We had the pleasure of farewelling our Semester 1 Junior School SRC Leadership Group at an assembly attended by Mrs Arnfield, the Junior School teachers and girls and the leaders' parents.

Developing the dispositions, skills and values of strong leadership has always been something we strive for at Wilderness and we believe deeply that these opportunities begin early on with our youngest learners. Leadership at Wilderness is a way of being; a set of qualities that are nurtured and encouraged and where opportunities are provided in age-appropriate ways right from the beginning of the journey as a Wilderness girl. We have a strong belief that leadership is focussed on being brave and courageous in our ideas and initiatives, while also being grounded in kindness, compassion and strong relationships.

Leadership in its formalised state comes to the fore in Year 6 for our Junior School girls, with each girl nominating and taking part in an election at the beginning of Year 5 for the positions they wish to hold when in Year 6. Each girl has a leadership opportunity, either as a member of the Executive, as a House Captain or as a Committee Leader, for one semester.

Semester 1 saw many great initiatives led by our Junior School SRC leaders, including:

• Connection and care shown for our Lower Junior School girls by our Peer Support Committee
• Sports equipment made available at break times for our Upper Junior School girls by our Sports Committee
• A beautiful Bedtime Stories evening facilitated by our Library Committee
• Fabulous Sports Day and Cross Country events well supported by our House Captains
• The Media Committee’s work across the semester culminating in a high-quality film depicting the many experiences and events in the Junior School this year
• Two casual clothes days and a cake stall raising money for the Bhadure School and Kids Cancer Project, run by the Citizenship Committee
• Several school tours confidently supported by our Foundation Committee
• Attendance at and participation in a Round Square Global Conference on environmentalism and conservation by our Environment Committee
• Organising Junior School girls to share their music by playing piano at our weekly assemblies by our Performing Arts Committee
• Seamless and purposefully led assemblies, both online and in person, by our Executive Team.

This group of girls have so much to be proud of and we thank them for the kindness and respect with which they navigated new relationships as leaders and their courage in embracing new adventures in their thinking and actions, all while balancing their responsibilities as Year 6 students.

I have included Evangeline Lee (Year 6), our Semester 1 Junior School SRC President's speech below.

“Look around. To your left, to your right. Who do you see? Is it a friend? Is it family? Perhaps it is someone who you’ve never met before. But we are all part of the Wilderness community. Whether it’s responsibility, respect, courage or an adventurous mindset, every student and teacher has contributed to make our school a great school.

That’s why I’m proud to say that I was your Semester 1 president for 2022.

To contribute to this school’s community, our committees have made many great changes to the Junior School in just a few months. On behalf of the Semester 1 leaders, we are extremely grateful for this wonderful opportunity of being a leader. On the way, we have learned skills which will accompany us throughout our whole lives.

As Norma Fauziyah once said: “Learning how to learn is one of the most important skills in life.”

I would now like to thank some people for giving me their never-ending support throughout this semester: Thank you to Mrs McCarthy, for being an example as an amazing public speaker. Thank you to my family, for giving me the many opportunities to learn and grow. Thank you to my teachers, Mr Jackson and Mrs Sieradzki, for providing feedback and fun challenges.

I give my best wishes for the Semester 2 leaders as they take up their new roles and we all continue to contribute towards our school.”

Round Square Environment Conference

The Junior School Environment Committee were fortunate to participate in a Round Square Schools virtual conference from 11.30am to 2.30pm on Wednesday 8 June. Titled ‘Our Environment: A Responsible Legacy’, the conference was for students aged 10-12 and aimed to build students’ commitment and ambition to act in ways that leave a positive environmental legacy for the future.

The online conference was run by Round Square Schools and facilitated by Newcastle Grammar School. It was attended by student participants from Canada, Thailand, China, Pakistan and Japan. The girls dutifully prepared for the day by collaborating to create a collage displaying local Adelaide initiatives that are helping to deal with global environmental challenges. The girls became experts in the Adelaide City Council’s carbon neutral goal, the Adelaide dolphin sanctuary, the Grey-Headed Flying Fox population and light pollution in the suburbs on Adelaide.

The girls were able to share their learning with students in the other participating schools and compare the local initiatives going on around the world. The keynote speaker was Cherry Sung, a youth environmental activist from South Korea who won the 2020 Global Social Leader Global Goals Competition and was name one of the 2021 International Young Eco Heroes.

The Year 6 girls who participated each shared a sentence about the experience:

“It was really interesting to interact with young people all over the world and talk about a topic that we all had an interest in." Selin Cinar

“I appreciated the speaker, Cherry, because she had a vast range of opinions on the current-day environmental crisis.” Clementine Waltham

“In the lead up for the conference, we explored a variety of initiatives that our community was doing. It was enlightening as we thought Adelaide was not doing much to help the world’s problems.” Asha Dan

“In the preparation, I enjoyed creating the collage and finding research for a number of different topics.” Zoya Rizwan

“The conference was a great experience to express our opinions and to share them with many different schools globally. This experience has taught me the ways that we can live more sustainably and how we can help others to do the same.” Anika Sangha

Celine Zammit
Junior School Teacher – Year 4