Sathya Sai Primary School

Appreciation of Staff by Parents

Parents prepared a sumptuous feast to celebrate their gratitude to staff for the time, love, skill and care that goes into the sacred role of teaching. Staff are also grateful for the love showered upon them continuously by parents at the Sathya Sai Primary School. Gratitude is a state that brings its own energy, realisation, awareness and grace. Seated around the circular table in the hall, glowing in its newly-painted mellow yellow tones, staff enjoyed fresh salads, savoury morsels, rice rolls, vegetarian food prepared with loving care, surrounding the purple and white hues of agapanthus blossoms at the centre of the feast. Parents (with the legally required teacher) even watched over children in the playground who played happily observing the modelling of human values going on inside the buildings. The freshly painted porcelain-blue kitchen sparkled with the same glow afterwards! Thank-you so very much for this precious gift of love, which we value and continue to savour.

Love all, Serve all, Help ever, Hurt never. These are two of the fundamental quotes for Sathya Sai Education. The 5 human values are implicit in them and nowhere is it seen more clearly than in the modelling by school leadership at the weekend. Ian Cook, a very active parent with his practical love of the school, working smarter not harder, inspired servant leadership qualities to emerge in the school community leadership. Our photo shows the results of Ian’s superb modelling for his son, as Sam puts the finishing touches on the blue frame around the stage. Always giving his all, Parent and Friends Chairman Ganeshka Solomon and his family, wife Chai and sons Joseph and Benjamin, lifted and carried, adapted and provided moral support and optimism. Murwillumbah Sathya Sai Organization chairperson Johan van Venrooij lead the team, spraying the whole ceiling and wall surfaces in one day from a mobile trestle. This was a magnificent effort supported by SSO Zone Chair Steve Wedel's visit.

Wednesday, 20th September Kindy, Year 1/2, 3/4 had an incredible day visiting the Swell Sculpture Festival along Pacific Parade, Currumbin Beach. Children were divided into groups of four and five and placed with a parent or teacher. Teacher Chris Slattery was joined by several students. Visitors from Canada, who were walking along with us, were quick to comment on the excellent behaviour and appropriate questions and comments made by the boys. After enquiring what school we were from they left us shaking their heads bewildered by such outstanding behaviour - human values in action. The day concluded with lunch and games in the park, cricket, kite flying and frisbee games were played, while parents and teachers enjoyed some quality time.

The school has been captivated by the inspiration of the leadership of Drs Pal and Tehseen Dhall, Directors of the Institute of Sathya Sai Education Australia and PNG, during this week. The planting of trees by teacher trainees studying at the school over the weekend, to be cared for by kindergarten students, sowed new seeds and re-infused the spirit of human values in the heart of the school, our children. All of us are leaders. As parents we are the primary teachers and leaders of our children and our families. As teachers we lead children's character and academic development secondarily, supporting parents and guardians. We do this by creating a loving environment in which our whole school, including our children, staff, parents and communities, thrive and are able to achieve their full potential.

Students from all grades at the Sathya Sai Primary School undertake Community Service, once every month. Here, Kindy, Grades 1, 2, and 3 are singing at the Greenhills Nursing Home.

27 parents, and students from all grades and the Principal walked like the Pied Piper to the Civic Centre to "strum, bow, pluck and wave the conductor’s baton" with the Sydney Opera House Youth Orchestra "Baby Proms" on Friday, at the end of Education Week. Many parents contributed to "Loving and Learning Together", our education week theme.

During August the school was delighted to welcome the Chairman of the Central Council of the Sathya Sai Organisation, Associate Professor Roger Packham, who is also one of the five directors of the incorporated body that is responsible for the Sathya Sai School. He told us a story about children in the Sathya Sai School in Thailand, one of our 57 sister schools around the world. Roger is an agricultural scientist interested in participative rural development, but he also holds a Masters degree in education and teaches and lectures at Institutes in other countries. Later in the day Prof. Packham addressed the school staff about the bigger picture that the Sathya Sai Organisation has for the school. Roger will be making at least four visits a year to the school to provide a regular link between the wider school community, the incorporated body and the Australian Sathya Sai Organisation; he looks forward to talking and discussing issues relating to the school and its aims with any of the school community who would like to link up with him.

Weeding out the qualities we don’t want and planting the natural seeds of human values, the innate qualities that define who we are, is cause for celebration indeed! Happy watering cans filled with the Five Human Values, fruits and flowers made up of behaviours flowing from our individual consciences, we all enjoyed the fun and games in Knox Park.

Celebrating our EHV garden, parents and friends gathered to remember how fortunate we are to live in such an amazing time in which we are privileged to be able to make a difference. Our focus on a model school in human values is our Vision, that will really make a difference locally, nationally and internationally, when we live the values ourselves in all our words and actions.

The assembly was silent on Friday as Sathya Sai community cellist Nira played divinely as we all welcomed the aboriginal flag, provided to our school by the Federal member Justine Elliot, recently. During term 2 we will fully welcome the flag guided by local aboriginal tradition, in their way. Teacher Liz Thrush later took Nira into her class to introduce the music of the Cello to students and the rich feeling of the morning assembly echoed through our day.

The Parents and Friends group are active in a quality way at the school, preparing the structure, mixing and transferring the soil, nourishing it with manure, and preparing it with love for the staff to use in class activities related to water management.

Parents friends and community members gathered with our teachers on Wednesday 16 August to share understanding and experiences about how we are studying water management in our school teaching and learning syllabus. We watched a segment from Dr Emoto’s ‘Messages from Water’ and learned that the difference between ‘you will’ and ‘lets’ shows in water crystals frozen and investigated. ‘Thankyou ’changes the waters crystalline structure in a positive way and negative words destroy the crystals. Given that we, and the planet Earth, are approximately 70% water, understanding that our attitude matters so much, is important. This is why our school has focused for ten years on human values. When values are made conscious, life becomes simpler, more flexible and flow happens.

The more aligned we are to nature, the more free we are to experience our own true nature and so the peace within. Our true nature is the human values in everyone of us. This is why the Sathya Sai Primary School's Education in Human Values (EHV) model and philosophy works. The magnificence of the physical surrounds of our Murwillumbah school, the open thinking of the parents and the sensitivity of our children, ensures that staff have a great opportunity to transform education too, in a climate of love and truth. Peace always comes from within. When we have our lives in balance, our natural innate peace emerges. This is so important during these turbulent times. Our classes current immersion in Water Management are testimony to this.

Grade 3/4 enjoyed the peace of a natural farm guided by Marcia Pidgeon and Druen last Wednesday. Students were delighted with the experience and especially as it was arranged by one of our beautiful parents whose love of organic living and finding peace and balance in our beautiful Murwillumbah eco-system, ensures that it will be available for the next generation too! The students enjoyed weeding and silent sitting as well as the social time with each other engaged in nature.

Sathya Sai Primary School, Staff and Teachers, 2006

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Building the Education Revolution This school has received funding from the Australian Government to undertake infrastructure projects under the Building the Education Revolution component of the Government's Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan.