Senior School

From the Head of Senior School

My last Anchor article as Head of Senior School, so my last chance to reinforce a familiar message….

I have always encouraged the students in my care to keep a sense of perspective and proportion in their lives. When I was a child, my father, who was a doctor, occasionally got out his microscope. He would put a single drop of water from our uncle’s pond on a slide and when I looked into the microscope there was a whole world going on. Tiny weird little things were zooming about the place or crawling around, and I was fascinated. There were so many different types of creatures all existing in this drop of water. To them, presumably entirely oblivious, that drop of water was the world, the whole sphere of their existence. 

Conversely, when out of town the other night I looked up into the night sky, as I like to do. The countless millions of stars were spread out, and I reflected that each tiny speck could be a whole galaxy with its own billions of stars. The scale is too big for me to comprehend. Indeed, our world is like that drop of water under the microscope. It can make you feel a little insignificant; and yet in all that vastness, here we are, a specific, unique, precious individual. That should in fact make us feel particularly special and certainly significant.

On our Prefects’ Camp each year we climb Castle Rock and look out over the plains to Albany and the coast. In the distance is a small blip on the horizon – Mt Clarence. From afar it is tiny and irrelevant, yet while standing beneath it, it is most formidable. It is a useful metaphor for our lives I think, to help us keep things in proportion and perspective. We should recognise that some things are not as big or as insurmountable as they appear, and we shouldn’t let those things dominate our attitudes and approaches to life. We often just need a bit of distance – literal or metaphoric - to see things in their rightful perspective.

It has been an incredibly fulfilling and rewarding - and of course challenging - nine years as Head of Senior School at GSG. I am very proud of what we have achieved as a staff and an organisation, and thank all those colleagues who have worked with me over the years. 

I have often spoken of my appreciation of our students, their goodwill, cooperation and willingness to engage with our programmes. I have never taken that for granted, and am incredibly grateful to them.

Likewise to our parent body - thank you for entrusting your most precious possession to us. We never lose sight of the awesome responsibility and privilege of educating your children.

Finally, my best wishes to you all for Christmas and the New Year, and for many happy and fulfilling years to come.

Thank you all,

Mr Mark Bonnin | Head of Senior School 

Photos from Recent Events

All images from the recent award ceremony can be found on MyGSG under Senior School