30 Days to Make a Change

You may have heard your child(ren) talking about 30 Days to Make a Change, but if not we’d like to tell you more about it.

Research tells us it takes 30 days for a change in behaviour to become a habit, and six months for a habit to become the automatic way a person does things. So, starting last week, all across the school, we are focusing on ‘good manners’, with all members of staff modelling, highlighting, praising and rewarding good manners. Although manners across the school are largely very good, not everyone displays good manners, all the time; this is what we are aspiring to.

As you know, manners are something used every day to make a good impression on others and to feel good about oneself. No matter where you are – at home, school, work, or with friends – practising good manners is important.

Good manners are more than opening doors and saying please and thank you. While opening doors for others and saying please and thank you is important, true courtesy goes deeper. Being polite and courteous means considering how others are feeling. If you practise good manners, you are showing those around you that you are considerate of their feelings and respectful. You are also setting standards for others’ behaviour and encouraging them to treat you with similar respect.

Every culture and individual may have different rules or feelings about what is polite or is not polite. These rules may differ from person to person or based on situation, but there is one rule of good manners (and life, in general) that is always easy to follow – do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

The overarching ambition of the school is to embed our values and we believe that engaging the whole school community in 30 Days to Make a Change will help us do this. Next month we will be focusing on another area of school life and starting up a new 30 Days to Make a Change… more information will follow.