Over the course of the start of this year, we have experienced a school life that has never been seen before. As we quickly head towards the conclusion of the semester, we have begun to see lapses of our school lifestyles pre COVID-19. This includes the recommencement of our co-curricular program for some students several weeks ago. We have also been back at school for a number of weeks and have quickly gotten use to face to face learning once again. After following multiple procedures for a number of weeks to reduce the possibility of contracting the virus, we have started to see a slight easing to our risk reduction strategies. The most notable of these being granted access to our lockers and different oval allocations for different year groups. It’s great to see how far we have come as a whole community. I’m sure a lot of us can still remember when we first began online learning and were faced with the possibility of not coming back to school until semester two. To our credit as a school, we remained patient and now we are wreaking the benefits of being back.
This week marks the semester one examination week for our Senior students at the college. Like Patrick said in last week’s article, it’s important that as students, we look after ourselves physically and mentally during such a highly stressful period. I also wanted to reiterate Patrick’s message about afternoon tutoring. The school offers tutoring for High School and Senior students on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. On top of this, the library opens at 8am every morning. I would encourage you to get in early, it’s a great opportunity to get 30-45 minutes of work completed before having any classes. For our Year 12 students who plan on receiving an ATAR, we also have the opportunity of going to AST practice every Thursday morning at 8am.
As we quickly near the finish line of what is the conclusion of the first semester, it’s important that we remind ourselves not to finish short. It has definitely been a tough semester from a student’s perspective but as a whole school it’s crucial that we finish well. Work hard right up until the last minute of your last exam and then after that, you can have a well-earned rest.
Last Thursday, our Senior school leaders alongside our Defence students engaged in a zoom meeting with the Governor General, David Hurley and his wife, Linda Hurley. During this meeting, a number of our students were able to ask him questions which had a slight focus on leadership. Given his experience in the military and his now distinguished task of being the Governor General, we were able to extract invaluable advice about the role of leaders. We were also fortunate enough to sing a song with Linda Hurley.
Check out our Facebook page for more photos: https://facebook.com/seccanberra
Samuel Gibson
College Captain