Homepage Feature Column (do not use)

Six times every year, as an English teacher — and, therefore, a white-hat-wearing good-guy — I find myself cast as the villain in a Western film. I push through the swinging saloon doors of the classroom, and the happy chatter stalls. Twenty pairs of eyes fix on me in a small-town silence tainted with a palpable dread. The beribboned townsfolk gasp as they realise I have come among them armed not with the usual arsenal of whiteboard pens, PowerPoint presentations, and lame jokes, but with the scourge of English students everywhere: a sheaf of graded papers.

In each year of my experience co-ordinating the Year 12 cohort the incoming Student Council expresses surprise and wonder at the intensity of the role and responsibilities of the Council. This body, and its predecessors, have existed for many productive years and is the 'engine room' of the student body. The Council's role is to provide a voice for the students; act as role models; be the prime conduit between the students, staff and community; and nurture the spirit of Girls Grammar.

Speech delivered at the Australia Day 2013 School Assembly Ms J Colwill, Creative Arts Faculty The tradition of noting the 26th of January began early in the nineteenth century and refers to The First Landing Day or Foundation Day. This was the day in 1788 when Captain Arthur Phillip arrived at Sydney Cove to raise the Union Jack as a symbol of the British occupation of the eastern half of the continent. Prosperous immigrants in Sydney, especially those who had been convicts or the sons of convicts, began marking the colony’s beginnings with an anniversary dinner to celebrate their love of the land that they lived in. People have continued to migrate to Australia ever since. This is the story of one of them. Beryl was born in London on 29th April 1926. World War II started in 1939 when Beryl was 13 years old. As you can imagine, this was a time of great anxiety…

Mrs M McConaghy – Deputy Principal In this time now, we are remembering – quite simply - those who made sacrifices for the good of humanity. I want to do this today through a story which is personal and I want you to make your own meaning.  I particularly want you to consider how seemingly small, unknown people can be great in simple quiet ways. Last year, while on Long Service Leave, with some friends, we drove from Istanbul to Gallipoli and the site at Lone Pine where the ANZACs landed.  We walked the beach, swam in the sea and walked around the graves of the Australian and the Turkish soldiers who had fallen.  I did not know, but my brother – an historian – emailed to tell me about a relation of our family whose name is on the Lone Pine monument -  Lance Corporal George Laurence Murphy. His story of heroism and complete sacrifice…

Mrs M McConaghy, Deputy Principal The technological marvel that drove the first Renaissance was the mechanised phonetic script realised in the Gutenberg printing press. It allowed books to become available to those beyond the Latin-familiar, literate elite.  Copies of the Bible and Latin and Greek Classics became available to a wider audience. Theoretically, a broader aspirational class, if not exactly the ‘common man,’ could read arguments and ideas personally and draw personal, rather than officially mediated, conclusions. Today’s nearest exemplar of a comparably revolutionary phenomenon is the Internet. This digital Gutenberg has rendered access to voluminous information and global communications instant — and has done so with more democratic universality than the original.   Canadian futurist Donald Tapscott  coined the term “disintermediation” in the mid 1990s to describe how new technologies facilitate direct access to the sources of information, services or goods in the same way Gutenberg’s press allowed the ‘masses’ to access scholarly ideas.  Tapscott’s ponderous…

Dr Ann Farley, Director of Differentiated Studies Faculty As parents and teachers we take great delight in seeing “our girls” constantly perform beyond our expectations. At each assembly we celebrate the achievements of girls who present insightful reports on activities conducted across the country and the world. At so many special events the students prepare, manage, present and perform with mature and sophisticated aplomb. On Friday night as we experience all the fun and excitement of Open Day the student population assumes the responsibility for showcasing the School to their parents and the broader community. The evening plays a significant role in the leadership development of the Year 11 cohort as they consistently rise to the challenge of organising many aspects of the evening. At this time last year, many of the 2012 Year 8 students were being welcomed to the Grammar community. Now they are the “welcomers”, encouraging our Year 8 students of 2013 to…

Associate Professor John Armstrong,  Visiting Philosopher Often we feel obliged to be in favour of change.  In Annie Hall, the Woody Allen character and Annie are talking about the problems of their relationship: ‘you never believed in change’ she complains; ‘change is death’ he pleads—to which she responds with a fulsome Manhattan expletive. The point? Annie’s thesis can be expressed as follows:  If you are a good modern, lively person you will automatically be into ‘change’. If you are suspicious of change your attractive partner will leave you. She does not argue—this is not a carefully reasoned attitude. But we get the message: pro-change is good; suspicion of change is bad. Was Churchill funny? It’s striking that this positive evaluation of change is relatively recent. There’s a saying attributed to Winston Churchill, reflecting moodily on a cabinet discussion: ‘they keep talking about the need for change...  Aren’t things bad enough already?’ I find this quietly hilarious,…

Mrs Violet Ross, Head of Woolcock House “Even as kids reach adolescence, they need more than ever for us to watch over them. Adolescence is not about letting go. It's about hanging on during a very bumpy ride.”   (Taffel, 2012)                                                                                                The lives our young people lead seem very different from what may appear to have been our own relatively simple and technology-free teenage existences. Adolescents seem more sophisticated, self-assured and certainly more technologically savvy than we were, and we all feel at times that we don’t really understand the world they live in.  This is when we wonder how we can possibly hope to help them navigate their way…