Monthly Archives: April 2011

From the Director of Humanities First term studies in History for Year 10 students were devoted to a unit concerning Australia’s involvement in World War I. This unit which was new to the Junior Humanities Curriculum aroused such interest that one class, 10C, asked their teacher Ms Boyle if they could present a special ANZAC Day commemoration on the last full School Assembly of the term. Using the example of Australia’s youngest soldier Private James Martin from Melbourne, the class focused on very personal and individual narratives to tell the story of Australia’s involvement in the Great War. James, we were told, was 14 years and 3 months when he defied his parents and signed up to go on what he expected to be an exciting adventure. This boy, who was the same age as the average Year 10 student, perhaps mercifully didn’t make it to the battlefield but died of typhoid fever on board a…

How parents can help their teenagers make good decisions From the Head of Beanland House In the 5th century BC, Plato wrote, We know that the beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken… Shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up? (The Republic) On Tuesday 29 March 2011, we again welcomed to the School Mr Paul Dillon, an expert in the field of drug education for twenty-five years and founder of Drug and Alcohol Research and Training Australia (DARTA). Focusing in particular on the problems associated…