Ms Maggi Gunn, Dean of Co-curriculum
I am mourning the end of the 2016 Rio Olympics. With more than four hundred Australian athletes competing across 26 sports, there was always something to watch, and an Australian athlete or team to support. Even during the working day, staff and students managed to catch the occasional event, including a couple of girls in my Year 12 Mathematics class who were caught in the surreptitious act.
From individual achievements to team performances, we have shared triumphs and disappointments with the athletes, and have been energised, entertained, deflated and inspired. The performances and achievements of the Rio Olympians have no doubt motivated many of our students to improve in, excel at, and enjoy their sporting endeavours.
There is widespread awareness that the crucial component for expertise is not talent but purposeful practice — in fact, a minimum of ten thousand hours of deliberate practice has been advocated as the benchmark minimum for expertise (Ericsson, 1993; Gladwell, 2008; Syed, 2010)1. As a volleyball coach with a very competitive streak, I have thought about my Year 7 volleyball team who have 42 hours of purposeful practice under their belts and only another 9958 hours of training to go. At our current rate of three hours of training per week, these twelve-year-olds will not be world-class volleyballers until they are 75 years old.
Before committing to significantly increasing practice sessions to achieve this ambitious target in a more timely manner, I thought it best to consider the School intent:
Proud of our Grammar tradition, we are a secondary school that establishes the educational foundation for young women to contribute confidently to their world with wisdom, imagination and integrity.
The contribution of co-curricular opportunities for learning beyond the classroom is widely accepted, and the majority of girls at Brisbane Girls Grammar School, like my mighty Year 7s, have numerous co-curricular interests and must balance their myriad co-curricular commitments — music, sport, drama, service, debating, interest clubs and often study or sport tours — with a sharp focus on schoolwork, homework, academic tasks and assessment due dates.
The complementarity of the curriculum and the co-curriculum is manifest in data from the graduating cohort of 2015 which reveals that some of these Year 12 students participated in up to eleven co-curricular activities throughout their senior year. Interestingly, of the 28 Year 12 students who were engaged in five or more activities throughout the year, eight received an Overall Position (OP) of 1, 22 received an OP between 1 and 5, and 27 of the 28 girls who balanced the commitments of five or more co-curricular commitments with their academic load received a single digit OP. Of the Girls Grammar students who received an OP 1 in 2015, more than 50 per cent were involved with more than three co-curricular pursuits throughout the year.
Although world-class performance may be the domain of a select group of passionate and singularly dedicated individuals, skillful and accomplished performance can be achieved by those who are able to manage and balance their time, focus and commitments. I take comfort in the observation that Girls Grammar students are adept at managing demanding academic and busy co-curricular schedules.
Balancing academic and co-curricular commitments is not straightforward. Constant monitoring, adjustment, compromise and communication are required — demands which obviously escalate as the number of co-curricular activities increases. For students wishing to balance multiple co-curricular commitments, it is vital that schedule clashes are not significant and that negotiated compromises are reached with co-ordinators of activities well in advance so that team goals are not affected and other participants are not let down. Aside from showing consideration and respect for others, practising this process of negotiation is just the sort of thing that will make the girls effective mediators, problem solvers, and conflict managers in their lives and careers beyond Girls Grammar.
Some tipping point at which it is not possible to compromise on concurrent co-curricular commitments is inevitable, however not all co-curricular activities are equal in terms of time investment or commitment and interest, and capacity for managing co-curricular participation is undoubtedly individual. The number of manageable co-curricular commitments differs between individuals and over time. Certainly, a general trend of reducing the number of co-curricular activities is noticeable and understandable as students progress through to Year 12 and academic intensity and load increase.
As the motto of ‘blue unity is opportunity’ sees us through 2016 and beyond, no doubt I will continue to be in awe of the ability of Girls Grammar students to maintain the frenetic pace of academic and co-curricular student life whilst demonstrating such impressive achievements and performances in academics, sports, music, debates and performances. The Year 7 volleyballers may or may not end up on an Olympic court, but their organisation, balance, and commitment to excelling in their sporting, academic, and cultural lives will certainly help them to achieve their personal bests and contribute to their world with wisdom, imagination and integrity.
1 A more recent study from Princeton conducted a meta-analysis of 88 studies in which deliberate practice had been investigated in relation to various domains and found that although deliberate practice accounted for variance on mastery and performance it was not as important as has been argued. Interestingly, the correlation between practice and performance was greater for games and music than for sports, education and in professions (Macnamara, Hambrick and Oswald, 2014).
References
Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesh-Romer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100(3), 363–406.
Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The story of success. New York, NY: Back Bay Books.
Macnamara, B. N., Hambrick, D. Z. & Oswald, F. L. (2014). Deliberate practice and performance in music, games, sports, education, and professions: A meta-analysis. Retrieved from http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Macnamara-et-al.-2014.pdf
Syed, M. (2010). Bounce: How champions are made. London, England: Fourth Estate.