Senior School

From the Head of Senior School 

This week the Year Ten students have been on Work Experience. All students spend the week with an employer, performing a range of tasks, and generally 'getting the feel' of the work environment. As always, there is a huge number and array of businesses and organisations who are hosting our students, to whom we are very grateful.

It is always a most valuable and beneficial experience for the students. They source their own placement, approaching potential employers in areas of interest.

They spend the week in an environment very different from school - there are different responsibilities and expectations that they must meet, and for some this is quite challenging. They work with adults and are treated as such.

The week enhances their perspective on school and their desires and expectations beyond it. For some the reality of working in a particular area tells them it is not for them; more commonly, students have their interest enhanced and affirmed, giving them direction and goals for Years Eleven and Twelve.

Mr Mark Bonnin | Head of Senior School

From the Communications Prefect

Over the last week, we Year 12 students have been loving watching the Olympics on the TV in the Pratten Centre during lunchtime and recess. It’s really created a sense of camaraderie within the year group – we are all having so much fun enjoying it together.  What I love about the Olympics is that we get to see the raw experiences of failure and success up close and firsthand. Seeing these athletes physically pushing themselves to their limits to achieve a gold medal really reminded me that there’s always going to be that risk of failure, but that failure and setbacks only makes us more resilient.

In this week’s assembly, Ciara Franklin and Caitlin Petersen spoke of what success means and how it can be measured in different ways. They also spoke of the fact that we shouldn’t be afraid of failure, because it’s the risk of failure that helps us grow. I thought their speeches had a great message, so they are included below. 

Lucy Bonnin | Communications Prefect 

If you asked me to enter in a spelling bee, I cannot promise you I’d make it pass the first round, if you asked me to sprint the 100m at athletics I’d be the girl slowly jogging behind the pack, if you asked me if this mirrored my level of success, I’d say absolutely not. For being a successful person is not defined by your achievements or how many trophies you have in your room, but by what you have overcome. 

And as a dyslexic person who still has to say WED NES DAY when writing Wednesday, to make it past the first question of a spelling bee would be a major achievement. I may not walk home with a trophy, but I walk home with a major personal success. Or when I cross the finish line and get a brand new PB, I can walk away knowing that what I achieved that day was a true win.

Measuring two people’s personal success up to each other is like asking a shark to win in a running race, but when you take that same shark and put it back in the water the level of success it can achieve is endless. Personal success is a measurement of your own personal growth, and you are all onto something great 

So never let another person’s success discourage your own, because with hard work and determination you can do anything

Caitlin Petersen

Just as Caitlin was talking about personal success, there is also such a thing as personal resilience. Personal success is a great thing to measure but sometimes even personal goals aren’t achieved and this may be really tough to deal with. I know for most of you, resilience – especially in the light of COVID 19 – is not an unknown concept. Many times we’ve heard of our events, performances and travel plans being cancelled, quickly followed by the statement that this will only build up our resilience. 

Although true, this is not to say that those experiences aren’t difficult, they are… extremely. It’s easy to throw your hands up in the air and quit, walk away, forget that you ever even tried. It’s not so easy to accept that something has happened, take time to reflect and learn to harbour your disappointment. And here’s the thing, if you don’t ever try anything, risk disappointment and failure, you also risk losing the opportunity to have a shared experience or improve your emotional responses.

I suppose what I’m saying is that I encourage all of you to set about looking for ways towards personal success, and if you happen to face disappointment, take the opportunity to work on your own personal resilience – whatever that may look like for you.

Ciara Franklin