Dean of Studies | Mrs Julie Quinn

As the term finishes, my hope is that every student can finish feeling proud of his achievements, whatever they may be. Many boys have made a consistent effort across the term to balance their many and varied co-curricular commitments with their school work. I am continually impressed with not only the ability to balance all the commitments, but also the positive way our boys accomplish so much. 

At a graduation ceremony for post doctorate students at the prestigious university of MIT, the vice chancellor addressed the graduates stating - “I know only two things about you - one is that you have worked very hard to be here today and two - that you have faced many times when you have felt challenged and beaten but you have overcome the adversity and shown great resilience”. I am sure that many of our boys would similarly find this a statement familiar to themselves.

Reports will be available electronically next Tuesday via Parent Lounge. As we continue to emphasise to our boys, as teachers, our hopes and aims are that every boy can state at the end of term that his outcomes are the best that he could produce irrespective of the actual result.

Also, being sent electronically next Tuesday is a reflection sheet that I would encourage parents to explore with their sons. This reflections sheet will also be available via the College App.  This exercise is designed to encourage boys to analyse their strategies from Term 1 with the view to enhance or improve their outcomes from Term 2. Hopefully this is a very productive and valuable family activity.

This week our Year 12 students completed workshops in preparation for QCS.  Our boys are to be commended not only on their engagement across these two days after a busy term and exam block, but also for the practice paper results from earlier in the term. Our Senior students have started well in their preparation for this external testing.

Our Years 7 and 9 students also had workshops around numeracy and literacy skill building. These workshops provided boys with the familiarity and conditions around the external NAPLAN testing. Again, my congratulations on the engagement from our boys across these sessions, especially after a busy term.

I wish all families a restful break and hope that it gives a change in the daily routine of school commitments.