This morning I watched a special moment for your Kindergarten and Year 2 students. The Year 2 students wrote fairy tales earlier in the term and then read their stories to a delighted group of Kindergarten girls. It is an empowering process – the Year 2s, as little as they are with wobbly teeth and scuffed knees, become the grown-up in the room. They have an exhilarating sense of taking the lead, of knowing more and of being able to guide another. They are rewarded with an adoring audience in the Kindy girls!
The next step was for the Kindergarten girls to write their own fairy tales and their teachers commented to me that they had clearly modelled some of their stories on the tales they had heard earlier from the Year 2s. Anticipation grew over the next few weeks as they wrote them up and illustrated them, and today was the day that they got to share them with their older peers. This was in turn empowering for the younger girls – taking on a role that had been modelled for them, excited to share their creation and receiving lots of encouragement and praise from the impossibly sophisticated Year 2s.
It was sheer delight to see this in action in the playground! (See pictures below).
These moments happen all over the school. Sometimes this is in structured ways – such as the Year 4 girls with a passion for human anatomy who were encouraged this term by the Catalyst Coordinator to put together a presentation for Kindergarten and who delivered their lesson on the ‘fe-mur’ and ‘ti-bi-a’ (great phonics practice!) with the aplomb of experienced classroom practitioners (despite their nerves). The Kindy girls were eating out of their hand and the older ones (who are not that old) had the rush of being seen as an expert and understanding their power to influence and educate.
Often this influence is exercised in unstructured ways, with girls observing their seniors at netball, in debating, in an Art classroom, in the choir or orchestra… and soaking in lessons about how to treat other people and how to live life.
There was a particularly poignant connection for me on Tuesday, when one of our Year 12s spoke in the final assembly about some personal struggles from her time at Queenwood. Her message spoke powerfully and courageously to the younger girls, and it resonated with them in ways that are impossible for teachers and parents and other adults to replicate. There is no substitute for learning from your peers.
In stepping forward, this student was modelling what she had learned from older students in her time. She had spoken to me earlier this year about her admiration, as a Year 8 student, for one of our girls from the Class of 2016, who had made a tremendous impression on her through her courage and focus and zest for life.
Nor does this chain of leadership and mentoring break when they leave school. Old Girl Cassandra Kelly (Class of 1991) spoke last week to our students about how the lessons she had learnt at Queenwood had carried her forward in life. Similarly, at the Valete Assembly on Tuesday, Melanie Webb (Class of 1984) shared some lessons about resilience – illustrated by her extraordinary story of competing during Year 12 at the 1984 Olympics and falling from first place during her boardsailing race back to sixth because she missed the pre-race briefing at which she would have discovered that the competition course was different from the practise course she raced the previous day! She looked around to see the rest of the pack heading in the other direction and had to claw her way back up the placings, narrowly missing out on a medal. It was a devastating loss but she went on to international and World Championship success and then a career in medicine. Fantastic lessons of hope and resilience (and paying attention to your exam timetable) for our girls.
You can view recordings of these speeches here.
Which brings me to the Class of 2020. We said our farewells this week and I have paid tribute to them at our farewell events for their contribution over many years to the life of the School, and particularly for the way they have responded to the challenges and disappointments of this year with courage, cheerfulness and a focus on others. There was every temptation to indulge in self-pity or lapse into self-absorption. Instead, they focused on what they could make of their circumstances and channelled their attention and energies outwards.
In the last few weeks, the Year 12s have set an example of joyful resilience to each other, to their younger peers and, indeed, to all of us. We don’t know where or how their example will land in the lives of our students, but we know that they have shaped us all.
To the Class of 2020 – vale, et valete!
And for the rest of us – have a great break and we look forward to seeing you in a few weeks!
Ms Elizabeth Stone
Principal