Primary School 

Captain's Reflection

Buckley House Captain's Reflection of 2021

By Vanessa Chien, Year 7, The Ridgeway Campus

Hello, my name is Vanessa Chien and I am one of the two Buckley House School Captains for 2021.  

This leadership role has taught me to be both resilient and patient, learnings I have gained from the pandemic we are going through today. I have gone through many challenges, including being online, not being able to see my friends, not being able to run assemblies and missing out on fun events such as camp in Canberra. Challenges like these have been solved by coming up with ideas like doing online assemblies and recording ourselves saying encouraging messages to the whole of Buckley House. I have stayed positive and encouraged myself to try new challenges. 

In the future, I would like to recommend everyone try new things and fulfil their goals. We all need to stay flexible and adaptable to get through these tough times. We will all look back on our childhood journey and reflect on how well we have coped with this crisis. This role is definitely a remarkable and memorable opportunity. Even though Covid-19 impacted my role this year, I still participated in many fun activities and events like getting to see different year levels in lockdown. I get to collaborate with different staff, teachers and students and also be a role model for others. I believe that opportunities like this help me better prepare myself in high school as there would be many leadership chances.

I hope to continue fulfilling my hopes and dreams and one day become a successful person.

By Callan Harbottle, Year 7, The Ridgeway Campus

The last year of school has seemed like an adventure book, it has been hard to predict what would happen next, what might be over the page or what we would discover along the way. Like any good book, our Year 6 adventure began full of excitement and anticipation but we were not quite prepared for the continued twist and turns that might unfold…

The introduction of our book,  Terms 1 and 2 saw Vanessa and I able to begin our role as Buckley House School Captains in a relatively normal way. It was great to see everyone back on the school grounds enjoying the wonderful facilities our school has to offer. There were multiple games of down-ball going on, basketball, footy, tiggy and much more. It was so great to see smiling faces everywhere. Students were able to take part in regular school events like Cross Country, Inter-school sport and Vanessa and I had the pleasure of hosting the Buckley House Music Event. 

Terms 3 and 4 saw our journey head in a whole different direction as we embraced the challenge of switching once again from face-to-face learning to online learning. Through most of terms 3 and 4, we conducted many of our school leadership duties via a screen on zoom! It was certainly challenging and forced us to try and be creative. We ran assemblies online and also made Zoom visits to many of the students from Prep through to Year 5, where we ran get-to-know-you activities and even an AFL quiz (which Mr Feben joined in and attempted to win!). 

Late Term 4 saw us pivot direction yet again as we were fortunate to transition back to school and classes once more. In this term, we had the privilege of leading the school Remembrance Day service. 

Like any good adventure story, it is ultimately the characters who really make it. Our classroom teachers and specialists have all worked hard to support us this year, both at school and on Zoom, making lessons interesting and interactive. We are very appreciative of their efforts and mentorship throughout the years. To our peers, thank you for your friendship and support on this wonderful adventure called primary school. 

And now here we are at the end of our book, our chapter 6! What I have learned about leadership during this time is to stay open-minded as to what the future holds, to be flexible and adaptable. Most of all, I have learned that regardless of how good the final chapter is, it is actually all of the characters and twists and turns along the way, that makes the journey worth it. So stay tuned for the next series, it promises to be a very exciting adventure.