Know Yourself – concluding our series profiling the class of 2024
The power of knowing yourself as a learner is an important principle in Trinity’s learning discourse across all campuses and all learning stages.
You will hear this message trump just about all other academic mantras on our two Primary campuses. A few weeks ago, I was honoured with an invitation to judge, along with our Head of English and Acting Director of Curriculum and Assessment, Ms Kamhieh, the Preparatory School Public Speaking Finals. The power of several of our young learners’ oratory centred on notions of resilience, self-acceptance and balance. As these Prep School speakers developed their positions, it was clear that they were also developing a strong understanding of who they were as learners. They engaged their audience by sharing their own stories, sometimes with humour and wit, but always with authenticity, about embracing feedback and failure as well as aspiration and success, about resilience, about working out what and how they wanted to learn.
On Tuesday this week, I was fortunate again to be at the Field Studies Centre when this term’s Year 9 residential cohort presented their Place-Based Inquiries to their peers, FSC educators and visitors from Summer Hill. These gallery-walk presentations are inspiring demonstrations of the boys’ own choices in learning: they frame an inquiry focus important to themselves and the place in which they have learned for a term, undertake research via primary and / or secondary sources, synthesise findings and communicate the outcomes of their inquiry by creating an artefact and presenting, in conversation, to their audience. At the beginning of the term, these students had been presented with the challenge of working out what and how they wanted to learn through their self-selected inquiry; the level of expertise many students demonstrated in the presentation phase was exceptional. For me, however, it was the reflective protocol following presentations that was equally empowering. The boys were led by their Field Studies teachers to articulate their achievements, their challenges, and their discoveries about themselves through the process. They were enabled to reflect deeply on the giving and receiving of feedback – and connect these reflections to goals they might set for continued growth as a learner when they returned to home and the Summer Hill Campus. (You can see some images of the PBI Presentations below!)
The final profiled student from Year 12 2024 is Stefano Furlan. Stefano achieved the IB Diploma perfect score of 45, and the NSW ATAR highest possible rank of 99.95. His strategy? Balance. As you read Stefano’s profile you will likely be struck, as I was, by the maturity of his reflection. Recognising the value and joy of his involvement with cross-country running and a wide array of music ensembles, as well as the teenage body’s need for sleep, Stefano prioritised balance across his academic studies, busy schedule of co-curricular commitments, health and family. He worked out how to use available time efficiently, how to honestly evaluate his results against available time and how to move beyond regrets. He articulates the need for time out and the value of taking one day at a time. He refused to be overwhelmed by demands and resisted the myth of perfection … ‘eventually I figured out that I would always have things I wish I could’ve done better, because that is what it means for me to learn and get better.’ If you take the time out now to read Stefano’s profile here, you will glean something valuable.
This is the final article for Term 1 and the final in our series profiling some of the now alumni of 2024. It has been a pleasure over the term to write these articles – I have honestly found such inspiration in the boys’ own words! Now, we are all stepping into a period of rest and slower pace, but it is also an opportunity for reflection. It’s an opportunity to get back to balance and get to know ourselves a little more keenly … as lifelong learners with a wonderful path ahead.
If you would like to view the complete set of Year 12 2024 profiles, you can access on the Trinity Grammar School website, or via this link.
