There are not many jobs where making yourself redundant is the ultimate aim, but parenting and teaching would be two.

For parents, our loving role never ends, but during these school-age years, we are called upon to be the frontal cortex for our children while theirs is still under development. It is this element of parenting that we hope will not be required as our young adults move out of their teens. Until then, parents and educators are faced with the responsibility of guiding children and adolescents through the myriad of challenges that come from this period of their lives. The added powerful influence of technology in recent years has certainly increased the complexity of this task.

In light of this, it was a pleasure to host Dr Michael Carr-Gregg to our community earlier this week.

Michael worked with our Year 7/8 and Year 9/10 girls on Monday, offering reminders of the importance of diet, sleep, and exercise and offering advice on how their devices could actually assist them in enhancing their own wellbeing. The following day, he was the keynote speaker at the inaugural Year 11 Wellbeing Day after which he worked with a group of senior students to discuss issues and initiatives relating to their welfare.

Michael’s presentations to the SMC staff and to our combined SMC/CC parent body were affirming of many age-old tips to ensure student wellbeing. He was a captivating and engaging speaker, using humour and personal parenting anecdotes to highlight the many modern tools available to assist parents and educators. For those of you who missed his talk on Monday night, you can download a PDF of his presentation slides here.

This newsletter will offer further information on a powerful new resource for SMC families, our School TV platform. Curated by Dr Carr-Gregg, SchoolTV aggregates expert information from many great resources that we hope will offer a one-stop-shop for factual advice on some of the more challenging elements of modern parenting.

As Michael aptly reminded us, ‘Youth may represent only 20% of the population, but they are 100% of our future'. I know that we are all committed to doing our very best for our young people, and these opportunities to share in the wisdom of others strengthens our collective ability to educate our girls to live and lead.