On Monday we commemorate Remembrance Day by holding our annual Knox Grammar School Remembrance Day Commemoration and OKGA Honouring Service between 10.30am - 11.10am. The service takes place on Knox 1 and students will be seated in the Knox 1 stand.

Please remind your sons that:

• Cadets involved in the service are to wear their bush hat (wide brim).
• All other students wear a Knox hat or cap.
• All students should apply sunscreen prior to coming to school and bring sunscreen to school to re-apply at recess.
• Drink plenty of water at recess to remain hydrated.

Your assistance in encouraging your son to be ‘sun smart’ is greatly appreciated.

Phil O’Regan

Another busy week for the class of 2020, as they start to prepare for their first round of HSC assessments.

Thursday night saw several exceptional performances in 'Oliver', which is a just reward for the long hours dedicated to rehearsals, all whilst managing the Year 12 workload. Congratulations to the boys involved and good luck for the remaining two shows!

There was a real buzz around the School as the Tartan Army congregated to practise school war cries which could be heard throughout the campus. Jack Delaney and Massimo Forlico have written new war cries which were well received by the 240 boys who packed into the Knox Cultural Centre Auditorium. Mackensie Balmer’s passion for the School and his natural confidence was also on display and the younger boys certainly looked up to our leaders. I can only imagine what a lift this will give to their peers when the Army supports the Black and Blue when competing against other schools!

Congratulations to James Stark and Timothy Leong who have been chosen to represent the School at the Science Olympiad Summer School in Canberra in January. This is an outstanding achievement.

Dylan Campbell left for Bucharest in Romania to compete in the FIFA eWorld Champions, which is for the top 32 players in the world with a minimum age of 16, making Dylan the youngest competitor! This achievement is even more remarkable because Dylan only allocates time to game during the weekend and not during the week, ensuring that it complements his academic routines.

Mentor Leaders were also chosen this week – this is a position chosen by peers and reflects an important role to build the culture within the Mentor Group. Congratulations to the following boys Alex Campbell, Josh Chen, Alex Chin, Alec Cook, Max Couvret, Blair Davidson Matt Davidson, Davis Ding, James Dwyer, Oliver Evans, Harrison Ferry, Max Gillman, Max Gin, Josh Gray, Lachlan Karunaratne, Daniel Loyzaga, Ivan Lu, Clive Marlot, Daniel Kai Miu, Ethan Moody, Will Saddington, Jack Smith, Adam Soonius, Zac Wong and Adam Wu.

Duncan Stedman

Robin Cherry 9119 0884

The mentor program focus for this fortnight has been on understanding the nature of the thoughts that cause extreme stress, some common unhelpful thinking ‘habits’, and also the idea of challenging our unhelpful stress-related thoughts. Today’s update is focused on the first two, while next week’s update will cover thought challenging.

The link between Situations, Thoughts, Feelings and Behavior:
We often find ourselves feeling strong emotions after being in particular situations – and the temptation is to attribute our emotion to the situation. Research has shown that it is actually the thought or belief that we hold about the situation that causes the emotion and resulting behaviour.

SITUATION - THOUGHTS - FEELINGS - BEHAVIORS
The example presented in class was an example of a situation where a student has a test tomorrow.
One thought might be: 'I can’t do it'. Thinking this way will lead the student to feel stressed and overwhelmed. This may result in the student panicking and having trouble focusing.

A different, more realistic way to think about the same situation may be 'Actually I have studied a lot during the past week'. Thinking this way may lead the student to feel more confident and relaxed, and the resulting behaviour is likely to be productive study time.

Unhelpful Thinking Habits
When we experience extreme and unhelpful stress, this is often caused by negative, unhelpful thinking. Note that there are numerous other causes of extreme stress, such as when there are real problems to be solved, e.g. having too many commitments and not enough time. However, the current focus is on the extreme stress that is caused by unhelpful, negative thoughts.

There are numerous common ‘Thinking Habits’ that have been suggested by researchers in this field. The habits outlined in Mentor were the following:

      Black and White Thinking
      • Thinking in extreme, all or nothing terms
          e.g. ‘If it’s not perfect I can’t hand it in’

      Unfair to Compare
       • Comparing yourself to others
         e.g. ‘He’s so much better than me, I am hopeless’

      Filtering
       • Filtering out the positives from a situation: focusing on the negative only
          e.g. ‘I’ve done so badly at school this week’ when there was one low mark but also some really good ones

      Mind Reading
       • Assuming you know what others think or are going to think
         e.g. ‘They’re all going to think I am an idiot if I give the wrong answer’

      Catastrophising
       • Thinking the worst
         e.g. ‘if I perform poorly on this test, it will be a disaster’

      Fact vs Feeling
       • Feeling bad does not necessarily mean that the situation is bad – it may just be the feeling. There is a difference between feelings and fact/reality

      Overgeneralising
       • Taking one example of something and generalising to all
          e.g. ‘One bad thing happened in the morning and it means the whole day is going to be bad’

      Labelling
       • Calling oneself names e.g. ‘I am an idiot’

      Blaming Others
       • Blaming others for things that go wrong, rather than looking at the reality of the situation and taking responsibility where appropriate.

These thinking habits are common patterns of thinking for all of us. They occur more frequently when we experience extreme negative emotion, including elevated stress. The boys were encouraged to identify whether they observed these habits in their own thinking.

Once again, please continue to talk with your son about the Mentor program content, and if you have any questions or comments please email.

Melinda Price
Senior School Clinical Psychologist – Year 12

On Monday 25 November, Paul Dillon will be presenting to Year 12 students in periods 6 and 7 in the WSA and to parents from 6pm - 7pm in the Great Hall.

More Information and registration will be available very soon.

At Year Meeting this week Mr Winstanley presented certificates to Ivan Lu, Oscar Wang and Oscar Wu (Massimo Forlico was absent). These students do distance education through NSW School of Languages and all received awards as follows:

Massimo Forlico: Effort and Commitment to the Year 11 Italian Beginners Course

Oscar Wang: Effort and Commitment to the Year 11 Chinese in Context Course and 1st in his cohort (tied) for Year 11.

Oscar Wu: 2nd in cohort for Year 11 Chinese in Context

Ivan Lu: 3rd in cohort for Year 11 Chinese in Context

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