Message from a Concerned Parent
Dear Parents/Guardians,
Re: Role modelling positive
behaviours
A couple of newsletters ago, our Principal, Steve King conveyed
his concerns about the number of instances of parents/guardians of
students at our school illegally parking at or near the school and
being poor role models in relation to crossing the
road. I share Steve's concerns and am also becoming
alarmed at the frequency in which I witness poor leadership of this
group when it comes to the basics of manners.
Let me explain. Each day I walk my children to school
and almost without exception see the following:
- Cars parked across driveways (to those guilty of doing
this, perhaps consider yourselves in the shoes of the person living
there, about to leave their home, perhaps running late for work or
worse still, there's an emergency and you can't get out of your own
home?)
- Cars parking well beyond the permitted time allocated on the
parking sign (to those guilty, perhaps consider if you were
struggling to find a parking space to drop off your child, would
you benefit if everyone stuck to the authorized time?)
- Parents crossing the road in places other than the school
crossings, with or without their children (what is this
teaching our young ones?); when assisting my
daughter on crossing duty I even witnessed someone repeatedly
ignoring the blocked crossing (when the signs are in) and crossing
- yes really!
- Cars doing U-turns right by the school crossing after the
driver has dropped off their children.
We should consider, are these positive examples of showing
consideration/demonstrating safety for our children?
Regrettably, I also see adults pushing past children at the
gates at pick up time which is just simply bad manners. At the
recent Greenathon there was a table set up for our children to
participate and place leaves on the tree; my son was at the table
writing his name on a leaf when another impatient parent pushed
past him, his arm visibly pushing into my son's face so he could
reach a pen. A simple "excuse me" would have resulted in
my son passing him the pen; I pointed out to this person that
manners cost nothing. My son is 7, the parent was in his
forties and such behavior is appalling.
I am writing to appeal to the minority of our children's
parents/guardians who are doing the wrong thing as outlined above,
to be considerate of others and change your behaviours, if not for
you, do it for your own children to demonstrate what is the right
thing to do. I also ask the majority of our children's
parents/guardians who do the right thing to please join me in not
walking past an issue; politely call it out and hold
everyone to account.
We are very fortunate to be sending our children to such a
fantastic school as RPS with teachers who so passionately work, day
in and day out to educate and coach them, supported by Steve and
his Leadership Team's leadership. My children have never
thrived so much in a school as they are here (huge shout out to the
team of teachers responsible for teaching my children, who are
simply outstanding!); it is not the teaching team's responsibility
to teach our kids the basics of manners, road rules etc… that falls
to us as parents/guardians to show leadership and role model what
we expect to see in these formative years.
Please help the wonderful teachers at RPS to help you to set our
children up for success, by doing the right thing first and
foremost and please don't walk past an issue, politely and
respectfully call it out. Something to ponder during
this school break as together we can make a positive impact on our
school community.
Thank you for your time.
Best regards,
Andrew Corbett
(Parent of children in years 3 & 6).
