Senior School

Women in Leadership

Min Hyun - Year 9

So, realistically if I asked you to say the first thing that came to your mind if you heard “Women in Leadership”, what would it be?

It could be a lot of things, Singers (Beyoncé, for one) and actors might be one of the first. Or any occupation that women can fill, which isn’t limited these days. Or if you keep up with social media it could be an overly-offended “feminist”.

Regardless, there is a range of different ways that women can be seen as leaders – the only obstacle is getting there.

Signing up was…. interesting. to say the least. Most of us were expecting a long, boring lecture – nothing fun. Instead, we had girls from several schools attend which felt like a casual get-together! We had a speaker from St Andrews (Mrs Hughes) and Ashley from ‘Gather and Feast’ – both of whom had excellent points to share.

Turns out, women in leadership isn’t just having positions of power (though it can be if you want), but really it's more focussed on learning how to achieve what you want, following your passions.

For those who have faith, it might mean relying and trusting God to lead them wherever they need to be, however obscure or twisted it might be.

But it wasn’t all about listening and learning. Oh no.

You know what was strange? As humans, were all individually different. You had people with all kinds of backgrounds, interests, passion and personalities. Yet we all got along. Can’t speak for all of us, ‘course, but I personally made several new friends and had plenty of fun. People are strange and weird in the best of ways, I find. I’ll keep what I learnt from this in the back of my head. Not to forget, but to remember and utilise when the time comes. It might be years before I need to think back, or it could be today because there’ll always be opportunities for leadership in my life.

Chloe Chandraraj - Year 11

Last week a group of senior school girls had the privilege of going to the “Women in Leadership” event, hosted by our school. Having gone last year, I knew it was a very thought provoking and useful conference, challenging me to think about the person I was and how I was portraying myself. This year did not fail to inspire us either- we were blessed to listen to multiple amazing speakers, with one standing out in particular. Ashley Alexander from “Gather and Feast” an 'instagram famous' entrepreneur, spoke to us about how she set up how own food business through social media platforms. She talked about the challenges she faced and the doubt she had about herself and her program, telling us how she got through that and how we would be able to too. This day definitely spoke to me and uncovered many questions that I had not thought about- I am so glad I went, I would encourage every senior girl to go next year if they got the chance!

Big Ideas, Bright Minds

Gifted and Talented Senior Student Conference

It was a privilege to accompany our incredible Yr 10 and 11 students to the Gifted and Talented Senior Student Conference. The purpose of this study day was to inspire, to challenge, to encourage and to empower our students. This Conference is a state event, and is a part of the largest series of national conferences in Australasia and the UK. The atmosphere was truly unique and it was an honour to be involved, to listen to the world-class distinguished academics and Victoria’s bright, striving and academically gifted students. The presentations included, ‘Logic’ and ‘What Dreams May Come?’ by Julie Arliss, ‘A Gold Medal Mindset’ by Jeffrey Hodges and ‘Rock in 11 Dimensions’ by Dr. Mark Lewney. In particular, I enjoyed the debate: ‘This house believes that everyone should tell the truth all the time’ between the two presenters, Julie Arliss and Jeffrey Hodges. The debate was impressive, but the best was still to come. Following the debate, seven bright and courageous students came to the microphone to share their point of view, and two of them were St Andrews students - Rachael Song and Amy Muggeridge! The girls were truly inspirational; they spoke about their Christian perspective on the concept of ‘Truth’ and were the only students who argued that we should always tell the truth. Once again, what an honour it was to attend an event like this. Indeed, “a mind stretched by an idea will never be the same again...”

Irena Yevlahova

Senior School Teacher

On Friday the 18th of May, a few others and myself were privileged with the opportunity to attend a philosophy conference that took place at Camberwell Grammar School. The day consisted of five different lecture style talks by 3 different speakers: Julie Arliss who spoke on logic in her first talk and the possibilities of life after death in her second, Jeffrey Hodges who spoke about putting yourself in the best position now to achieve future success and lastly Dr Mark Lewney- a professional physicist who explores and shared with us his theories on the nature of reality through string theory and the science of electric guitars.

The day was extremely beneficial in the way that throughout the talks the speakers introduced and solidified ideas and tactics on how to filter and then further draw from and analyse the facts of any given situation in a post-modern and post-truth world. My favourite talk of the day (although this decision could have gone anyway) was the talk on life after death. The speaker, Julie Arliss, spoke in a purely educational way. She presented the multiple differing perspectives without bias, drawing from different sources and analysing them just as she showed us in her first talk on inducting and deducting and then making inferences from the evidence. She also provided an (unheard of before by myself) scientific feasibility of life after death from a Christian perspective; often we explain our perspective of life after through faith and belief, (which of course is very relevant) but it was interesting to see a scientist and philosopher’s perspective and the drawn conclusion that from a Christian perspective, life after death is in fact feasible. From this talk I learnt the most relevant information, to me that I know will come in handy when informing and explaining and proving my own points not only in the topic of life after death, but in any conversation or presentation that I may be involved in.

Overall the conference was an experience that brought a unique bout of information that I hadn’t been subjected to yet. From here on I continue with new skills under my belt that I believe can and will further investigative skills and broaden perspectives on new topics.      

Rachael Song 10H

The conference provided a fantastic opportunity to explore big ideas of philosophy, religion and science. I particularly enjoyed Ms Arliss’ keynote on classical logic. Her wonderful insight has encouraged me to approach research and inquiry in an analytical and methodical way. Another highlight was Dr Lewney’s exploration of science’s big questions with an electric guitar. I liked his cover of Bohemian Rhapsody.   

Jerry Cheng 11E

Last week I went to Camberwell Grammar for a philosophy conference with a group of Yr10s and Yr11s. I wasn’t really sure what to expect as I was not really familiar with the concept of ‘philosophy’. We listened to multiple speakers throughout the day and I can genuinely say I learnt a lot and was intrigued by what they said. The speaker who stood out the most to me was Julie Arliss, who spoke about the concept of logic- how to classify it, how to determine whether something is a fact or not and how the human mind works concerning information it hears. I would definitely say I am a lot more informed on this topic and will definitely pursue learning more about it!

Chloe Chandraraj 11F

Careers News

Please find attached the recent St Andrews Careers Newsletter.

If you have a question about a topic featured in the Careers Newsletter, please contact Careers Coordinator Mrs Irena Yevlahova

 iyevlahova@standrews.vic.edu.au

Irena Yevlahova

Careers Coordinator