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Key Dates- Put them in your Diary!!
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by Fiona O'Flaherty
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Key Dates
The full calendar is on our website. These are some of the key dates to keep in mind for the coming months. Click here to go to the Academy Calendar on the website.
September 2008
Thursday 4 Black Belt Pre Grade 6.15pm
Thursday 6 Staff Meeting 3-5pm
Saturday 13 Black Belt Grading 8.30am-transferred to Thursday nights
Saturday 20-5 School Holidays
October 2008
Thursday 2nd Vacation Program
Friday 3rd Vacation Program
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Core Values -Family and Belonging is everything
- Girls and Bullying
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by Damien O'Flaherty
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Core Values
I am so proud of the five core values our Academy stands for:
1. Martial Arts is a Life Journey
2. Always Persist
3. Have Fun
4 Family & Belonging is everything
5. Strive for Personal Excellence
Girls and Bullying
Today I am going to continue to talk about Family and Belonging, in particular today I am going to focus on Belonging.
For many years now Fiona and I have had parents regularly talk to us about Girls and their social behaviours, and "what is it with girls and the bitchiness" etc.
As you all know we have two Boys so I am not going on personal experience here but rather my years of play ground duty at Primary Schools and Fiona's years at High School and Primary School teaching.
Bullying in my words is when someone tries to intentionally, on one or more occasions intimidate or hold power of some sort over another person- there is a victim and a person in control.
Girls Bullying can be quite hard to spot and there is often no one specific incident, often it is mental bullying.
I quote this section from a website
"Boys generally harm others with physical or verbal aggression because this behavior is consistent with the physical dominance peer group goals of boys. Girls, on the other hand, are more apt to focus their aggression on relational issues with their peers. This behavior is consistent with the social peer group and intimacy goals of girls. This kind of aggression, which Crick and her colleagues call "relational aggression," is more characteristic of girls, though not exclusive to girls, and is done with the intention of damaging another child's friendship or feelings of inclusion within a social group (Crick & Grotpeter, 1995, p. 711).
Girls' relational aggression includes a range of behaviors such as excluding another child from a play group as a form of retaliation, intentionally withdrawing friendship as a way of hurting or controlling a child, and spreading rumors about a child to persuade peers to reject her (Crick & Grotpeter, 1995, p. 711). Patterns of relational aggression are seen in girls as young as 3 to 5 years of age (Crick, Casas, & Mosher, 1997, p. 585) and appear to be relatively stable over time (Crick, 1996, p. 2326)".
The conversations we tend to have with parents of girls relates to this "relational aggression" and yes it does seem to start as young as 5 or 6 years old.
It is this exclusion, withdrawing of friendships etc that girls commonly use and yes it is BULLYING. It is even more common in adolescence when small groups or cliques are formed. It is absolutely crutial when we know that our girls are part of a small intimate group that we educate them about inclusiveness. No we don't all have to be best friends but yes we do all have to work together and yes we do have to operate in a manner which is acceptable to everyone so that no one feels excluded or over powered.
What can Parents do?
1. Educate your children on socially acceptable manners
2. If you know your child is part of a "group or clique" watch them and see if you notice any exclusions of other children, listen to them and the way they communicate with others outside the group.
3. Encourage them to mix and socialise with many different people- in fact go out of your way to invite other children over to play
4. Let your children know that you don't have to be best friends with everyone, but yes you do have to be able to socialise and work with everyone no matter what shape, size, colour, smell etc
5. Tell them it is unacceptable to exclude any one from anything and in fact encourage them to be the opposite and be known as the person who is friends with everyone!
6. Educate them about Bullying and that almost always when someone is Bullying there is what I call an onlooker- someone watching. If this is your child encourage them to be the one that is brave enough to talk to the teacher or you so the issue can be dealt with.
At our Academy I am passionate about this and I will not tolerate any one bullying. It is unfortunate that I have had some instances of it at our Academy and I guess with nearly 250 students we have many personalities, but it will not be tolerated. We have in the past week unfortunately had some instances that I will not tolerate and as a result we will be talking to students about this in the coming days and weeks, so please talk about it at home as well.
Fiona and I have also as a result of some instances cancelled all playing on the teaching area at the Academy prior to classes.
Remind your children that if they are part of our Academy they are part of our FAMILY and Bullying of any sort will not be tolerated, from Boys or Girls, verbal, mental or physical.
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by Damien O'Flaherty
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Korean Terminology used at the Academy
Charyot Attention
Kyongrye Bow
Dojang Training Hall
Dobok Uniform
Dee Belt
Kwanjangnim Head Instructor
Sabomnim Instructor
Jumbi Ready
Shijak Begin
Keuman Finish
Hana One
Dool Two
Set Three
Net Four
Dasot Five
Yosot Six
Ilgop Seven
Yeodul Eight
A hop Nine
Yeol Ten
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No playing on Mats prior to classes!!!!
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by Fiona O'Flaherty
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New Safety Rule
You will all know that our numbers have continued to grow over the past couple of years, and as a result some changes some times have to be made.
Last Wednesday Damien and I watched how students played on the mats prior to 3.45pm classes.
Unfortunately it has now got to the stage where we have had to cancel all playing on mats prior to classes. It is a result of some unsafe instances and also some unacceptable playing behaviours of some children, which sneek in when not supervised.
What this means is that Students will now have to stay with the parents under their supervision prior to all classes- preferably in the foyer area.
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Christmas is coming!!!!!!! Gift Ideas and Accessories
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by KWON Australia
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 There are many great gift ideas from protectiove equipment to bags and other accessories that make great gift ideas.
Why not go "on-line" with KWON Australia to purchase family a great gift for life - KWON unifroms, equipment and accessories are the perfect motivation to help the focussed martial artist feel the part - as they say at KWON - Touch the Spirit!
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