Principal's Message Week 6 Term 3

What happened to my boy?

Sometimes, I hear this question asked by parents when their boy moves from his primary education to secondary schooling. It can be a more complex question than it first appears.

I think that we can occasionally be seduced into glamorising our young children’s primary education as being trouble-free, joyous years. And then high school hits, and we wonder what happened to our angelic, do-no-wrong child. In fact, what happens is multi-faceted. It involves and is not limited to, the growing influence of the peer group, the push and pull of the movement away from parents as the prime source of knowledge and wisdom and towards other important figures in a child’s life. This can seem like the beginnings of a loss of innocence. Because ultimately, it is.

Importantly, it is a time where boundaries are tested. If experiences and incidents are not called out or prohibited, then they must be permitted. So, it sometimes seems to a now tween and teen. Part of growing up is the gradual awareness of a world that stretches beyond the bounds of the family home, the local neighbourhood, and the people who to date have formed their extended family and group.

Into the mix of all of this is the developing and pruning of the brain. The pre-frontal cortex is not yet fully developed, and we see behaviours that can appear contradictory. In the space of a few hours, we can see our boy moving towards adulthood and doing and saying things that are mature and considered, and then pepper this with the most childish, ill-thought comments and actions that he didn’t even do when he was six or seven. One of the most redundant questions we can ask our now-teen is “what were you thinking?” We all know the answer is usually akin to, “I wasn’t”!

And if all of this is not enough, we throw puberty into the mix. The hormones that flood the system that cause confusion, emotional outbursts, rapid growth spurts, hair sprouting in new places, pimples, cracking voices, and a slowly evolving sexual awakening. This time can be difficult for a boy, navigating his brain, his heart, and his changing body, as well as understanding his feelings. I remember my own children at times becoming quite emotional during this period and not even knowing why.

At our school, and indeed any school, the quality of what is provided does not deteriorate from one year group to the next. What actually is happening is life. The boys are changing. They are sometimes flexing their physical and metaphorical muscles, testing yours (and our) patience, boundaries, and their own limits. They are growing before our very eyes.

While they physically grow, emotionally develop, and mentally and academically become highly sophisticated abstract thinkers, none of this occurs in a neat, linear trajectory. Like the rest of humanity, it is lumpy, uneven, and patchy.

What we can always count on though is that innately, our boys are good, they seek to do good, and they provide endless reasons for us to love them, correct them, forgive them, and laugh along with them. As educators, we navigate this while attempting to continue to teach them! As parents, we do so while continuing to raise them in the best way we know how. When we do it together with a shared set of values and expectations, we give them every opportunity to thrive.

Adolescent boys are just our same little boys, wrapped in different clothing, with an exterior that we just occasionally shouldn’t be fooled by!

Dr Craig Wattam

College Principal

DISCOVERY TOUR - Thursday 27 August

Join us for a Discovery Tour on Thursday 27 August, 9am to 10.30am and see ATC in action! Meet College Principal Dr Craig Wattam, connect with staff and students, and explore our state‑of‑the‑art facilities. Experience the energy of a boys’ school and see how our outstanding educators inspire hard work, motivation, and a love of learning. Discovery Tour: Book Here