Be prepared

For Grammar girls to perform at their best and to achieve exceptional scholarship, it is important to equip them with the tools to maintain good health and wellbeing. School Nurse Mrs L Lockyer gives advice to enable our girls to learn, work, create and achieve at their optimal levels.

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Finding ways to find their way

Building a career is a personal and quite individual process that rarely begins with the collective end in mind. While identifying the path is the first step, the wholeness of the concept called ‘career’ is only fully appreciated upon reflection. Finding one’s way can be loosely described as an exercise in recognising seemingly random life experiences; seizing new opportunities; navigating unforeseen circumstances; and embracing emergent technologies. An ever evolving reflective compass directs the trekker’s path.

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New Term’s resolutions

New Year is not the only time to make resolutions. In a school term assessment and the feedback it generates create the perfect opportunity to make a new beginning. There is much to be gained through thoughtful reflection and some carefully crafted and achievable New Term’s resolutions.

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Build a bridge …

Are young people today more selfish than earlier generations? Historically we have made a distinction between self-interest and care for others; but recent studies show that our self-interest may best be served through adopting a more compassionate approach to each other and the world around us.

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Gunfight at ‘The A-E Corral’

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.

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The student voice

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.

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A war bride’s story

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…

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