Wellness Week | Save the Date: Celebration Night
Health, PE and Wellness Week
An important priority within Strategy 2 of our Ivanhoe Girls’ Strategic Plan 2019-2024 is to develop and implement a whole-school approach for the wellbeing and personal development of all students. An outstanding example of how the School puts planning into action can be found in Health, PE and Wellness Week which took place last week from 30 August to 3 September. Last week our Wellbeing Committee and other key staff, ably supported by teachers across the School, led our students with a wonderful celebration of wellness through an online assembly and an integrated program of wellbeing activities throughout the week.
For many parents, choosing a school for their child is one of the most important decisions they will ever make. Most parents now understand that a good education is not solely about academic performance, it is also about providing a supportive, responsive and flexible learning environment in which students can develop their own individual values, character, identity and beliefs. The academic performance, in combination with the wellness and happiness of our students throughout these challenging times, is testimony to the emphasis we do and will continue to place on their wellbeing through wonderful initiatives like Health, PE and Wellness Week.
This year, with COVID-19 attempting to scuttle plans for a wonderful celebration of wellness, the Wellbeing Committee explored and developed creative and innovative ways to engage students in their homes. Each Senior School student was sent a Wellness Booklet of Activities and a Wellness Wheel as resources that were used throughout the week, and Junior School teachers shared the Booklet with their students on their class page in hive. It was so heartening and so much fun to see our students enjoying the activities despite still being offsite and physically away from the students and teachers whom they care so much about. Students in Junior School also celebrated a special spring day of fun House activities and a dance session for PE Week.
Thank you to all members of the Wellbeing Team and in particular to Brett Borbely, Katrina Morrow, Mia Francesconi and the Year Level Coordinators in the Senior School as well the Junior School Staff for their planning, encouragement and inspiration.
The week was a great success!
A Fresh Look at our Student Achievements
Last year we experienced, for the first time, virtual celebrations of learning for students across the School. In a more typical year, students and teachers in the Junior School gather with families in The Centre Ivanhoe to celebrate a wonderful year and to acknowledge achievement and transition. In the Senior School, students, their teachers and families gather in the wonderful Hamer Hall in the city to showcase achievements, explore highlights of the year and to enjoy outstanding musical performances before farewelling the Year 12 class of the year for the final time.
In 2020, we reimagined these and other events into virtual celebrations with wonderful feedback from students, staff and parents. Once again this year, due to COVID-19 restrictions, we will conduct virtual celebrations with the added focus of combining them into a single evening of events that our school community can greatly look forward to.
In addition to the Junior School and Senior School Celebration events being on the same evening program this year, we will also be virtually launching the much anticipated new Uniform that will be available to be worn from the commencement of 2022. We had hoped to launch the uniform this term however, recurring delays due to COVID-19 have pushed the launch to late November 2021.
The program for the special celebration evening on Tuesday 23 November 2021 is as follows:
- 5.30pm – 6.40pm Junior School Celebration Night Video Presentation
- 6.40pm to 7.10pm Dinner break for families
- 7.10pm – 7.30pm Uniform Launch Video Presentation
- 7.30pm – 9.00pm Senior School Celebration Night Video Presentation
There will be three separate videos that will each go “live” at the commencement time listed above.
I look forward to you joining with your family in person at home, and with many others virtually on the evening of 23 November, to celebrate the learning and life of our students as it has transpired quite differently again in 2021.
Happy Holidays
At this time of the year I would usually wish you all safe travels to those of you who so often visit families interstate or travel to places beyond our shores. However, this year, I wish you ongoing creativity at home, fun in your local area and enduring patience and connection with each other, as we edge ever closer to the vaccination targets that will return our much loved freedoms.
I sincerely hope that I will be welcoming students back to school on Tuesday 5 October but will, as always, keep you fully informed throughout the holidays of what to expect and plan for.
Dr Deborah Priest
Principal