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GLOBAL CONNECTIONS Although COVID-19 has meant the cancellation of some highly anticipated overseas and national tours and exchanges, Wilderness School has still been active when it comes to developing intercultural understanding and global consciousness within our community. Here are some examples of what the girls have been doing: Local Round Square Ambassadors at Wilderness In Term 3, the Round Square Ambassadors collaborated with students in 1Z to explore ocean pollution, its effects, and what we can do about it. The girls worked together over a 2-week period, resulting in the creation of artworks made using recyclable materials. International Boarders The International boarders have enjoyed sharing the holidays this year with the International boarders at Walford. National Round Square The Round Square Ambassadors held their first virtual meeting with the Round Square Committee at St Phillip’s School, Alice Springs. The girls enjoyed learning about daily, weekly, once a term initiatives, and other experiences they had, and are looking forward to the next catch up. They will also be meeting with the Round Square Committee at Scotch Oakburn College in Launceston this term. We plan to bring together the whole school community with our upcoming Round Square initiatives. Global Girl Up Club Emily Teoh and Isla Truman, representing the Wilderness School Girl Up Club, held a Zoom meeting with girls from the Girl Up Club at Carolina Day School in Asheville, North Carolina. The two clubs are working together to support students at the Isaac A. David Senior Memorial School, Liberia. The Carolina Day School Girl Up Club will
hold a Books and Schools Supplies Drive, and we will make friendship bracelets and possibly menstrual kits. We plan to send these to the students at Carolina Day School early next year. Their students will then package the contributions and ship them to Liberia. Our Girl Up Club has plans to propose that the Carolina Day School Girl Up Club works with us to support the Bhadure School in Nepal. Year 5 Dana Hall, Boston Collaboration Year 5 students developed relationships with the students in Year 5 at Dana Hall. They wrote pen-pal letters, created videos on Flipgrid to introduce themselves, posted books they are reading on Padlet, and constructed graphs about the Year 5 cohort to share with the students at Dana Hall.
The children from Godspell sent videos via Flipgrid asking questions about Australia, the bushfires, native animals, and how we were managing during Coronavirus times. The children at Godspell College were all remote learning from home. We sent videos back to answer their questions and asked some of our own. It was a fabulous experience for our girls. They “got so much out of seeing children just like them, on the other side of the world, who were also going through Coronavirus times, remote learning and all that came with that.” – Mrs Kate Brennan Moving Forward
Year 5 and Year 11 Out of Eden Learn (an initiative of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education) In Term 1 and 2, Year 5 and Year 11 English as a Second Language students completed the Stories of Human Migration project, working with students in America, India and each other. They explored the migration stories of people they are close to, posted their learnings online and commented on other students’ posts.
Round Square: Virtual Exchanges We are excited to be working towards developing opportunities for Middle and Senior School students to participate in ‘Virtual Exchanges’ with other Round Square schools. It would be a great opportunity for our students to connect with peers around the world, to interact via email, through video conferencing and on social media. This will allow them to share experiences, develop language skills, understand each other’s country and culture, create friendships and potentially build lifelong relationships that may result in a physical visit to each other in the future.
Year 5 students created artworks reflecting aspects of their understanding. Both year levels were invited to Zoom with researchers at Harvard University as part of this project.
We are continuing to develop our global connections both within and outside the classroom, locally, nationally and globally, thus enabling our girls to develop their intercultural understanding and global consciousness.
Round Square: Godspell College, Argentina In Term 2, the Year 4 classes connected with the Year 4’s at Godspell College, Argentina through Round Square.
Stephanie Andrews Head of Languages Rosie Broderick Head of Boarding
