Our Community

Introducing our New Head Students

We are so pleased to introduce our new Head Students for 2022, Shriya Anil and Gryff Connah!

Shriya has been at The Friends’ School since Kindergarten and enjoys violin and debating. Shriya is passionate about diversity and adolescent mental health. During her time as a Head Student, Shriya hopes to improve the level of awareness regarding the challenges faced by migrants when settling in Tasmania.

In her speech, Shriya said:

I want to emphasise that even though I have my own ideas I don’t want to force my preconceived notions on how to better the community, that is up to everyone here. I want to act as someone who can voice all of these ideas, as well as being a person that everyone is comfortable enough to come to if they want to make change in our already safe and welcoming school community. As well as being a voice for everyone here, I do have a few ideas of my own on how to do this, with the help of everyone here.

You may know Gryff from his starring role as ‘Donkey’ in the Junior Musical several years ago. Gryff has been at The Friends’ School since Year 3 and is passionate about the wilderness and issues of social justice.

In his speech, Gryff said:

I have come to realise many things about us as a group of people over my time at Friends’; when we start here, we are all seeds, blown in from faraway places and we find our soil here. We grow and hopefully we blossom. But sometimes, some of us don’t find the soil, and we’re unable to take root, to stay steady and to eventually flower. Because of this, we are at risk of being overlooked, of being misunderstood and of being misheard. And this is not right. No one should feel as though they cannot do something here because of race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity or ability – it is these categories that estrange us from the fact that when it comes down to it, even though I just made us all sound like plants, we are human beings first, who have more in common than we don’t. We are all equal. And whilst I deeply value our equality, the purpose of a head student is to lead.

We are so excited to see the wonderful examples of Leadership that these two young people will bring to their Head Student roles.

Helping Little Penguins

Many of our students will remember Jane Bamford who, until recently, worked in our Art Department. Jane has expanded her work from the highly successful ceramic breeding habitats for the Spotted Handfish to now focussing on ceramic burrows for little penguins! Follow the link to have a listen to an ABC radio interview with Jane.

Jane also recently ran a workshop at the School making these Little Penguin nesting habitats where 14 habitats were created. The workshop was well attended by Friends' Alumni and current and former staff of the School. 

The habitats will be available to view at an exhibition held at the Kingbrough Hub for four days from 28 - 31 October 2021. 

On30 October - Saturday night there will be a ticketed event at the Kingborough Hub via Eventbrite ($10) with speakers about all things little penguin. We will share the details of this event on our Facebook page when they become available. 

Small Steps Sleepover

Just before the Term 2 holidays we held the annual Small Steps Girls' Sleepover at the Clemes campus. Students (and teachers) had a fun night of pizza, games, knitting and movies before camping out in the Clemes library.

A total of $1842.27 was raised for Small Steps. Small Steps provides a live-in parenting and life skills program for young mums (under 25 years old) and their babies, with 24/7 onsite care. The mums are taught skills that can assist them in living independently in the community, such as budgeting, maintaining a stable tenancy, and providing a safe and healthy environment for their child. They are also taught practical application of parenting skills to successfully and independently transition into the community with improved levels of self-confidence and employability.

National Reconciliation Breakfast

Several Friends’ staff and students attended a National Reconciliation Breakfast in August where they heard from Professor Marcia Langton, Chair of Australian Indigenous Studies at The University of Melbourne. Marcia’s interesting and thought-provoking talk focused on constitutional recognition and treaties with Australia’s First Nation People. Lutruwita/Tasmania is moving towards its own Treaty and we look forward to our role in supporting Reconciliation. Our Year 11 and 12 students provided a warm welcome to all guests and ably provided assistance at the event. Thanks to Reconciliation Tasmania for hosting this important event.

Food Drive

Students Isabella Calvert and Annie Pavlides (Year 7) organised a food drive to raise awareness about Foodbank Tasmania and how they support Tasmanians in need. The food drive was organised as a part of the Year 7 Health Challenge with Year 7 students encouraged to bring in food items to donate.  Great work Year 7s!

Book Week

Check out some of the gorgeous costumes from Book Week!

VET Coffee Shop

Our VET coffee shop has been growing in popularity over the past couple of years, with Friday 27 September being one of the busiest days on record on account of the flooding of Friends' Early Learning. The coffee shop (run out of The Farrall Centre box office) is a great opportunity for our VET students to hone their barista skills and get a feel for a real-world food service situation.