Junior School 

From the Head of Junior School 

At the time of writing, I am looking out across the water to Albany from Camp Quaranup. Our Year Four students are enjoying afternoon tea on the grassed area in front of the dining hall. It's a beautiful setting; ideal for their first off-campus camp experience. 

Year Four will feature more prominently in next week's Anchor, with reflections from their camp experience, but this scene has prompted some great discussions with the group already around our learner attributes in-focus this week, ‘open-minded’, and next week ‘collaboration’. 

Camps provide a unique opportunity for students to learn in different settings, with shared experiences and activities that could not be easily replicated on-campus or at home. These moments of personal growth and experiential learning are incredibly valuable for young people as they often represent milestone moments for individuals in their own way.

In exploring our learner attribute this week - Open-Minded, I am consistently impressed by how naturally this resonates with children. Someone who is open-minded invites alternate perspectives to be considered, engages empathetically with others, and is open to changing their own position on a topic for the right reasons. Of course, there are circumstances where its entirely appropriate to remain resolute on a position, but being open-minded allows for another perspective to be considered. This all sounds very sensible and reasonable, yet in practice it can be very challenging, for all of us, at times.

In seemingly simple ways, our students nurture an open-mind by sharing their likes and dislikes, preferences on topics and understandings for how to best perform tasks. I love hearing students chat about their perspectives on topics, like the rules of a particular game they all play, or their favourite story book and why, or perhaps the best way to solve a problem in maths. Recognising the similarities and differences in opinion and perspective is a valuable experience for students. As they grow, and the topics of discussion become more complex, their open-minded mindsets will help them navigate through conversations respectfully and consider their own thoughts and opinions reflectively. 

Back to Year Four camp, its been lovely to raise the topic of open-mindedness and listen to their thinking, then see it in action. Our students are opening their thinking to alternate perspectives from our different guest presenters and learning from each other as much as the activities we are enjoying together. The students are empathetically supporting each other through camp tasks, understanding that we all come from different families, each with their own routines and ways of doing things at home. In a camp setting operating like we do at home isn’t always possible, some open-minded thinking has been helpful for considering how we might operate a cohort group. 

I have no doubt these are skills our students will revisit and value throughout their lives.

With warm regards,

Mr Ken Raven | Head of Junior School