Total Education Blog

Independent Schools Queensland recently ran a two-day workshop on school wellbeing, facilitated by Professor Donna Cross from the University of Western Australia. SOTE principal Shane Power and Secondary Coordinator Judy Funder attended.

Earlier this year, SOTE’s Grade 12 students gave a talk to the Combined Parents Meeting on the topic of “Social Media and Me – Helpful or Harmful?”.

We were privileged to have Dr Ali Black, senior early childhood lecturer at Sunshine Coast University, speak at our graduation ceremony this year. The event doubled as a celebration of our graduates as well as the final Parents' Program for the year.

The School of Total Education was privileged to have Dr Derek Chong, Queensland's first indigenous psychiatrist, visit the school in late November following his address to the International Men's Day breakfast, which was hosted by the school's psychologist, Mark Cary.

"Existing modern education is not education to produce happy individuals..." the Dalai Lama states "[The] existing modern education system is very much oriented in material values, external values, completely neglecting about our inner values."

We often say that The School of Total Education is a living community. One of the ways that aliveness is engendered is through the encouragement of communication - not just between teachers and students but between teachers and parents. Deputy Principal Judy Currie was asked by one of the parent groups to talk about this recently. This is transcript of her talk.

The APN press recently ran an article by Dr Ali Black, a lecturer in early childhood teacher education at the University of the Sunshine Coast. The article was titled ‘Is Curriculum Pressure Killing Student’s Joy?’. In it Dr Black reflects on her experience of her daughter not wanting to return to school because of a general lack of joy in the classroom.