Leader of Year 9 Wellbeing

There is something distinctive about seeing a community for the first time. Without the familiarity that comes from years of belonging, you notice the smaller things: the conversations, the gestures of inclusion and the way people choose to welcome someone they do not yet know.

When I joined St Aloysius College this term, I arrived very much as a newcomer. Having recently moved schools while my family also settled into the Sutherland Shire, I was entering two established communities at once. Naturally, there was some uncertainty about what that transition would look like. Yet, from my first days at the College, that uncertainty was quickly replaced by a genuine sense of welcome.

Entering an established Year 9 cohort could easily have been daunting. Instead, I found a group of students remarkably willing to include someone new. Often, it was not through grand gestures, but through the simple things that matter when everything around you is unfamiliar: starting a conversation, offering directions, introducing me to others or making space for me within an existing group.

That same character has been evident across the wider College. Teachers and staff have been generous with their time, approachable and genuinely interested in making the transition as seamless as possible. Together, these experiences have given me an early insight into what lies at the heart of St Aloysius.

Perhaps being an outsider has allowed me to recognise something that can be easy to overlook once a place feels familiar: a strong community is defined not simply by how connected its existing members are, but by how readily it welcomes someone new.

I may have arrived at St Aloysius as an outsider, but it has taken remarkably little time to begin feeling that I belong.

By Michael Kachtelian ( Year 9 )