FROM OUR CHAPLAIN

With exams coming up soon, this week’s Chapel gave the Year 11s and 12s time out to have a look at how they can increase their peace and patience, especially in these busy times.

One of the highlights of my week has been to visit the Year 8V camp at our Valley Campus and hear from the students their stories of how they didn’t think they could do the three-day walk at the beginning, but through resilience, they found it much easier than expected.

After reflecting on it with their peers, they were able to realise that their original negative thought patterns about themselves had changed and now they could see positive things about who they are with the result that their identity about themselves had grown because they now know that they are capable of solving more problems than before and are capable of bigger things than they first thought.

We then did a mindful exercise where they were able to access all the unhelpful beliefs that they had made up about themselves in the past, mindfully eliminating the energy in those beliefs and writing down new optimistic beliefs about themselves that they could trust, and so have more confidence that they can achieve the things they want to with a much more positive attitude about themselves.

Well done Year 8V.

Next week, I am completing my chaplaincy visits to other UCA schools to see how we might be able to develop a more spiritual framework for what we do here at Scotch Oakburn and I look forward to sharing the results with you all in due course.

Grace Reynolds
College Chaplain