LISTENING CIRCLES

Romalina Rocca | Director of Senior School

Our new Consent Education Framework enhances our student pastoral program, while further developing parent education and working together with other schools.

Early in 2021, Loreto Kirribilli instigated a series of Listening Circles, designed to consult and collaborate with students, ex-students, staff and the parent community, in order to formulate a considered and informed response to the issue of respectful relationships and consent education. The valuable suggestions and contributions that came from these Listening Circles have informed our 2022 Pastoral Program and Consent Education Framework for students and parents.

Key findings from the Listening Circles highlighted the need for a clear definition of consent and the concept that education should be instigated much earlier, in age-appropriate stages. Information should be explicit and not ‘sugar-coated’ and education for parents should complement and support curriculum activities at school. Informal, co-educational activities between boys and girls from a young age has a significant role to play in removing some of the disconnect between genders.

Our whole school response to the question of consent education reflects the charism of Mary Ward, as we are called to be agents of change, not just within our school environment but in society as a whole. Our response also reflects the importance we place on student wellbeing, with the student at the heart of our evolved pastoral care model.

Based on the findings of our Listening Circles, and in consultation with experts in the field of consent education, we have instituted a refreshed Consent Education Framework for 2022. Students in Years 7-12 will engage in sessions with ex-student Jane McGowen (’86), a social worker who specialises in working with young people in the education space about positive relationships. Jane will be running small group Talking Consent workshops with the girls as they progress through their senior schooling. Jane’s workshops will focus on understanding, defining and negotiating consent. Through a variety of dynamic, interactive techniques including storytelling, art and peerbased learning, students come to sound understandings of consent in an appropriate age and stage-related teaching environment.

“I aim to deliver this sensitive information in an environment of cohesion and positivity, so that young people feel empowered to seek healthy relationships and look after each other," explains Jane. "As they learn to understand risk and know how to identify that for themselves, they become more self-aware and have a sense of preparedness as they grow and change.”