From the Principal Mr Gary Racey
International Women’s Day/ Anglicare Event
It was my pleasure to attend an Anglicare WA event recently at the Palace Cinemas on William Street to celebrate International Women’s Day. The theme behind the evening was around social justice, and in particular women’s rights. The movie that followed a presentation by Dr Katie Carter, Anglicare WA’s Mental Health & Trauma Practice Consultant, is called ‘On the Basis of Sex’. This is an inspiring movie based on a true story about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a struggling attorney and new mother who faces adversity and numerous obstacles in her fight for equal rights. When Ruth takes on a ground breaking tax case with her husband, attorney Martin Ginsburg, she knows it could change the direction of her career and the way the courts view gender discrimination. As I reflected on the film afterwards, I was struck by the fact many people continue to make statements around ‘how far we have come’ and, ‘I can’t believe the world used to be like that’. Yet I question; “How far should we have come?” Have we really come that far? To think that one of the first public statements surrounding women’s rights occurred over 100 years ago, yet we still require movements such as ‘MeToo’ to bring attention and action to the inequity towards the female gender. We as a society must ask and question why this generation 1
is still dealing with an archaic way of thinking and levels of discrimination that are totally unacceptable, and act now rather than rest on our laurels and congratulate ourselves on how far we have come. At St George’s we embrace equality and seek to educate our young people in many areas of social justice. International Women’s Day is an excellent opportunity to show our young people, both boys and girls, that the world celebrates equality, diversity and opportunities for everyone. We are proud to be a co-educational school where we can celebrate and embrace all that both genders offer, and International Women’s Day permits us to highlight the contribution our young women bring to our school. They inspire, motivate and challenge our community and are future leaders – we cannot be more thankful.
Year 7 Thrive
The photo above, picturing some of our young women with ‘attitude’, is from the Year 7 Thrive event held at the Perth Convention St George’s Anglican Grammar School Newsletter
Centre on Thursday 8 March. Aside from the benefits of the actual activities to support our students transition into secondary school, one of the things I was most impressed with was our sense of community. A colleague from another school shared with me a comment from a third party who was present at the event, someone that had never seen or heard of our school: “Now that is a community!” This statement was without any prompting, but simply a ‘feeling’ they got from our students and staff and watching them interact with each other. How amazing! As they say, culture will eat strategy for breakfast every day of the week!
educate and guide our students as to the dangers and pitfalls of the cyber world, it is in our homes that is the first line of defence. As we move forward, the School will be seeking to engage specialists in this field, and others, to run forums for parents to support you in managing this everchanging landscape.
Parent Code of Conduct
Our overarching Child Protection Framework, ‘Creating Child Safe Institutions’, directs the School in this important area. One suggested strategy within the framework is the need for a ‘Parent Code of Conduct’. St George’s Code has been forwarded to parents/guardians of our school in a separate communication and ACC Swimming Carnival I encourage each family member to read Congratulations to our ACC interschool the document. The introduction of this is swim team and staff/coaches for their to further promote a safe environment for performance at the recent ACC Swimming our students, staff and parents/guardians. It Carnival. A win for the second year in a row is hoped that the adults in our community in a higher division each and every year is acknowledge the importance of such a guide something to truly celebrate. Whilst our and seek to impart the expectations within interhouse carnival is participation based in it. A further copy can be found in the Parent its approach, which is wonderful, this event Handbook on SEQTA. permits our more serious swimmers to enOn the Roof Concert gage in an extremely competitive environment. It should be noted that we had Along with the myriad of excursions over the past couple of weeks, including some stand out performances, but it was Sculptures by the Sea, Fremantle Prison,Year our consistency across the day that stood 12 Art Perspectives, NWAS sport, Curtin out for me and earned this victory - a true definition of a team win, which I applaud. The University etc, the ‘On the Roof Concert’ was finally held on the actual rooftop! This weekly training sessions certainly paid off followed nearly a year without access to the and all competitors represented the School roof and then a potential storm when the with pride and a positive attitude. A proud last one was planned, and it was well worth day indeed! waiting for. Thanks to all who contributed Cyber-Safety and attended this wonderful occasion. I bring to your attention the information forwarded to families from ‘Family Zone’ Gary Racey regarding the ‘MOMO challenge’ and encourage any parent/guardian who has not Principal read the information previously sent to do so. Whilst we as a school do all we can to
Edition 4 2019 2