Week 11, Autumn Term 2024

Jan UsherJune 28, 2024June 28, 2024

Dear Boarding Families,

I hope you are all preparing for a wonderful school holiday break. You must be excited to be getting your gorgeous boys back into the family home. I am sure that there will be countless stories of adventure over the holidays, I only hope that some of it is captured by the family photographer and shared with us upon the boys’ return. It has been a while since my last newsletter, which just goes to show how much we rely on Mrs Usher to keep us ticking along, the thought of trying to publish a blog without her being around was too much responsibility for me to bear. I am glad to report that she is back on deck now and helping us finish off the term strongly. In the meantime, you may have read about Scotch Boarding in a feature article in the most recent edition of Farm Weekly!

I have exciting news to share to our boarding community. After a long and thorough process, we are delighted to announce the Mr Kristian Leeson has accepted the job to become our new Head of Middle School Residence, starting in October. This will include Mr Mecham moving up to the Senior School Residence as part of a wider restructure. Kristian is our Assistant Head of Sport at the College, with oversight over the Middle School sport program. He also currently works in our Senior Boarding House one night a week. He will move to the Middle School Boarding House next term and work alongside Mr Mecham to do a thorough handover and have a chance to meet our Middle School families. We look forward to Kristian and his wife Georgia moving onto campus and becoming fully immersed in our boarding community. Mr Mecham and his family will also be moving house to Senior Boarding and Sean will be taking on the role as Head of Blair Clan in Term 4, where he will be able to reconnect with many of the families that he has already worked with in the Middle School setting.

This week, Mr Mecham and I have the pleasure of heading out to a special dinner with the Year 7s and their mums as a nice celebration of the boys’ first semester in boarding. We are taking the boys out to the CBD to a restaurant and a walk around Elizabeth Quay. This follows on from our recent Year 11 Mums and Sons dinner a few weeks ago and the Boarding Parent Lunch we hosted on the Friday of Week 8. Later this year, we plan on hosting a Fathers’ Day BBQ and backyard cricket game for all the Dads. We think it is so important that we host and facilitate more boarding parent functions so that parents get the chance to share their experiences with each other and make friends. We encourage all parents to please spend the time in our kitchen having a cup of tea with our house mothers, or joining us for dinner in the dining hall any time you are in Perth and available to come and visit.

This week we were very fortunate to have representatives from UWA come and visit us in the Senior Boarding House. The staff presented on the availability of undergraduate courses, admissions and scholarship information, university events and the accommodation options at the university colleges. A range of staff and some current students presented to our Year 11s and 12s and our boys were fantastic in their behaviour and asked some very good questions. If parents would like a copy of the slides shown to the boys, please feel free to get in contact with me and I can forward them on. We plan to host more of these types of presentations throughout next term.

As well as information on tertiary study, as part of our life skills program in senior boarding, myself and our two House mothers Kerry and Theresa took our Year 12 boys out for a “City After Dark” excursion with two former police officers, now working for Constable Care. They took us through various hot spots in Northbridge and the City for an educational tour about how to navigate a safe night out as a young adult. Once again, the boys were fantastic and the staff commented to us that it was one of the best groups they had ever taken through, which was great to hear. We hope that these sorts of organised events really add value to the boys boarding experience and help them prepare for life after school.

Similarly, we have recently hosted Men’s Mental Health Week in Boarding and started a new tradition of “Polar Swims” with Mr Montgomery on a Wednesday morning which helps the boys get up and about and off to a lively start to their day, followed by some bonding over a hot chocolate. Starting next term, Mr Hindle is going to run some workshops with our Year 9 boys to continues our circle conversations that they participated in when in the Middle School Residence. We have been blessed this term to have Ms Gracie Youngs taking our boys through these chats in the Middle School Residence, on Monday afternoons and we wish Gracie all the very best as she moves on to her new job at Trinity College next term and we welcome Ms Lorimer back from her leave.

As I’m sure you are aware, our boarding community is an incredibly vibrant place to be. The boys are busy, and we push them be the best versions of themselves, in academics, co-curricular and character. However, we do this with good humour and a broad range of incredible, fun, diverse and challenging experiences for them. As I sign off to go and watch the boys perform their House Choir performances on Arts Day, I am proud that our boarding community is a thriving subset of our thriving School.

As we get back next term, we begin with the presentation of our very special SPIRIT Award, which in my mind is our most special award in boarding. Our SPIRIT Award celebrates boys who live our values through their daily actions. It is a character based award. SPIRIT is an acronym for the values we hold dear. We are blessed to have many of our boys worthy of nomination, but staff nominate 4 boys per year group. It is a trophy forged in honour of a past Scotch boarder, Lachie Higham, from a station near Carnarvon who sadly lost his life in the summer school holiday between year 10 and year 11 in an accident on the farm. The Higham family come every year to present the award and Chris Higham (mum) will be there at our boarding assembly to present the award again in July.

I wish all families a fantastic break and look forward to seeing you in Winter Term.

Kind regards

Jordan

Year 7 Mother and Son Dinner

Jordan and Sean accompanied the year 7 mums and their boys to a dinner in the city at Bam Bam Boo restaurant. Afterwards they headed for a walk around Elizabeth Quay before hopping on the train and heading back to the boarding house. A really fun night was had by all and a great way to celebrate the boys’ first semester in boarding.

UWA

Career’s information from UWA was well received by the Yr11s and Yr12s.

Mental Health Week

Men’s Health Week included the ‘Polar Swims’ (see above), Gut Health afternoon teas, Smiling Minds – meditation on the sofa’s, MasterChef School – which looks like a lot of fun, and heading off to see the School of Rock Musical.

School of Rock Musical – Yr 9s & Yr 12s

The Scotch/PLC Musical – School of Rock was a big hit among the Year 9s and year 12s – who enjoyed a night out in the Dickinson Centre.

Man of the Week

Congratulations to:

John McGinness, Blair Clan

Toby Smith, Stirling Clan

Tom Hart Yr 8, MSR

Around the Houses

Here is Toby cleaning the tops of the cupboards and the photo was sent in by House Mum Theresa. She was very impressed!.

Year 10 Community Sport

Mr Montgomery tells me that Scott was not a regular team member but filled in…he won best on ground!! Well done Scott!

Ag Day Marching as boarders, lead by Rhama, Captain of Boarding.

Acting Headmaster Brad Gill and Rev Gary join in

Clash of Clans – NFL

Congratulations to the mighty Stirling Clan! The photos are magnificent – thanks Steven.

Arts Day – House Singing

On Wednesday 26 June the boys participated in Arts Day, and as part of that, they sang in their day school Houses. Houses performed randomly depending on when the ‘Spinning Wheel’ landed on the House name. A big congratulations to Anderson House on your win!!