Why we are fortunate to be a stand-alone ELC & Primary School

In a ELC – Year 12 school, it is commonplace for the Junior School to be subject to the restrictions of its high-school timetables and staffing structures. In these settings, the school’s resources are often prioritised for the use of its secondary students. At Annesley every resource and every system, structure and program, is tailored and focused on our primary students.

Childhood is precious! A limited, yet crucial time of innocence, play and discovery. In our setting, our children are proudly protected from some of the influences of adolescence. I get so much joy seeing our older students at Annesley still play on our playgrounds, enjoy chasey games and climb trees during breaktimes. The best preparation for adolescence and adulthood, is a full and rich childhood.

Amongst this, our students are empowered to solve problems, make decisions, plan, build, create and lead. We are committed to ensuring our programs equip our students to manage many aspects of their own learning. Through this, they enter their secondary environment as confident and capable learners, willing to take risks, embrace feedback, set goals, measure, and reflect upon their growth. With my eldest starting high school this year, it is very apparent that his learning is structured mostly into assignments and grades. Despite receiving strong results, I am so relieved that through his time at Annesley, his mindset is primed to know intimately the key habits and attitudes of a successful learner. When reviewing his report at the end of Term 1, I said to him, ‘you have achieved extremely well this term Eamon, but don’t forget that learning muscle you learnt at Annesley. Keep setting yourself goals, seek feedback, find challenge, and embrace learning from your mistakes.’ ‘I know mum’ was his reply, he knows the value of all he learnt at Annesley and how this set him up to be a successful learner in high school.

Jo

At Annesley, our student Board of Directors (BOD) plays an important role in school leadership. The BOD team consists of one representative from each class and new directors are select at random each term. This ensures that many of our students, of all different levels of confidence, have an opportunity to be part of BOD at some point during their time at Annesley.

Each team of directors discusses ways they can add value to the school and or wider community. The initiatives they develop and actions they pursue are selected by the students and almost always reflect the passions, strengths and skills of the group involved. This is certainly true of our Term 2 Board of Directors team who are currently working on 4 great initiatives.

Leo, Benjamin and Jamie love playing soccer and are working with our House Captains to organise a House soccer tournament for our Reception – Year 2 students. They saw that our older students had the opportunity to play in house competitions and believe that our younger students should have this opportunity too.

Over the last 2 weeks, Base 6 have benefitted from the expertise and skill of professional actress, director and theatre maker, Elizabeth Hay, who came in on behalf of the State Theatre, to work with them to devise a piece of theatre based around the UN SDG 4 – Quality Education. Students learnt about and used Laban movement, gestures, music, lighting and shadow puppetry to explore what could impact Quality Education for people around the world.