Administration News
Yalari Partnership with Great Southern Grammar
Since 2011, Great Southern Grammar has proudly partnered with Yalari, an organisation that provides full boarding school scholarships to Indigenous children from regional and remote communities across Australia. These scholarships span the entirety of their secondary education, beginning in Year Seven.
Over the years, we’ve welcomed Yalari scholars from within the Great Southern region (Broomehill, Katanning and Wagin) and as far afield as Broome, Halls Creek, Derby, Port Hedland and Kununurra. For students from the Kimberley, this journey involves significant travel, often including up to three flights in a single day to move between home and school.
This year, we were thrilled to welcome three new Year Seven scholars: Cleo Edwards and Brooklyn Kirk, both travelling from Port Hedland, and Jose Bin Omar, originally from Broome, now commuting from Perth.
Navigating multiple airports presents challenges, especially in Perth where students must change terminals. To ensure their safety and ease of travel, Supervisors assist scholars in transitioning between flights.
At the end of Term Two, our Principal Mat Irving supported travel to Port Hedland and whilst enjoying the beautiful warm weather, he met with the families of Cleo and Brooklyn.
To kick off Term Three, Mrs Amber Freeman travelled to Perth to greet Brooklyn, Cleo, and Corinthian Calwyn arriving on Qantas flights. She then helped them transfer terminals for their Regional Express (REX) journey. During this time, Jose Bin Omar joined the group, accompanied by his sisters and alumni Faith Bin Omar and Leonie Ozies. Leonie also delighted everyone by introducing her young daughter to Amber.
Amber’s outstanding support in Perth made a significant difference, she knows our boarders very well and we’re grateful she’ll continue assisting scholars during future term breaks.
One other thing we appreciate about Amber is that she’s always ready to capture a great photo, which is a huge help when we're putting together The Boarding Buzz!
REACH Hosts
Recently REACH performed an update of their software which switched on the ability for parents to add leave hosts. We are currently working with REACH to turn this feature off again. In the meantime, if you would like a leave host added for your child, please complete the REACH Leave Hosts Cognito form here or email details to boarding@gsg.wa.edu.au.
It is very important that only staff add leave hosts as our database becomes unreliable with many people entering records. Staff will search to see if a host already exists in our database before adding a new record. An example of what has happened recently is that a number of boarders attended a party and each family added a new host for their child. We now have five records for the same person with one student as a link to each record. The database should show the opposite, one host with five students linked to their single record.
Thank you for your help in this matter.
Closed Weekend
The Boarders' Closed Weekend is at the end of Week Five. Boarders not using the Boarding Bus Service depart Boarding by 4.30pm on Friday 22 August and return after 3.00pm on Monday 25 August.
For families using the Boarding Bus service, please see the links below.
To book the Eastern Bus Service, (Green Range, Boxwood Hill, Gairdner, Jerramungup, West River, Ravensthorpe, Lake King), please click here.
To book the Western Bus Service, (Cranbrook, Tambellup, Broomehill, Katanning, Nyabing, Pingrup, Lake Grace), please click here.
For new families who have not used the Boarding Bus thus far, please feel free to contact us for more information about this Closed Weekend service via boarding@gsg.wa.edu.au
As a reminder, if your child is travelling home on the TRANSWA service, please provide us with a copy of your child's ticket via boarding@gsg.wa.edu.au so that we know to provide them with transport to the TRANSWA depot.
Boarding Emails
Just a quick reminder that we have a new email address for boarding. Please contact us via boarding@gsg.wa.edu.au for any administrative enquiries.
Mrs Dianne Franzinelli | Boarding Administrator