On Friday afternoon the Artemis Centre was ringing with cheers as we enjoyed the third round of the inaugural Domain Cup. A netball round robin between students and teachers of MGS and MGGS was a tense affair, with just points between triumph and defeat. The atmosphere was terrific, genuine sportsmanship and friendly rivalry the order of the afternoon. On points, the afternoon and the Cup went to MGS.
A joint initiative of the leaders of MGS and MGGS, the Cup will be contested annually on a three event competition. Apart from musing on the height advantage to the boys in sport, the Cup represented a fair exhibition of the passion and drive of youth at both great schools, and the lovely relationship of respect between them.
These first few weeks of Term 3 have very much focused on the business of Artemis. To see the very first MGGS Swim Squad train in our own pool was a sight I shall always cherish. Since that moment, we have had the full range of sport and wellbeing activities hosted in Artemis and the Centre has proved a beautiful, welcoming and effective environment in every way. We are looking forward to the official commissioning and blessing of the building on 1 September.
We wish to acknowledge and gratefully thank all those donors whose enormous generosity has enabled us to reach the Artemis Campaign target of $6 million. This is an historic leading philanthropic outcome for MGGS and for girls’ schools in Australia. We were bold in calling on our community to demonstrate the level of financial support so typically experienced in boys’ schools, at the advent of the Artemis Centre Campaign. Our community has risen to that challenge and all our girls now and in the future are beneficiaries of this leadership. We are so deeply grateful for this support.
AFL is a growth sport for girls across Victoria, and MGGS has seen this trend emerge strongly within our Senior Years sport program. MGGS’s AFL squad is sponsored by the Melbourne Football Club, who provide expert women’s coaching clinics, access to AFL games, and our fabulous jerseys for game days. This year our girls broke through the barrier of elite performance, beating the unstoppable MLC and storming into the Herald Sun Cup.
The “Merton Army” of navy blue supporters relished cheering our girls at the MCG grand final. I have since seen a photograph of my countenance game-side, and can see the intensity on my face as I witnessed the courage around the stoppages as our girls gave everything in the contest. In the end Ballarat Grammar defended their 2016 crown and our girls valiantly accepted second place. Bravo to our seniors, setting a new standard for girls’ sport at MGGS.
This month we will celebrate our strong, physically active girls in a series of images on our social media channels #strongisthenewpretty. The best way to encourage our girls to fight stereotypes of popular culture that promote unattainable and unhealthy representations of girls is to champion the strength and inner resolve of real girls. As Olivia Vesely, Year 12, said to her peers at Senior Assembly last week, girls are told they cannot do things but then they just go out and prove that wrong. We need only look to our MGGS girls for inspiration that girls can define their own limits!
This week the second CEE Conference will be held. “Enterprising Minds” frames a significant day of professional discussions about the future of work and the implications for schooling, both the design and the intent. Some 150 delegates, with schools from every state in Australia and internationally, will be in attendance. Our educational leadership is providing a space for like-minded educators to debate and to collaborate on the highest purpose, that of understanding the compelling evidence that the future is already in our schools and we cannot be complacent in providing relevant and empowering learning experiences.
CEE has launched a network of enterprising schools and the inaugural meeting will be held prior to the CEE Conference. This is an exciting step, and the first step to enabling the network to share and encourage best educational practice for innovation in school design and development. I look forward to sharing the future outcomes of the network’s collaborations, including teacher exchanges and student conferences.
Parents may still attend the conference by following this link using the GIFT / PROMOTIONAL CODE >>> CEEVIP.