• Invest in your cup first. Let it overflow. Your surrounding cups (family and friends) will also benefit
• If you’re 99% there, you’re only 50% there.
• Iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens their friend. Surround yourself with motivated and inspiring people.
• If you are scared of the spotlight, shine more light on your stage so there is no spotlight.
• Darkness is just the absence of light. Be the light.
• Pursue progress, and not perfection
• Time is the most precious resource on this planet, make the most of it.
• Less is more
• Do less, be more
• The bigger the base, the higher the mountain
• The greatest meaning we can take on is the burden of suffering.
• Meaningless suffering will become meaningful if you take personal responsibility.
• Those who seek to reorganise the world should start to clean up the disorder that exists in their own room first.
• Before blaming others, ask yourself if you’re completely exculpatory.
• Money can’t buy manners, respect, loyalty and love.
• Life is like a game of golf. The choices and values you make now at school will impact you in your 20s, 30s, 40s, and beyond. Hold your golf club firmly and with purpose.
• It’s not so much important what we learn, but WHY and HOW we learn.
• Why is the most important question in life. If you know why, the how, who, what, when, where, who will naturally follow.
• Attitude always trumps aptitude.
• Failures are a gift for growth and progress
• The now is a gift, that’s why they call it the present.
• Respect your teachers, respect your parents, respect your family, but most importantly: respect yourself.
• Love and help yourself, so that you can love and help others
• It’s good to think. But it’s more important to think about how you think.
• In the changing economy, it is not such much how great you are as an individual, but how well you work in a team
• Whatever you do in life, do it with pride
• There are two pains in life: the pain of discipline, or the pain of regret.
• You are the master of your fate, and the captain of your soul.
• Our failures and mistakes don’t define us. How we respond to them do.
• Broaden your horizons
• When you lie to others, you’re only lying to yourself
• Your life is like a movie, and you are the director. If you know how your movie ends, you know what key scenes are needed in the middle and the beginning. It doesn’t matter how many takes you try. And… Action!
• Your life is like a story, and you are the author. Make every chapter, every page, every paragraph, every sentence, and every word count.
• Pain is temporary, knowledge is lasting, learning is forever
• Your values are your personalised compass. If you need to make a life decision, refer to your compass.
• Never blame others for failure. Take responsibility.
• Study smarter, not harder.
• Hating is a reflection of your own insecurities.
• Jealousy is the cousin of failure.
• Never compare your life with anyone else’s.
• Growth is relative.
• By learning about the world, you learn more about yourself
• Your life is a story, tell it well.
• There’s no elevator to success, you have to take the stairs. Every accomplishment begins with the decision to try.
• Every child is different and has their own inner genius. Realise your growth potential.
• Form the right habits, and the right results will come.
• Don’t be obsessed with the destination, fall in love with the journey.
• Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.
• Create your own future.
• You’re not stressed, you FEEL stress. You’re not angry, you FEEL anger. Don’t let your emotions define who you are.
• Your history is not your destiny.
• Serendipity is an anagram for ripe destiny. Unjumble the confusion and surprises that happen every day by having faith that it’s all for a greater purpose- your ripe destiny.
• The loudest person in the room is usually not the smartest. It’s the quality of words you say, not the quantity.
• You create positive habits, and positive habits create a better you.
• It’s not how good you are as an individual, it’s how great you are in a team.
• Your marks don’t define you. It is you that makes a mark on education, and the real world.

The post Ideas to Make You Think 🤔 appeared first on S2P Connect.

It uses fear mongering to prey on innocent, loving parents who just want the best for their child.

Have you ever asked the tutoring college owners what you should do when you grow up, only to be given this answer:

“Be a doctor. Or a lawyer.”

“If you can’t do that, then if you are a male – be an engineer. If you are a female – be a teacher.”

It is mostly migrant parents that are misinformed about the nature of the Australian workforce. They believe that academic merit will be a guarantee for success in the future. Watch what this Math teacher says about the key to success here.

Angela Lee Duckworth says it is grit that is the best indicator of success in career and life. Further, grit was found to be usually unrelated or even inversely related to measures of talent.

Don’t let the spreaders of the Nerd Syndrome defeat you. Yes, academic marks are important, but so are other important things in life, such as your happiness and mental sanity. Life is about balance – that’s how we can become true blue Aussie all-rounders.

The post The tutoring industry in Sydney – spreaders of the Nerd Syndrome appeared first on S2P Connect.

