Senior School

From the Head of Senior School 

I have been thinking how strange it must be to be living in Kabul. Two weeks ago life was completely ‘normal’. Students attended school, people went to work at their jobs, maybe did some shopping, just generally went about their business. Possibly they were concerned about the far distant threat of the Taliban and the withdrawal of Coalition troops, but life was stable and predictable.

Then in a matter of days the world inverted. Everything has changed. I imagine that many of the things many people took for granted have disappeared, literally overnight.

What are they to make of that, and what are we to make of it? For a start, life is unpredictable. Members of our own school community have experienced this very sort of sudden cataclysm, where everything that seemed familiar and usual vanished, and the way they went about their lives was instantly unrecognisable. What seemed of critical importance became trivial. So we need to be alert to that possibility, and to be flexible and accepting of change. We must never stop appreciating the small, even mundane and tedious things that shape our lives. It is so easy to be ground down by tiredness and negativity, and to stop noticing the pleasures and delights all around us.

As Albert Camus writes in The Outsider; ‘Every person alive was privileged; there was only one class of people, the privileged class.’ He means that just being alive, and having the opportunities and experiences available to us every day, is of inestimable value.  How fortunate, then, we are to be able to attend school, with all its inconveniences, frustrations and stresses. What a gift to be able to sit tests and exams, and to get an education. For young people in Afghanistan that may become a luxury afforded to few, and perhaps not at all to women.

I urge all our students, particularly those approaching the challenges of the end of their schooling and WACE exams, to look with joy and optimism upon the coming few months, and to celebrate what is so easy to take for granted.

Mr Mark Bonnin | Head of Senior School 

Year Ten Work Experience  

There was certainly a buzz in the air around the Senior School last week as the Year Ten students returned to school having spent Week Three out and about conducting their Work Experience. The feedback from both the students and their supervisors has been overwhelmingly positive, students should be commended on their professionalism and maturity, each of them a great ambassador for the School while on placement. Students enjoyed the challenges the world of work presented to them and thrived working with adults and bring treated as such.  

Last term, all the Year Ten students prepared for this valuable experience during Careers classes. Students each sourced our own placements, approaching potential employers in areas of interest. A vast array of industry areas were experienced across the cohort. These included areas such as agriculture, aquaculture, STEM, mining, hospitality, beauty therapy, research, veterinary studies, trades such as plumbing and the building and construction, allied health, pharmacology and medicine, retail and many more.  

This year, students from Great Southern Grammar could be found last week as far afield as Shark Bay, Newman, Bunbury, Bremer Bay, Perth, Mandurah, Lake Grace, Denmark and everywhere in between. We had a huge number and array of businesses hosting our students. Some examples of work places our students were fortunate enough to be a part of for the week include the Bunbury Dolphin Discovery Centre, Ocean Park Aquarium in Shark Bay, Kings Park botanical gardens, a gourmet restaurant in Dunsborough, the Albany Health Campus, local pharmacies and retail outlets, private businesses, and the City Of Albany.  

Thank you to all those businesses who engaged in this valuable program for our students, we are extremely grateful. Your sense of community in giving students at Great Southern Grammar such a real, valuable and inspired range or experiences is much appreciated.  

Mrs Renae O'Donnell | VET & Careers Coordinator