Next week is National Boarding Week. We will join schools across Australia in celebrating and recognising this wonderful group within our school community. Each day of the week is devoted to showcasing a specific sub-group of the broader boarding community: on Monday, we focus on our boarding students, on Thursday, our boarding parents, and on Friday, our boarding staff. With a range of activities planned across the week, this is a wonderful time for us all to take stock of the many joys but also the challenges families face in educating their daughters away from home.
For our students, the opportunities to access first-class education and co-curricular activities, experience all Canberra has to offer, make lifelong friends and develop independence and resilience are exciting. Our families value the care our boarding staff provide, and trust in the support, vision and values of the School. I’ve always felt a boarding house is the beating heart of a school, and we as a community are richer for all the depth our boarding community brings.
There’s much our boarding community has to offer day students, and many ways we can also support them. Assistance transporting a boarder to an activity your daughter participates in is always greatly appreciated by the School. Hosting a boarder for a day or weekend is also a wonderful way to support them in a home environment and gives them some time ‘away’ from the business of the Boarding House. Likewise, our boarders’ lives when they’re at home involve a range of experiences foreign to city-folk. Fencing, mustering, riding tractors and processing sheep are just some of the everyday activities our boarders perform when they’re home. I wonder, is that something a day student would love to experience? We are, after all, the one community, and what better way to learn than from each other?
In addition to National Boarding Week, the School is entering our season of Regional Engagement activities, and it’s wonderful to be on the road again. We connected with families in Jindabyne last weekend, and this weekend you can find us in Dubbo at the Boarding School’s Expo, and in Griffith at the Riverina Field Day. We’ll be out at the Wagga Boarding Expo on Friday 3 and Saturday 4 June, and would love to see our families and Grammarians if you’re there on those days. Additionally, if you have friends or family out in the regions who may be interested in knowing more about our School, please send them our way, we’d love to say hello.
Ms Ellena Papas
Executive Director (Operations)