You can view the new syllabus here.

You should open both and try the following:

• Search for “gender” in the old syllabus
• Search for “Asia” in the old syllabus
• Search for “intercultural” in the old syllabus

Now search for “gender”, “Asia” and “intercultural” in the new syllabus. It appears multiple times. It also calls out Asian Australians on page 25 under ‘Asia and Australia’s Engagement with Asia.’ Asians? In an English Syllabus? Impossibruuu.

Other key notes:

• The Area of Study is dropped (hooray!)

This is good. To be honest, you could go on a journey of discovery to change your identity to find belonging somewhere… S2P Connect fully supports this direction.

• Focus is now on depth of meaning and an appreciation for plurality in meaning

Students must consider the following perspectives when analysing texts

• Cultural
• Social
• Gender

What does this all mean? Students are to…

• Appreciate the human experience as diverse
• Identify and accept their own cultural, social and gendered perspectives
• Connect and exchange their ideas with those who may be different from them
• View English as the best gateway to understand ourselves, our principals, our parents, our professionals – and the great big, exciting and changing world outside the classroom.

The post Differences between the old and new HSC English Advanced Syllabus appeared first on S2P Connect.

Top Catholic educator Greg Whitby said “only 20% of students use their ATAR to get into university.” You may read here.

Mr Whitby has been leading a transformation agenda arguing the HSC is a relic of the past and does not prepare us for the changing Workforce.

Yes, the days of the HSC might not last forever. But what should we replace it with? How do we best equip our students with the skills required for the big, scary world out there? Snoopy didn’t know education could be so ruff.  

The post The ATAR is over-rated and the HSC has had its day appeared first on S2P Connect.

• No one really cares what ATAR you got at University
• No one really cares what marks you got at University in the workforce

More fun facts:

• Managers and employers do care about your soft skills
• Many companies are dropping the requirement for a candidate to submit their academic marks for employment (read here)
• They care whether you can communicate, deliver the work and put simply – whether they like you as a person or not

Instead of letting education put a mark on you – we want you to put a mark on education.

Embrace education for what it is – the best gateway to understand ourselves and the world. Learning never stops!  

All we want you to do is stay arms-length of the rest of the pack, don’t fall too far behind. Just keep up and enjoy the ride. Don’t hang up your boots just yet!

Watch the video of our very own Aussie Steven Bradbury winning gold at the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympics here.

The post Why you shouldn’t worry that much about academic marks appeared first on S2P Connect.

• 17 jobs and 5 careers

That’s a lot of interviews, references, CV changes and networking! Is there really such a thing as a ‘dream job’? It’s impossible to accurately predict the jobs of the future, but the characteristics our students need to develop now are crystal clear – critical thinking, growth mindset, and self-confidence.  

Automation will impact just about every sector in the economy. While it is impossible to accurately predict the jobs of the future, we should focus on growing key human skills such as critical thinking, empathy and creativity. High school is the best time to develop all three!

The post The workforce is changing: automation, artificial intelligence and more appeared first on S2P Connect.

We believe all students are gifted, in their own unique way.

In 1978, a 15 year old Michael Jordan did not make his high school varsity basketball team. Luckily he had the resilience and motivation to turn this setback and become the greatest of all time. Some basketball players are pass first point guards, some are dominant power forwards, some are “point-forwards” and some can cover any position on the court.

Talent wins games, but teamwork wins championships. It’s not just the shooter of the winning buzzer beater that wins the game, it’s the big in the post that sets a screen, it’s the guard that has the vision to make the high-risk pass, it’s the coach who strategizes the play, and it’s the fans who hold their breath in anticipation for the win.

It’s not how good you are as an individual. It’s how great you are in a team.

The post The key to success is not academics appeared first on S2P Connect.

The growth mindset and the capacity to fail and try again can be summarised as ‘grit’. It even sounds onomatopoeic, you can hear yourself wanting to persevere as you say it out loud – ‘grit’.

The Secretary also asserted, “We need to teach students to find and make meaning in their learning not to simply master a list of skills.” Instead of letting education put a mark on students, we want students to put their mark on education.

This is best done by exchanging stories, finding multiple meanings in them, and applying these meanings in their everyday lives. Reflecting and talking about these experiences will best equip the student with the soft skills and grit required for the quickly changing world.

The post The education of the future in NSW appeared first on S2P Connect.