Secondary School

From the Head of Secondary 

Our theme for this week is gratitude and I thought I would share with you the words School Captains, Stella and Pierce, shared with the Secondary School at Assembly on Monday.

Stella: Good morning everyone, previously, Pierce and I have spoken about gratitude and how you can show it towards others and yourselves. Recently, at our Foundation Day Assembly, we were all given the opportunity to show gratitude towards the school. This could’ve meant that you ran in the Running of the Flags, spoke at the assembly and shared the story of the school, or listened and paid attention to the history of the school. Mr Sawle even showed his gratitude towards us, by gifting each of us our very own 25th anniversary badge, thank you Mr Sawle. 

Gratitude can be shown in many different ways, and sometimes you don’t have to do something extravagant to show how much you appreciate someone or something. Thank you.

Pierce: Good morning all, in my last speech on gratitude I discussed a study in which they asked two groups of participants to write a few sentences each week, focusing on two topics. One group wrote about things that they were grateful for during the week and the other wrote about all the irritations or disappointments that they had experienced that week. And as a result, the group who focused on the things they we’re grateful for scored higher in a happiness and wellbeing test compared to those focusing on the negatives. 

I like to think about the little things I’m grateful for. During harvest time on our families farm we operate modern harvesters, with air conditioning, a cab, Bluetooth, windscreen wipers, cameras, the list goes on. When my great-grandfather first started farming, he didn’t have these modern-day luxuries. He sat out in the sun all day in the dust and flies, harvesting at a fraction of the speed we can today. Recently I had a conversation with my grandad on the topic, he mentioned that after a few years the manufacturer released a new edition of these old harvesters featuring a small umbrella to keep the sun off, and boy I bet they were pretty grateful for that umbrella. And although it is quite insignificant to us now at the time, this would have been an absolute break through. 

So next time you hop in a car and smack that ac button, take a minute to think about how lucky we are to live in a time with extraordinary amounts of technology and comfort. When we acknowledge these little things often looked past, we improve our outlook on the world, constructing resilience against those small inconveniences we may experience in our day to day lives.

Student Council

We had a thank you lunch for this semester’s Student Council today. We celebrated our achievements which have included ideas for our 25th birthday celebrations, improvements to the Student Code of Conduct, improved signage for the newly named buildings, ideas for Orientation Day, better display of bus timetables, and improved facilities in the library block. Some of these are yet to come to fruition but keep an eye out in the future for the development of some of these ideas.

It is now time to prepare for a new Student Council. Please talk to your child about whether they would like to share some of their ideas about our school. Student voice is important and powerful, and I look forward to hearing from a new group of young people. If they are interested, please encourage them to talk to Heads of House.

VACS Sustainability group

Written by Jack Lange:

In our sustainability VACS group, our focus was to set up a Fogo bin system in the Primary School. Each class in the Primary School has a Fogo bin where they collect fruit and vegetable scraps which can be fed to the chickens on a regular basis. Every Wednesday a different Primary School class visited the chickens in the production garden with our group. We fed the chickens food scraps, collected the eggs and the Primary students were able to give the chickens a cuddle. The students had a great time including Max in Year Two who said, he liked holding the chickens, because they were doing the chicken dance.

Year Ten Pathways and Course Selection

I very much enjoyed meeting with our Year Ten students this week as we embark on the more formal part of their course selection process for 2024 and 2025. Some students are well-informed, others are starting to think about next year for the first time. No matter where students are on their journey, I find this part exciting and fulfilling as our young people start thinking about all the possibilities.

I look forward to meeting with parents tonight and working together to create exciting opportunities for this vibrant cohort.

Mrs Victoria Turnor | Head of Secondary