The Boarding Buzz

From the Heads of Boarding

Recently, we’ve been reading Mark McCrindle’s new book, Generation Alpha: Understanding Our Children and Helping them Thrive. The young people we have in boarding, and will have, are both Generation Z (1995-2009) and Generation Alpha (2010-2024). There are some fascinating insights into both of these generations and how, as carers, we can assist them to become the best young people they can be. Some of the insights we learnt about these two generations are:

  • Generation Alpha are more likely to ask for help, while Gen Z are more likely to suffer in silence. Gen Z are more likely to take feedback as a personal deficiency while Gen Alpha are more likely to see an opportunity to learn.
  • For both generations, we are encouraged to recognise and place value on the effort being made. By praising effort, it allows young people more agency to work hard.
  • We should encourage challenges for young people, as this allows them the opportunity to take a risk, fail and then build resilience.
  • Use the power of ‘yet’. Encouraging the use of the word 'yet' at the end of potentially negative statements allows young people to keep an open mind. So instead of saying, “I can’t do this maths problem”, it’s more empowering to state, “I can’t do this maths problem yet."
  • Avoid labelling young people. Whether the label is positive or negative, labelling young people arises from a fixed mindset and hinders growth.
  • Model a growth mindset and share examples from your own life. Young people absorb everything. They seek authenticity everywhere. So whenever, you can demonstrate personal growth, overcoming challenges and share these with them.

This book focuses on the amazing characteristics of both the generations of young people we get to live with on a daily basis. The boarding staff are so thankful for the group of boarders and boarding parents we have at Great Southern Grammar and we seek to constantly champion the skills, character and qualities of each young person in our care. Please let us know if you have any wonderful ideas for highlighting our young people and their skills in differing ways.  

Exciting News

Congratulations to Brenton, Greta and Hazel Rice on the birth of a baby boy on Wednesday 2 June. We welcome Mrs Peta Spinks for the next three weeks to Eclipse House, while Brenton is on paternity leave. Brenton will return to Eclipse in Week Eleven to conclude the term. 

REACH

One of our aims is to improve the usage of REACH by both our boarding parents and students. To facilitate this, we met with the head consultant of REACH, Mr Gary Jowett, this week and he gave us some improved ways to use REACH. We raised the concerns of a number of parents about using the app. Gary advised that they have recently updated the app and for everyone to ensure they are using the latest version of the REACH app on your phone.  Please check your app, delete the old version and reinstall the newest version onto your phone.

Parent Forum Feedback

We thank everyone for their attendance at the Parent Forum in May. In response to your feedback we have made the following updates:

  • Lunches have been reviewed with Chef Nick. They are now larger portions and more options are available. The Flexischools limit has increased to $12.00 per week.
  • Breakfast is being provided for students who have early training, they simply need to call into the Dining Hall before they leave for an early breakfast or on the way back from training to school to collect a breakfast.
  • Students in each house now have the option of a baked product, vegetable sticks, yoghurt tub and fruit to take each day for morning tea at school. Students can take one or all of these to school.
  • The survey for the Boarding Bus run was sent out to all families for feedback. We are still waiting for more of these surveys to be returned so we can collate the data. Please ensure all surveys are returned by Friday 11 June, Week Eight, so we can collate and present the feedback in the final Boarding Buzz of the term. If you have not completed the survey and would like to, please click here to have your say.
  • We are currently reviewing the questions from last year’s survey (Pulse) and intend sending out a 2021 Boarding Pulse early next term.
  • Academic tracking continues to take place in all houses, please speak to your Head of House this week if you would like to discuss your child’s academic progress.
  • We are reviewing our boarding orientation programme and would love to have your ideas. There will be questions in the upcoming survey to help our planning and your feedback would be valued.  We have pencilled in a sleepover for next year’s boarders, prior to the day school orientation day.

National Boarding Week

National Boarding Week was celebrated around Australia from 16 to 22 May. There are 19,737 boarders in boarding schools around Australia in 2021 and so we all celebrated what makes boarding so special. 

 

At GSG we began our celebrations with a Boarding Quiz Night. The event was a great opportunity to socialise, showcase trivia knowledge, highlight artistic skills and eat a lot of yummy food. The students were allocated teams, representative of each boarding house and year group. Each team, represented by a different colour, battled it out to decide on the most knowledgeable boarding team of the year. 

