Wellbeing

Friendly Fridays – Celebrating Pride and Mental Health Awareness

This month’s Friendly Friday aligned beautifully with Pride Week, offering a meaningful opportunity to celebrate and support the LGBTQIA+ community. Students were encouraged to express themselves freely and stand in solidarity with their peers.

Throughout the week, the Pride flag flew proudly on our flagpole as a visible symbol of our commitment to inclusion and respect.

At the same time, students acknowledged Men’s Mental Health Month, highlighting the importance of checking in with friends and listening with empathy and without judgment.

As always, our student leaders greeted the school community at the gate on Friendly Friday, this time handing out rainbow wrist ties as a colourful gesture of unity, support, and pride.

Riversdale Initiative – Sacred Heart Day Reflections

In the spirit of Sacred Heart Day, Riversdale Captains Chelsea and Zara led a thoughtful initiative across the College. Each Home Room was invited to reflect on what it means to “have heart” – with students sharing their reflections on heart-shaped notes, later collected to form a display of collective care and kindness.

Home Rooms also created short, joyful five-second videos proudly showcasing their hearts and their House spirit – a fun and meaningful way to celebrate what it means to lead with heart.

Empowering Conversations with Daniel Principe and Emma Tabacaru

On Monday 2 June, all of our students participated in powerful workshops led by guest speakers Daniel Principe and Emma Tabacaru.

In sessions tailored to each group, boys explored themes of healthy masculinity, respect, and navigating relationships, while girls engaged in conversations around self-worth, body image, and the influence of the digital world. Both workshops sparked thoughtful reflection and real, empowering dialogue.

That evening, it was our parents’ turn, with Daniel presenting a compelling and insightful talk in the Sacré Coeur Centre, offering families valuable tools to continue these important conversations at home.

We’re incredibly grateful to have welcomed Daniel and Emma to our community for the whole day.

Youth Council 

Ayla C, one of our student representatives on the Wingecarribee Youth Council, recently attended her third council meeting for 2025. Below, Ayla shares her personal reflection on the experience, offering insight into the discussions, initiatives, and the value of having young voices at the table in shaping our local community.

"On Thursday 12th of June, we had our second youth council meeting of the year. It was held at Bowral High School, and the Bowral High voting members chaired the meeting. It was a very productive meeting with a range of interesting topics for discussion. 

To start off the meeting, we have the lovely Ben Quilty come to speak about his journey as an artist and how he has discovered more than just the world he was brought up to know. 

Our first big idea of the session was the Mittagong pool and youth precincts. We had various small topic areas to cover, with some of them including: What would the precincts look like? Who would be invited? What would happen at the precinct?  And many more.

We discussed these in small groups, and the ideas that everyone came up with were incredible. I was able to see what each of the Youth Council member wanted for their community and how we could make these ideas come to life. 

Our other main topic of discussion was the Youth Forum and “The pitch”. We were fortunate enough to be introduced to Leila Varga, who is a member of the ASE Group (Australian School of Entrepreneurship). She had some amazing ideas and feedback from last year’s forum, which allowed us to understand what worked and what didn’t at a Youth Forum. We discussed who would be there, what it would look like, what events or performances we would like, and so much more. I loved to be able to share my ideas of what I would like to occur during the day. 

To close off the meeting, we had the Senior Traffic Engineer talk to us about the idea of introducing bike lanes around the southern highlands. We had discussed how and if it would be possible to install bike lanes, especially connecting from Mittagong to Bowral. He explained what it would cost and the time it would take to install the bike lanes. We were able to acknowledge the work it would take to install bike lanes, especially going through towns. 

Overall, I believe that this meeting was extremely productive and had an amazing turnout."

Ayla C.