With the official events of inducting new Student Leaders and announcing 2021 VCE Subject Prizes during Senior School Assembly now complete, it was time this week to hand over the reigns to our Year 12 cohort – the Graduating Class of 2022.

Commencing last year, the V.O.I.C.E.S Student Leadership Project at St Catherine’s, is focused on encouraging and empowering girls to step forward and embrace every opportunity. As Project Leader, Mr James Brown expertly guides the Student Executive to design and host the weekly Assembly in the Senior School. In essence, our School Assembly is created by the girls, for the girls.

The V.O.I.C.E.S Project is established around the motto, ‘Use Your Voice’, and aims to prepare young women to aspire to leadership roles. It also recognises that not all acts of leadership require speaking, nor an official title, or specific captaincy or role. Often our actions speak louder than words, as such, the acronym V.O.I.C.E.S, identifies the following key attributes of leadership we wish to engender:

Voice – Ownership – Inclusion – Compassion – Empowerment – Strength

Drawing on the words from Natasha Bedingfield’s song: Unwritten, during their Assembly Address, School Co-Captains Madeline (Maddie) Powell and Angela Yu shared the following:

Summer holidays are just a collection of memories now and we face another school year, an abyss of uncertainty, excitement; a blank page, a fresh page – completely unwritten.

This can be daunting. Like starring at an empty Word document and knowing that one day – hopefully – it will be full of words, a completed essay, or a creative, or a speech. Knowing that one day, you will read over that Word document, remembering the time, the laughs, maybe the stress or the tears behind each word. But for now, it remains unwritten. And the pen is in your hand.

Today is where your book begins. Your book, your story for 2022. At the start of the year, we emerge into the unwritten, staring at the blank page before us with confidence and anticipation. No one else can speak the words on your lips. We all write our own individual, unique stories. So, embrace the blank page that is 2022 with this in mind: follow your passions, express your opinions, be around people that make you happy, that lift you up. 

Fill the unwritten in 2022 with adventure, excitement, kindness, new beginnings, lessons, mistakes and growth.

Maddie and Angela encouraged the younger cohorts to find comfort in the unwritten, and then embrace it:

To embrace the opportunities of a new school year or a new subject, the budding friendships, the excitement of upcoming camps or even formal. All of these things, these opportunities, these new beginnings, are the start of your story for 2022. So, in the words of Natasha Bedingfield, “today is where your book begins, the rest is still unwritten.”

With the inspiration of our Student Executive, together with the Year 12 cohort, each and every student is encouraged to find their VOICE.

Also commencing this year is the development of our new Humanities program currently focused on lifting the leadership, independence and critical thinking skills of Year 9 students through the year-long Critical Conversations program. Inspired by a lesson observation at Eton College in 2019, the Humanities program now draws on Harkness methodology to cultivate our Thinking Agenda across Year 9.

The Harkness approach to teaching was developed by a small group of private schools in the USA, commencing with Phillips Exeter Academy. It spread amongst other prominent US schools and now, the board room table-based seminars are fairly common practice in American private schools.

At St Catherine’s, we see great value in promoting Harkness as part of our tool kit for teaching and learning. The advantages are many:

• it places the onus on the students
• it requires independence and critical thinking
• it works through collaboration and constructive discussion
• it develops a lot of the intellectual and social skills required of our students.

To be successful in Harkness, you must be a good listener, a thinker, empathetic, articulate, and unashamedly intellectual. Given all of these advantages, introducing this at Year 9 hopes to develop an open and academic thinking culture.

Our Year 9s are currently researching and discussing the Critical Questions: Biomes are under threat across the world, including tropical rainforests. Can we stop biomes being destroyed?

These Critical Questions require students to review their prior knowledge, undertake research for understanding and ponder further questions. The Harkness Model is anything but light content. Successful student led dialogues are knowledge-based, requiring considerable pre-class preparation.

I was delighted to hear the feedback from some our Year 9 parents recently, who shared their family dinner table conversations were taking a new Harkness inspired shape, as their Year 9 daughter rehearsed their discussion prompts:

“My point of view is …. What do other people think?”

“I agree with…, because…”

“In the article (or the video, or on the graph) it showed…”

“What surprised me was…?”

“I’d like to build on what has been said by adding…”

“Can you clarify what you mean by…?”

“I’d like to offer a connection to this discussion.”

“Are there any groups who would disagree with…, what do you think?”

We look forward to following the progress of the Year 9 Critical Conversations program, and tracking the changes observed in the VCE classes in the coming years, as the confidence to strengthen classroom dialogue is emphasised, in addition to their board room capabilities.