From the Principal 

Scholars’ Assembly with Dr Bruce Webber

Scholars’ Assembly on Monday this week allowed us to appropriately acknowledge and congratulate students from across the Senior School for their academic successes in 2023. The breadth of students who walked across the stage of the Simons Auditorium reinforces that we have some very capable students amongst our cohort, who are applying their natural abilities with effort and focus. Well done to all students who received awards.

We were also lucky enough to have Old Collegian Dr Bruce Webber (1993) as our guest speaker. A Marie Curie Fellow, Dr Webber is currently the Principal Research Scientist with the Ecosystem Change Ecology team at CSIRO in Perth, Western Australia and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Western Australia. His scientific work focuses on the impacts of global environmental change on community ecology and the role of plant-ecosystem interactions in shaping community composition. Dr Webber spoke about the importance STEM education in schools, of students taking intellectual risks, of the importance of understanding research and data in our decision making, and of engagement with the significant problems that will face our species over the coming generations. Dr Webber also gave lively and very well received talks to Senior and Junior School students over the course of Monday and Tuesday. We are grateful for his time, inspiration and expertise. 

Link to the 2024 Scholars' Assembly

Structured Literacy in the Junior School 

In a similar theme, it is worth highlighting a number of articles that have been in the press in the last week about the research into reading instruction in schools. The articles pick up the move towards ‘structured literary’, and away from ‘balanced literacy’ and whole language approaches. Structured literacy is supported by the evidence into how we read and how young people learn to read, and incorporates phonics instruction and breaking words into their sound parts. Lead by Anna Robertson, Penny Callinan, Stephen Nelson and Valetta Bolton, our Junior School has been using this method of instruction for over two years, and we throw our voice strongly behind this wider move towards evidence-based and effective instruction. All students have the right to learn and be taught to read, not merely to be provided literature in the hope they’ll figure it out.