This International Day of the Girl Child has been the most amazing experience at Ascham. It was preceded by a week of awareness-raising, as we discussed the significance of 11th October – only the second ever International Day on which the girl and her latent power to change the world have sat at the heart …
Category: Uncategorized
Sep 29
Where no-one has gone before …
In a recent assembly at school, I read out a post from a blog written by Luca Parmitano, an astronaut with the European Space Agency currently serving on the International Space Station. Entitled EVA 23: exploring the frontier, it can be found on the ESA website and recounts in gripping detail a spacewalk that did …
Sep 12
Individuals making a difference – an Ascham Old Girl in Melbourne
With the buzz of last night’s moving Valedictory Dinner for our Year 12 leavers still ringing in my ears, and as our Year 12s prepare for their final examinations and for life beyond school, my thoughts turn to Old Girls and the enormous breadth of activity that Ascham Old Girls undertake. It would be impossible …
Sep 07
Walking the world and keeping up the pressure: looking ahead to the International Day of the Girl
As has been well-documented in this blog, Thursday 11th October 2012 was the very first ever International Day of the Girl. It was a day that was celebrated across the world; in its honour the London Eye turned pink, as did the Eiffel Tower and the Pyramids. Plan, the international children’s charity instrumental in making …
Aug 30
Protecting our young people from alcohol-related violence
UPDATED June 2020 – I received an email this week from Rehab 4 Addiction, with a link to their website. While not wishing to endorse the organisation directly, because I can’t speak for exactly what they do, I did think that the wealth of resources on their website was impressive, and – especially in this …
Aug 23
What Every Parent Should Know About School: Book Review
The author of this new book, Michael Reist, has spent his working life in education – in schools for 30 years and then, for the last 10 years, in tutoring children one-to-one. There is no doubt that he is passionate about the subject of schools and their failings, and while the book reads in parts …
Aug 17
Telling the stories of our lives
I was very struck yesterday to hear how our visiting speaker at the senior school assembly described her job. Professor Mary Crock, Professor of Law at Sydney University, and a specialist in immigration law, described her work as the telling of stories about people’s lives, and said that she felt honoured to be working in …
Aug 10
Learning leadership from the most impoverished of women
I recently attended a dinner in aid of The Hunger Project and their work in seeking to end world hunger by empowering people – and especially women – in poverty-stricken areas to make change happen. In the course of their work, they have discovered something that should not surprise us, but might nonetheless challenge our …
Aug 03
Countering bullying on and off Twitter: why learning how to behave well is an essential part of education
A Twitterstorm has been in full flow this past week or so, reacting to revelations that Caroline Criado-Perez has been subjected to appalling threats of rape and violence through the medium of Twitter. Ms Criado-Perez led a successful three month campaign to bring a female face – that of Jane Austen – to the new …
Jul 27
“When did protecting guns become more important than protecting people?”
I don’t think I have ever written specifically about gun control before, but I am moved to do so by a link I was sent recently to a new video on YouTube. In it, a former National Rifle Association member, now living in Australia, expresses his deep disappointment and concern about the position that the …