From the Principal

Beginnings

The start of a new School year is an exciting and powerful time.

A fresh year invites a fresh mindset—the opportunity to pause, reflect and reset.

In 2025, we looked back on our past, honouring 150 years of Girls Grammar. This year, we are very much focused on the future. I hope it is a year where our students and staff will be fearless in pursuit of their goals. In a time of increasing uncertainty and hesitancy, it is important to remember how fortunate we are to have such a strong foundation within this School; a foundation that gives us the confidence to challenge ourselves and celebrate all that is good around us.

Our youngest and newest students, in Years 5 to 7, have brought a new energy to the School and remind us of our purpose. Some have begun boldly, others tentatively—for each girl is precious and unique. It has been wonderful to see a sense of sisterhood as all are embraced by the wider School community. Leadership assemblies, badge ceremonies, House parties, buddy introductions and parent evenings have all helped build and reinforce these important connections.

And I sincerely hope the parents of our commencing students, too, have felt both reassured and welcomed.

Social media laws

Recent changes to social media laws seem to have gone smoothly, as Australia led the world in raising the minimum age of access for many platforms to 16.

This shift may have yielded genuine benefit in your household already, although it will be in the fullness of time that we can better appreciate how this evolving change will help reshape the teen experience. It can deliver our children the gift of time and, importantly, the space to explore new hobbies, develop good habits and perhaps rediscover the escape to be found in a good book.

Right to disconnect legislation

The enactment of recent legislation gives teachers and staff, like all Australian employees, the right to disconnect from work-related communications outside their contracted hours, unless it is unreasonable to do so.

Maintaining balance in our often complex and demanding lives remains a perpetual challenge for us all. I know families will understand that it is reasonable, and now legally mandated, that staff should not be required to respond to emails, calls or messages in the evenings, on weekends or during holiday periods. Of course, there will be exceptions, such as urgent situations involving student wellbeing, excursions, camps and other emergencies.

Parents and students can expect staff to reply to non-urgent out-of-hours queries during normal working hours. This approach is intended to support staff wellbeing, and family life, which in turn sustains quality teaching and care for students longterm. We encourage our families and students to plan communications within School hours where possible. For urgent contact with the School outside normal hours, please use our Emergency Phone.

Attention on attention

There appears to be an increasing convergence of debate around the matter of attention—changes to young people’s (and our own) ingestion of social media, the concept of a ‘right to disconnect’ that prioritises restorative rest, and concerns about AI ‘lobotomising’ our minds.

So, the matter of our fragmented attention or, rather, ‘stolen focus’ (a term popularised by Johann Hari’s 2022 book of the same name), would perhaps seem to be a very topical conundrum; a very modern problem. And yet, this lack of attention is something poet John Donne (1571-1631)—arguably the greatest love poet of the ages—railed against long before the invention of the pocket watch, let alone the smart phone.

As author Katherine Rundell writes in the final pages of Super Infinite, her 2022 account of Donne’s life and times: ‘Donne’s work had in it a stark moral imperative: pay attention. It was what Donne most demanded of his audience: attention. It was, he knew, the world’s most mercurial resource.'

How we choose to allocate our attention reveals so much about what we value and prioritise. We value education and learning, personal growth and flourishing, and one another—our community.

There are endless examples of curiosity and joy that make this School such a beautiful place of learning. My favourite for this week was coming upon a Year 5 girl sitting happily alone on a garden seat at the front of the Junior School with her notebook and pencil, making comments and creating drawings of a mass of ants that were working their magic on breaking down a tiny piece of someone’s dropped morning tea. She was curious, observant and very serious about the undertaking. Sketching, taking notes—all her senses were engaged. It was a moment of wonder and learning made possible by her attention.

I hope that the year has begun well for all our families and that our Grammar girls are proud to have made a strong and happy start.

Ms Jacinda Euler Welsh

Principal