Back in February as the school year commenced, Ms Stone set the girls a challenge: to be a little bit more kind, every day. In order to encourage this theme of kindness, the Year 12s set up a Google form, where all girls from the Senior School could submit anonymous stories about acts of kindness that they had seen or experienced from their time at Queenwood, big or small.
The influx of stories that we received demonstrated to us how the girls responded to this challenge and were encouraged to be kind to their peers and girls in younger years, who may have been starting high school for the first time or even just feeling lonely.
A selection of these stories were read at assembly each week; in doing so, we were emphasising the importance of kindness to the girls. We wanted to demonstrate that acts of kindness are seen and remembered by individuals, and - most importantly - valued by us as a community. We use assemblies to celebrate achievements, so by recognising kindness in this way, we could express that kindness is an achievement that is just as important as, or even more important, than other forms of success.
We hope that girls will continue to be aware of acts of kindness bestowed upon them, and will be more compelled to show kindness within our school community. This term, we have decided to extend our focus beyond our own school community in order to broaden our mindsets in a global context.
This term’s focus will be on independent thinking and general knowledge. It is all too easy to fall into the trap of focusing solely on the knowledge required to complete assignments and pass exams – however, knowledge of events outside of our textbooks is also vital in becoming educated young women. Once we enter the larger world, we can no longer cross-check everything that is said to us by using a textbook or clarifying something we heard in the news with a teacher. We think that it is therefore crucial to teach the girls how to access reputable news sources in the era of fake news. Whilst we are taught some of these skills in History and other senior subjects, as Year 12s, we have learnt the importance of independent thinking and reliable researching firsthand and would like to encourage the younger girls to interact with the news in a fun and informative way through two student-led initiatives.
During our tutor group sessions on Friday mornings, one girl will tell her tutor group about an event that she read in the news this week. She will only have to speak for a couple of minutes - but she will essentially be teaching her entire tutor group something new, which will thus spark a conversation and potentially even a debate, encouraging all the girls to become informed in a reliable way. Additionally, in assembly most weeks, a Year 12 will be giving a short presentation on a unique current affairs topic of her choice which will give us insight into different perspectives and recent occurrences in multiple genres. Within the Queenwood community, developing an expansive perspective on the world is an important value, and so we hope that by focusing on these current affairs, we will help us girls to become open-minded and recognise our responsibilities in the world as educated young women. Our school also prides itself upon how we contribute to the community and world. Therefore, the skills that we will develop through this initiative will allow us to pass on the knowledge and advantages we have received to benefit the community and world on a global scale.
We hope that the combination of these two initiatives will broaden the girls’ knowledge about the world that surrounds them and will encourage them to go out of their way to research and invest time into learning something new. After all, we, as the younger generation, are the future of our world and by informing ourselves, we can create a safer and more knowledgeable environment for ourselves and future generations.