A CULTURE OF GIVING AS AN ANGLICAN SCHOOL, OUR CHRISTIAN FAITH, ETHOS AND VALUES FORM THE FOUNDATION FOR A CULTURE OF GIVING AND DOING WHICH BRANCHES THROUGHOUT OUR COMMUNITY. OUR CURRICULUM, PASTORAL CARE AND CO-CURRICULAR PROGRAMS EACH INCLUDE ACTIVITIES WHICH INSTIL THE IMPORTANCE OF EMPATHY, GENEROSITY AND KINDNESS. Students as young as three follow the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (PYP) which aims to develop caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect. As students continue on their Canberra Girls Grammar School journey, the Senior School builds greater awareness of philanthropy through business-model teaching and dedicated fundraising in House groups. Here we learn about three different approaches the School takes to developing awareness and compassion in our students.
JUNIOR SCHOOL ‘GOES NUDE’ FOR THE ENVIRONMENT Put an environmentally savvy teacher together with some like-minded students with boundless energy and you have a recipe for success. This year, I took on the role of mentor to the Environment Committee and was blessed with a great bunch of Year 6 students, happy to take on my ambitious ideas and readily concoct many of their own. The first initiative we tackled was a relaunch of the Junior School’s recycling and composting system which the committee trained students and staff to use. The system – made up of a commingled recycling hopper, four tumbling compost bins as well as three worm farms – now runs efficiently and the Grammar Green
Thumbs co-curricular club benefits, as it tends the worms and utilises the compost. We encourage entrepreneurship at Canberra Girls Grammar School, so the creation of the CGGS Fresh Produce Stall was no surprise. The committee sold fruit, vegetables, herbs and honey produced in the Junior School garden or donated by school community members. It was hugely successful – all but selling out within twenty minutes. As a result, the Grammar Green Thumbs have stocked the school veggie garden with produce to sell at future stalls. Our school gardens are looking amazing, thanks to the work of the students and teachers, together with the fantastic maintenance team. My personal favourite of all the initiatives started this year is Nude Food Day (NFD) which aims to eliminate all unnecessary packaging and wrapping that goes into schools. The Junior School now has a fancy new trophy (made of recycled materials, of course) to be awarded to the class with the most ‘nude’ lunches each Nude Food Day. We currently have one NFD per term and have already noticed a change in student attitudes towards packed lunches. Feedback from students, teachers and parents indicates there is widespread support for making this a weekly award. Perhaps, not far down the track, we can proudly call ourselves a ‘nude school’.
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Kylie Baines ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE MENTOR 5
20 | GRAMMAR REPORT No. 103