Insights

To have the opportunity to discover what is meant by integrity, to have a sense of what is honourable, and to understand the consequences of not telling the truth is vital.

On Tuesday night, Year 12 girls, parents and teachers had the pleasure of being entertained by Brisbane Girls Grammar School old girl, Dr Jo Darby (Alumna 1996) who was guest speaker at the Valedictory Dinner, 2010.

It seems that ‘making mistakes’ has a poor reputation that is neither accurate nor deserved.

I am often asked by students and parents why Girls Grammar does not compete in music competitions. I guess the simple answer is that healthy school music programmes are about bringing people together and building communities of learners rather than creating competition and division.

Creative Arts: Everyone’s business in the twenty-first century Despite the fact that business and industry now champion the word creative, and are adopting the rhetoric of creativity as a key principal of desired practice in their domains, this movement has yet to feed back into the design of twenty-first century school curricula. Indeed, the potentially powerful and integral role of the Arts as a key node in school curricula continues to be, for the most part, diluted or worse, ignored.

A recent Australian Education Forum raised compelling issues about future demographics and economic imperatives; explained how parents paying school fees ultimately save tax-payers money and focused concern on the reduced pool of suitably qualified and dedicated teachers as well as potential school leaders.

Everybody has a preferred learning style. When students know and understand their own learning style it helps them to learn more effectively and it enables teachers to better structure classroom activities.

Dr Sally Stephens comments on the controversial national curriculum arguing that there is an over-emphasis on learning facts at the expense of scientific literacy.