2007 School Magazine

From the Principal

community

The Year 12 theme for 2007, led by Head Girls Sarah Cowley and Sally Fry, was “Create the Bonds in ‘007.” Their clever play on words, with a conscious link to The realisation of The Cherrell Hirst Creative Learning Centre, has ensured a vibrant and enthusiastic approach to student activities throughout the year. Their focus on student bonding through active school spirit has been augmented by creating bonds between the School and community organisations with an emphasis on ‘time’. While fundraising for charities is a standard expectation, it is more challenging to donate time and the Head Girls have fostered a focus amongst the students to concentrate on giving time as well as material contributions. Our young people are often criticised in the media for being self-centred, fixated on the latest electronic technologies and, in the case of girls, for having an unhealthy obsession with their appearance and the lives of Hollywood starlets. I believe this stereotyping is not only unfair but insidiously untrue. With over 1,100 young women at Brisbane Girls Grammar I have the opportunity to observe them daily: they are happy, energetic, involved and interested. They can be difficult and challenging, but in ways that are rightly expected of teenaged girls. It is their time to ask questions, push boundaries, strain

the ties with home and authority as they move towards adulthood. If they cannot challenge, we cannot assist them to move forward. By creating our own bonds with the students, we can guide them, teach them, provide them with insight and knowledge, and give them confidence to make informed choices for the future. In short, the stronger the bonds between school and student, the more secure and successful the educational experience is for them. The School Magazine, and other significant traditions like it, reinforces the strong bonds between each Year 12 cohort and the exceptional School history they are part of; it becomes the tangible expression of their final year, imbued with permanency and memory. Images capturing formal

moments, offset by snapshots of the spontaneous excitement of informal occasions, have become part of the sea of colour and pattern that makes the Magazine so appealing for the reader — and the School so endearing to its departing young women. Congratulations and thank you to this year’s Publications Captain, Lauren Hurcum, and the team Magazine — a dynamic print and digital survey reflecting the energy, breadth and depth of creativity and educational achievements that this wonderful School has facilitated for its students with such intent and intensity. Ms Amanda Bell members for producing yet another impressive School

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brisbane girls grammar school

school magazine 2007