Senior School

From the Head of Senior School

As our students prepare for life after school, whatever that may look like, two requirements that seem to matter in these current times to TAFE, the workplace, Universities and scholarship applications are community service and leadership.  At Great Southern Grammar, we have two programs in particular that equip our students to respond to these requirements.

In Term One of our Work Ready Life Ready course, our Year Eleven students all complete four weeks of study skills and four weeks of Leadership Academy.  In the latter, we use a series of fun activities and film clips to analyse leadership and find examples of how we all demonstrate leadership in one form or another.  Later in the year, we will document this as part of a portfolio the students create showing other important skills like problem solving, initiative and teamwork.

The term is rounded off with a session from a group called Elevate who we will be working with virtually this year.  Elevate pride themselves on improving student performance through their high impact workshops; please make sure your Year Eleven student is at school on the last Friday of term to participate in this exciting opportunity!

Our Values and Christian Service (VACS) program is largely student driven and provides our Senior School students with opportunities to lead programs and small groups in different contexts.  This term, the focus is on sport and each House has six teams and each one is responsible for captaining the team, umpiring the game and keeping a record of the results. Teachers are present but their role is to supervise and guide students through the leadership roles. 

Next term we move into our service rotation.  We have had to adapt our program so that we meet COVID requirements this year but we have been able to come up with a rich selection for our students to choose from, allowing them to give back to the school and community.  I would like to thank the Facilities team for their support as they come aboard to support our VACS program.  We ensure student safety by completing rigorous risk assessment processes and having a member of teaching staff with every group. Amongst other options, students will be working with the City of Albany to eradicate wattle, working on the school farm, adopting a spot along the nearby rivers and cleaning it up, or supporting Foodbank in our Hunger Heroes group. 

Please encourage your children to make the most of these opportunities, they really do provide our young people with material they can use as they take their next steps after school. 

Mrs Victoria Turnor | Head of Senior School

Year Ten Science 

The Year Ten Science course this year has been based upon the intriguing topic of Physics. This topic has been interesting, with all of its abundant range of information it has to offer, but also engaging for the students participating in these classes. The course not only consists of theory work done with pen and paper in class, but has also consisted of a more engaging, hands-on part. This ‘catapult challenge’ shown in these pictures above, which took place last week in the 10D science class, is one of many practical activities which students have participated in class. The practical component of the course has not only added a sense of fun to the physics unit but has helped students to further engage in their classes and provide them with another method of intaking the beneficial information this unit has to offer. 

Liam Pretorius | Year Ten

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