transcends subject areas – being of prime importance in every area and aspect of the curriculum and by extension, life itself.
Ironically, critical thinking is not one of the more readily measured skills such as literacy and numeracy and does not lend itself well to school by school and national comparisons.
It is, as such, something which can easily, accidentally ‘slip off the radar’, so to speak, in the ever-present pressure under which schools operate to deliver high scores in national standardised tests.
I’m proud to say that we don’t allow that to happen at our school.
Henry Grossek,
Principal
Berwick Lodge Primary School
