Music is such a powerful conveyer of emotion. It is the "international language" that draws a response — uniting, uplifting, challenging us. Comforting us. So many of us turn to music to help us express our feelings and frustrations, and, declaring complete bias as I default to my background as a music teacher, I believe it’s the perfect vehicle when considering the themes of reconciliation and activism. Consider the song Treaty by Australian musical group Yothu Yindi. Released in 1991, its…
Academic update Congratulations to the Year 5 and Year 6 da Vinci Decathlon teams, who recently won the ACT regional competition. The da Vinci Decathlon is an academic competition that is designed to stimulate the minds of students, with team members collaborating to answer questions and solve problems in Engineering, Mathematics, English, Art and Poetry, Cartography, Creative Producers, Ideation, Code breaking, Science and Legacy. As winners of the regional event, both teams were invited to…
Over the past week it has been a pleasure to participate in so many activities around the school. These included: On Friday, a large group of Junior School students and teachers committed to walking to school from three locations in our local area. This was to support National Walk Safely to School Day, a day that promotes the benefits of walking, being outside in the fresh air, protecting the environment by walking over driving, and the head start that physical activity gives us for the day…
We don’t laugh because we’re happy, we are happy because we laugh. — William James Laughter has long been described as a powerful antidote — nature’s medicine to remedy all kinds of ails. The benefits of laughing have been extensively researched, with numerous studies unsurprisingly revealing that laughter has a significant positive impact on our mental health and wellbeing, our feelings of connection and relationships with others and, notably, our physical health too. And who doesn’t love the…
As I write this I cannot believe we are already at the end of Week 5 — that is, more than halfway through Term 2. Our Year 7 to 10 students are heading into a busy assessment period, and our Year 11 and 12 BSSS students will be completing their semester assessments in Week 7. For all our students currently in the lead-up to these assessments, I urge them to set aside regular device- and distraction-free time to revise and study. The earlier years in the Senior School are where these good study…
It’s so easy nowadays to be dismissive. Someone espouses an opinion with which we disagree, and we discard it without a second thought, attributing ignorance, arrogance, incompetence — as the case may be — to the author. Narcissism seems to be a label gaining in popularity. Somehow it almost seems cool to share the drama of the latest battle with your narcissist, liberally topped with a dose of contempt, to a strangely desensitised yet enthralled audience. Symbolically crumpling up another’s…
Congratulations to Izzy Cairns (Y6), who was recently selected for Tennis Australia's National Development Camp, which featured the best U11 junior tennis players in the country. Izzy spent four days at the National Tennis Centre, training with elite coaches and learning what it takes to become a professional athlete. Well done to our Debating and Public Speaking teams competing in the ACTDU. Five Year 7 to 8 teams and one Year 6 team progressed to the quarter finals, while four Year 11 to 12…
Each year we gather as a community to celebrate Founders' Day, the day when the foundation stone of our historical school was laid. Established as St Gabriel’s School in 1926, our School began with nine students in the Old Rectory of St John’s Church, Reid. Pleasingly, we began to outgrow this space and the Melbourne Avenue site began its austere history with the laying of the foundation stone in 1927, with students moving to the campus in 1928. Renamed Canberra Church of England Girls Grammar…
CGGS was founded upon a commitment to service and community. Service to our students, service by our students – and through them – to the wider world. In the ELC and Junior School we work to create a community where our young people live with courage, empathy, generosity, integrity and with a spirit of service that transcends the bounds of childhood and the school gates to last a lifetime. One of the ways we try to make our commitment to service a reality is through engagement with causes and…