From the PDHPE classroom to history, science and beyond, teachers at Queenwood School are working to raise the bar in discipline-specific writing skills – and an instructional framework is paving the way.
In Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, Silicon Valley experts reveal the sophisticated psychological techniques coded into social media platforms, which aim to hook users, retain their attention and manipulate their behaviour.
Hope is a powerful thing and many would agree that it is an essential element in a good life. It should not just be a feeling that spontaneously overcomes us but something we intentionally practise. That can be hard to do, especially this year, but this is exactly why I feel so privileged to be a teacher.
The messages I shared with staff were from parents who described girls who are happy, flourishing, growing in independence and confidence. There are so many of these girls… and it would be easy for me to stop writing here. But we need to be honest: at any given time there will also be a number of girls who are not feeling this way. They feel a bit lost, unconnected, uneasy with their peers. They worry that everyone else seems happy, while they don’t fit in.
In early October, the second debate in the US Presidential election campaign was cancelled – at least in person – and when a virtual format was proposed as an alternative, it was dismissed by the President: ‘That is not what a debate is all about…It’s ridiculous.’
Queenwood was founded by women with a commitment to service – service to their students and, through them, to the world.
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.
The emerging theme of 2020 is, for me, gratitude. Here are four things for which I am grateful.
I recently asked a group of small children to make a birthday card for their grandfather. I laid out crayons, markers, pencils, coloured paper, scissors and glue and reminded them that they needed to consider not what interested them, but what might interest ‘Papa’ and make him happy on his birthday.
While there is talk all around us about finding ways to have graduations and ceremonies to mark Year 12, and while we are doing all that we can not only to do these things in a constrained environment while making sure that we do recognise the very special achievements of the Class of 2020, their individuality and their specialness, there is more to the story of what will always be a storied year.
In the same way that an answer to the common question, “What do you do?” does not give a full picture of who a person really is, what our girls choose to study beyond Queenwood is not the whole picture of who they are becoming.