The newly curated FSC library

As many of you will know, the first group of Year 9 boys left for the Field Studies Centre in Woollamia last week. They will be the first cohort to spend a complete term at the Centre and we look forward to seeing all the ways that they have grown on their return. The extension of the time that the students spend at the Field Studies Centre has inevitably led to an extension of the educational experiences on offer, and we are very pleased to announce that this includes greater opportunities (and incentives) for wide reading.

The Field Studies Centre has always housed a library and the boys have long enjoyed the chance to read a book (or two) with fewer distractions than usual, but this term we have introduced an element of challenge to the programme and found innovative ways to reward the boys for their efforts.

Students at the Field Studies Centre are divided into four House Groups that compete against each other in a number of events, culminating in the Woollamia Olympics. This year, the boys will also score House points for reading. Anyone who reads for pleasure from the selection of novels, magazines, graphic novels and biographies available at the FSC will score points, but those boys who choose to read for challenge, by selecting one of the eight titles chosen by our library staff to stretch them, will score big.

It’s great to think that this term’s House Challenge might be decided by some student taking the time to finish ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’.

“All that humankind has done, thought, gained, or been; it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books” – Thomas Carlyle