In the senior years we aim to prepare girls for successful participation in a complex and globalised economy. Where knowledge is a key resource and intercultural sensitivity and competence as well as responsible citizenship are important factors in their future.
Offering an unparalleled suite of opportunities, our senior years integrates an extensive academic and wellbeing program. It encourages girls to deeply explore their innovative and adventurous mindset while furthering their social conscience, so that they are academically, emotionally and socially ready for life after Wilderness.
Providing a positive and supportive environment, our focus is to know each girl and to encourage her to challenge herself through diverse and new experiences. Here, she will become an independent learner who is able to self-manage and be responsible for her own learning well into her future.
As our girls move through their senior years, they acquire the skills and personal attributes needed to flourish in a highly complex world. They develop the confidence to manage themselves in unfamiliar contexts while achieving their best in any pathway they choose.
Together our girls work side by side to develop their unique range of skills and talents and across the broad range of co-curricular activities and leadership opportunities on offer.
Teaching and Learning
In their final years, girls start to make the academic choices which lay the foundation for their future lives and careers.
We respect that many girls in their early senior years do not know exactly what they want to do when they leave school, which is why our Senior School curriculum framework is responsive to student needs and the demands of our fast-paced global society.
We have taken a deliberate and carefully considered decision to concentrate on providing the South Australian Certificate of Education (SACE) for our senior secondary students.
Offering a comprehensive and balanced contemporary curriculum with a broad and diverse range of subjects, the internationally recognised qualification facilitates the development our girls’ individual talents, while enabling them to achieve at the highest level.
It challenges our girls with appropriate academic rigour and the option to specialise in areas of interest while providing flexibility and responsiveness, which benefit all of our students.
Designed to prepare students for life beyond school, the certificate places an emphasis on students becoming independent, informed citizens and life-long learners, as well as critical and compassionate thinkers. It also provides our girls with the opportunity to develop independent critical research and analytical skills which are necessary for success in their tertiary studies and also throughout their lives.
We believe it is implicit in every girl’s course of study that she is provide with choice and the opportunity to be challenged. Our curriculum allows for exploration of career ideas while maintaining a broad subject base. This includes a number of certified Vocational Education Training courses.
Our Year 10 course maintains a broad scope of study in order to cater for a wide range of interests and future possibilities. Each girl in Year 10 studies the core subjects of the Australian Curriculum including English, Mathematics, Science, History and Physical Education as well as the SACE Personal Learning Plan.
This is in addition to electives including Art, Chinese, Drama, French, Geography, Music, Sports Science, Business Innovation, Digital and Graphic Communications, Creative Arts (Multimedia), Outdoor Education, Game Design and Philosophy.
Our specially designed program 'Artemis' provides students in Years 10 and 11 with the opportunity to deeply think about their interpersonal relationships, their relationship with their community and with the world. They explore current social and political issues and further develop their advocacy and action. Here, each girl will find and refine the qualities that are unique to humanity; the qualities that complement, rather than compete with, the capacities of technology.
In Years 11 and 12 our girls specialise further, selecting subjects from a wide range of SACE Stage 1 and 2 courses relevant to their future tertiary studies or employment pathway. All girls are required to complete English and Mathematics in Year 11, as well as the Research Project which is a compulsory component of the SACE Certificate.
Our teachers support each girl to achieve her personal best. This teaching ethos creates a positive learning environment which encourages each student to develop her talents and abilities in a course which best suits her interests, learning style and future ambitions.
On completion of Year 12, students results are converted into an Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank (ATAR). This is used by universities and other tertiary institutions to offer course positions across Australia.
We are incredibly proud of our girls and how they apply themselves during their final years. Wilderness girls' academic results are consistently placed at the top of the state.