 

Master of Ceremonies for the evening was boarding alumnus 2019, Levi Cosh. He provided the crowd with jokes and laughter throughout the evening. Question categories such as movies, songs, celebrities, geography and local knowledge challenged the teams. A highlight of the night definitely involved the “boarding pop” questions interspersed throughout the evening. Questions such as: How long has boarding been a part of GSG?  How long was Mr Peter Colgate Head of Boarding at GSG? And how many boarding schools are in WA?  Which year did Michaelmas House open? And naming boarders who were Head Boy or Girl at GSG had all the boarders working together for prizes. 

 

Each team throughout the night wrote a combined statement for “Why I love boarding”. Here are some of the responses:

 

"Boarding is our home away from home. Where we come together with our friends and whether we are happy, sad, stressed or excited, boarding is where we share our emotions and make memories with our other ‘family’.  After all, we spend more time with our boarding friends than our own families.  So, to us, we love boarding because of the memories we have and it’s a unique experience that boarders are lucky to call their own."

 

"I get to hang out with the blokes and I love it.  It’s a great time and we are all one big happy family."

 

"Boarding is fun. You make new friends, spend time with new people and you get to experience what it’s like to live away from home."

 

"The quiz night, the people, the dogs, the ice cream, Mr Rice, Ms Bromhead, Mrs Ball, Ms Robertson."

 

"We love boarding because it sets us up for life.  It brings us friends, family, responsibilities, rec activities and chips on Fridays.  That’s what we love."

 

"We make endless memories with our family.  We laugh, cry, eat together through the best time of our lives.  Boarding sets me up for life."

 

The food on this evening is always extra special with bao buns, Vietnamese salad, sausage rolls and samosas on the menu.  Interspersed between the quiz questions was a Mr Squiggle contest, heads or tails and pop prizes. Prizes were also presented to the best dressed, best table drawing and lucky door prizes.  The winners this year were the Green team, (Dan Cosh, Elisa Crook, Chloe Roberts, Berkley Somerscales, Fletcher Cugley, Bella Patterson, Owen Baxter-Holland and Emma Dolan), who were showered with prizes and the glory of winning the event.  The night allowed for much hilarity and reflected the amazing organisational efforts of our Boarding Administrator, Mrs Di Franzinelli. 

Over the rest of National Boarding week, each boarding house walked from school to the Fish Traps and back. All around Australia, boarders complete at least a one kilometre walk, allowing the combined efforts of boarding schools to track the circumference of Australia. We also held competitions for innovative photos taken along this walk. Thank you to all the boarding staff who helped to make this week a success. 

Academic Support in Boarding

We are very pleased with the number of students who have been utilising the various tutors who have been coming to work with boarders. On a Monday evening, Mrs Linda Luff works with students helping them with English or Literature studies. We have Mrs Chantelle MacTaggart working with our Year Nine students on a Monday and Thursday evening. Mr Josh Carson has continued to be an enormous support to our students studying Mathematics. 

Every Tuesday night our Year Seven boarders value the tuition of Ms Penny Simpson. Additionally, Humanities teacher Ms Theresa Youngs-Lachmund has come to boarding to work with the Year Ten students. The students and staff appreciate the support of all these people. 

Our Year Twelve students have shown wonderful commitment to their studies over the last couple of weeks preparing for and completing their examinations, work booklets and units of competence. They have enjoyed the extra time studying in the boarding houses and working together to revise notes. Next week, the Year Ten students begin their examinations, and we wish them all the best. 

Kingfisher Fair

Planning around the biennial Kingfisher Fair has commenced.  The event is organised by the P&F and parents are asked to help if they can. It promises to be a great community event focussing on fundraising and friend-raising. 

 

Boarders will also do their share, running the chocolate wheel, a long-term tradition for GSG Boarding. We would like to take this opportunity to ask boarding families to help our cause with donations of items suitable for gift baskets including: gifts or vouchers for any category of hardware, gardening, gourmet foods, pampering, sport, arts and giftware. We can accept donated items at the return of the Closed Weekend. Many thanks!  

 

Ms Vanessa Bromhead | Head of Senior Boarding

Mrs Tara Ball | Head of Middle Boarding