Principal, Ms Natalie Charles

I remember being out to dinner a couple of weeks ago, listening to an outspoken advocate of co-education at my table, arguing that the “only place in the real world still organised on gender lines was prison”. Their remark brought great guffaws from my dining companions and although it was late (and I was tired), I knew I couldn’t smile and let it go. And so, I sat forward in my chair, took a sip of my wine, and launched; co-education might be the dominant model in Australia at the moment, but that is because it is more cost effective not because it is a ‘better’ model for the development of student outcomes, and the formation of the self and identity, especially for girls. 

And, as yet another news cycle gives us round-the-clock coverage of the seemingly endless violence perpetrated against women and girls in this country, whether it be physical, verbal or embedded in the unhinged comments section online, there is no doubt we all have a part to play. To this end, I applaud the pro-active work being done in some of the boys’ schools, to interrupt these narratives with a more humane and empathetic approach to interpersonal relations. Abuse is linked to power and so long as there exist environments and behaviours that facilitate and enable those power imbalances, we will continue to inhabit a world where our girls grow up believing that fear is simply part of being female and where young men grow up believing that power is theirs to wield without question. 

Providing our girls with a safe and supported space in their most formative years where they are encouraged to find their voice and to use that voice to debate and to lead; to dissent and to affirm is another powerful first step towards combating the gender bias, sexism and violence, that regrettably exists across schools, universities and workplaces. As my Year 12s sagely noted in one of our lunchtime chats: “The glass ceiling may have been shattered Ms Charles, but the glass screen is far more dangerous”. 

Young women are an inherently vulnerable group at the best of times due in part to the challenges of their specific psychosocial development as well as the structural and functional changes occurring in the brain – add to this the cumulative pressure to meet a commercially driven, pharmaceutically enhanced beauty standard, the insidious presence of social media, and a nation that needs to do more to keep women and children safe, and it is little wonder the world can feel overwhelming. 

They need us now more than ever – to drown out the voices of self-doubt that threaten to engulf them; to believe in them when they are incapable of believing in themselves and to love them when they’re at their least loveable. And as I reflect on a jampacked mid-term mark here at St Catherine’s School with excitement building for next week’s Year 11 Formal; the completion of the Prep’s First 100 Days of School; an exhilarating season of Snowsports; the election of new student leaders for 2027; early morning Learn to Row sessions on the Yarra; animated conversations around “Oedipus” in English classes and 'ah ha' moments in Maths, I trust you will see each of these as I do – as beautifully distilled moments in time when our girls might be given the space to grow, the time to think and the courage to find and respond to their inner world so that it becomes capable of encountering and transcending the oftentimes perplexing parameters of their time. 

Nil Magnum Nisi Bonum. 

Ms Natalie Charles

Principal