From the Boarding Captains

Thank you everyone for making the first term of this year so wonderful. I have loved getting to know our new students and their families, and I hope that you have enjoyed your first Term One at GSG as I have enjoyed my last. 

I am beyond impressed and grateful for everyone’s efforts to make the most of our Sunday sessions and recreation activities over the last ten weeks. Although life can get busy, especially for our senior boarders, we appreciate your open mindset towards planned activities and your participation despite high study loads and busy weekend plans. We are so lucky to live in such an energetic community where these routine activities are possible. 

I regularly look forward to our Sunday sessions, and with the new aesthetic additions of fairy lights and a small firepit, I am excited for the boarding community to keep catching up at the end of each week as we move into winter.

Joint dinners on Tuesday nights have similarly been a great success this term. I’d like to extend my thanks to the dedicated senior students who continually give up their free time to support those in the younger years during prep on Tuesdays. The bonds made through this program will especially aid those in Year Nine this year as they move into the senior houses at the end of the year. By creating trustworthy and reliable bonds early on, the transition between houses is much smoother and more supportive for everyone. I look forward to overseeing this program expansion, as one of my and Darcy’s goals for this year was to create meaningful bonds between senior and junior boarders. 

I wish everyone well in trials and trainings for their winter sports teams, and to those in Years Ten, Eleven, and Twelve trialling for Country Week to be held late next term. 

Ava Smith | Boarding Captain

Just like that Term One is already over! It has been an eventful ten weeks with a variety of activities happening in and around our boarding community. This term has been an enormous one with the start being a very big and exiting change for all the new boarders. They have now well and truly settled into the Great Southern Grammar Boarding lifestyle. While the other year groups settled down as usual into their boarding routine that they have practised in the years beforehand.

The Year Twelves had their Ball in Week Two with everybody loving it and making some awesome memories on the night. We all loved looking at the photos of everyone dressed up for the night afterwards. In Week Six the Year Eights had their annual Camp at Quaranup. This consisted of the year group getting split into two groups with two activities, one for each day. The two activities were visiting the elderly in two different homes in Albany and completing the whole entire Bald Head Trail. They all had fun spending time with each other out of the school environment and pushing themselves out of their comfort zones.  In week seven the Year Ten year group either went on the Leeuwin or canoed part of the Blackwood River. Both groups came back from it feeling accomplished and had some great memories to take away from their experiences. The Year Eleven Outdoor Ed classes recently went on a snorkelling expedition to Denmark. Both the classes were lucky enough to visit a variety of locations in Denmark consisting of Elephant Rocks, Greens Pool and Madfish Bay. They all had a great experience seeing lots of different fish and wildlife during their time there.

The Sunday sessions have started to grow in the second half of the term with some new lights that Mr Keatch has purchased to go around the outside of the grassed area near the Dining Hall. There is also a new projector which projects pictures of the activities all the boarders had been up to that recent week and the whole term. Now that the fire season is open, we also have a small fire pit that we light for the occasion for everyone to gather around and cook marshmallows on.

I hope everyone has enjoyed their first term of boarding for 2023, as I have enjoyed my last. I wish everyone both a fun and relaxing easter break spending quality time with friends and family. I look forward to seeing everyone after the holidays ready for Term Two.

Darcy Barrett | Boarding Captain