College Student Leadership
This newsletter I want to make special mention of our Faith and Community Captains. They are Isabelle Westaway, Lani Kombanie, Emma Johnson and Holly Dodwell. The role of these Captains is to help build community among the school, in particular across grades. They are very active and are often doing things behind the scenes to get alongside students in various grades. I wish to commend them for the excellent work they do.
It is also this time of year that our Year 11s start to consider whether they wish to nominate for Student Leadership roles in 2017. The Year 11s will each be given a Leadership application pack that details the responsibilities of each role and the selection criteria. The process of selecting College Captains is particularly detailed and involves getting input from students and staff as well as Assembly speeches and finally an interview with a selection panel. The Panel then make a recommendation to the Principal who then appoints the College Captains for 2017.
Choices, Choices, Choices
This Thursday evening, 4 August we are holding our Careers Evening. This evening is open for all students from Year 9 – 12 and will involve a combination of information sessions for the various Year levels as well as an exhibition involving displays from a range of tertiary institutions and employers.
Our Year 10s will do their SET plans commencing in Week 4. This entire year, the 10s have been focussed on considering various career pathways and considering where their passions and interests lie. In Week 1 of this term we had a guest speaker, Glen Gerryn speak to the Year 10s and 11s about purpose and passion. Glen had a powerful message for the students and I trust this has assisted them to consider their futures.
On a slightly different vein but of extreme value, our Year 10s also had presentations that were intended to breakdown stereotypical images society has of masculinity and femininity. Peer Power spoke separately to our Year 10s in the first week of this term and were well received by the students.
Next week we have a presentation from Kerry-Anne de Jager who will be speaking to our seniors about the dangers of alcohol and substance abuse and in particular how these can impact on you in the workplace. Kerry works for Technitest who specialise in doing alcohol and drug screening in industry. Our young people hear so often that drugs and alcohol are “bad” however they need to understand that not only can these impact on someone’s health and wellbeing, they can also have serious consequences on your ability too. After the presentation on Assembly to the Seniors, she will speak to our Year 10s whose focus in Pastoral Care this year has been Careers. She will be able to answer lots of questions that they may have.
Our focus in the other year levels with alcohol and drug awareness is how they impact on driving with our Year 11s and what drugs and alcohol are used in the party scene with our Year 12s.
Finally I wish to commend Nichola Bates who was selected out of an application pool of over 2000 of Australia’s brightest to receive an academic excellence award presented to her by the Australian Defence Force. Nichola also received an iPad as part of the award. Congratulations Nichola.
David Heyworth, Head of Senior School