Grammar Gazette- Issue 2, 2011

grammar gazette SPRING 2011

Fostering creative capacity MRS LORRAINE THORNQUIST, DIRECTOR OF CREATIVE ARTS

“Never give up. Never, never give up! We shall go on to the end.” Winston Churchill

Photography The Courier Mail

Never give up Winston Churchill’s words are most apt for the Year 12s with Term III really testing the “sisterhood”.

At Brisbane Girls Grammar School, the Creative Arts are not proposed as a luxury item in the education framework.

The Creative Arts Faculty is about fostering creative capacity which is everybody’s business. Not all students develop into artists but the artistry and design capacities that are nurtured in our students provide pathways to exceptional scholarship. Not all students become exceptional scholars in their academic ratings but all are nourished in the context of exceptional scholarship to grow as exceptional scholars in their learning. The creative imagination and process is part of our contribution to the exceptional scholarship that is the aspiration of the School. In a liberal education, the arts have historically been a fundamental way of learning and educating. In spite of the discrete nature of each of the arts represented in the Faculty—Classroom Music, Drama and Visual Art—there is a coherence and integrity of perspectives and intellectual experiences. The artistry and design dispositions, the critical and abstract thinking and challenge resolutions that are implicit and explicit in the arts are skills and disciplines that this Faculty seeks to nurture and grow in our students. There is a development of a language to enable students to imagine outside the paradigm. The conventions of the classroom and curriculum serve as points of departure for experimental and experiential learning for our students in the arts who interact and intermingle across the learning precincts with each other

and the professional practitioners who make up the teaching staff in the Faculty. These are not simply geographical precincts of learning but precincts of the mind and spirit where thought and mindfulness are understood to be part of the space and practices. These are precincts not bound by walls or desks but include collaborative teaching and learning practices, conferencing, seminars, tutorials as well as traditional teacher driven delivery of knowledge, process and application. Gesture and movement, physicality and co-ordination of a thinking mind and an attuned body, communication interplays, are central to participation and learning in those learning spaces of the arts. Transforming the ideas born in imagination into practice and performance is a journey of disciplined process of investigation, questioning, experimentation, editing and finally resolving the outcome into a product of substance and ready to communicate with an audience. Guiding and supporting students with the uncertainty and slippery nature of grappling with the seed of an idea and taking it through to a final communicative form, coaching them on letting it go, provides the pathway for exceptional scholarship. Self responsibility within a closely guided teacher-student framework means that the focus is on individual or small groups of students.

The specific and specialised skills that are the focus of our arts education include a wider brief to create an ethical context for students and to inculcate a sense of moral engagement with the world. The world of employment in the 21st century is more than discrete professional education. It is a world of ideas and is open to those who can think clearly and with inspiration and integrity. Magical but not magic. This is how Charles Limb (surgeon and musician) talks about creativity and the arts. Having the word “creative” in the title of our Creative Arts Faculty brings both the freedom to explore and transform ways of learning as well as the responsibility of what it means to develop and give full reign to the creative and the magical in an educational setting. The Faculty aspires to be a creative learning movement, a learning community with shared learning precincts where constructs of curriculum, roles and responsibilities organise the learning principles and practices and the desired outcomes. The many events and celebrations of the Faculty are windows into the business of the Faculty—building the architecture for all learning and awakening the creative imagination that underpins who and how we are in the world.

This year we have been emphasising the importance of school spirit, in the form of the Grammar-Force or G-Force, which each girl has in common. Examination time is a particularly “testing” one and a time for ‘embracing the sisterhood’. It is important for the girls to be empathetic at this time and offer support to their friends, because a healthy and happy cohort is a strong cohort. While we have been encouraging this sisterhood throughout the whole school, it is perhaps most important to the Year 12s at the moment, running head long into the last days of our schooling lives. This was particularly true for the Queensland Core Skills (QCS) tests held on August 30th and 31st. No matter how nervous we were, our preparation put us well and truly in good stead. We drew strength from the knowledge that from our first day in the School, we have been prepared by the standard of excellence expected, and the skills we have learned, combining common sense, social skills, logical reasoning and critical analysis. This pervasive philosophy was enhanced by the Year 12s spending over forty hours learning, practising

and being tested on the techniques and core skills that would arise in the QCS papers. Our teachers, equally driven by the G Force, have ensured we have developed a mindset for approaching the questions and responding to them in the most efficient way. We would like to acknowledge the effort and time they have invested in our success, especially our QCS co-ordinator, Ms Bolton. All in all we could not have been more ready and there is no doubt that it will show in our results. We believe that QCS is a true test of Grammar teamwork and sisterhood as each and every Year 12 girl contributes to the overall result and our efforts will reward not only the individual but also everyone in the year. The traditional war cry, before entering the McCrae Grassie Centre to begin the tests, both increases the morale of the cohort and reiterates the sense of a “team sport”. We encouraged the girls to give their all in the four papers knowing, as they walked away, they had done their best and their sisters had done the same! They certainly made us proud and we congratulate them on their perseverance and

tenacity throughout the QSC experience and stand down week. What has the Term III experience taught us? Persevere, prepare, draw on past experiences and knowledge, learn from all aspects of life, and face challenges as a united force. These make for a more powerful outcome. As the girls, throughout all year levels, approach the final term of 2011, we reflect on Churchill’s determined words. Give it your all, whether in the sporting field, final examinations, musical performances or any of the countless roles that Grammar girls play. We hope that if a sister is losing confidence in the term to come, the G-Force will be there to strengthen her. As our time here as Year 12s draws to a close, we seek to make the most of our last few weeks behind the white picket fence and to carry the lessons we learnt with us as we leave. However, all the School can share “the ride” with the Year 12s and finish strongly. Never give up, never, never give up! We shall go on to the end. ANGELIQUE SWEEP AND LUCINDA TONGE, HEAD GIRLS

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