December 26th, 2022Local students filling their educational ‘pail’

The poet William Butler Yeats wrote that ‘education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire’.

On Tuesday, December 13, 75 grade six students visited Daylesford College for their kickstart into secondary school.
With the intent to foster an educational spark, students were offered a rotating range of academic, creative and hands on activities.
In English/humanities students introduced themselves to their English teacher through a poetry activity, while in science they explored the conductivity and magnetic properties of metals. During the maths session students engaged in problem solving tasks and in technology they participated in an introduction to basic hand tools, complete with an identification quiz. In drama students were introduced to the theatre space, participating in the telling of stories without talking, while in art they engaged in portraiture and composition games.
The Wellbeing team facilitated a workshop that enabled these new students to not only tell the story of who they are, but also explore the future they wish to create. In Italian students produced a new background to the Mona Lisa and sung I Dodoci Giorno di Natale – The Twelve Days of Christmas – in Italian. Continuing in this festive spirit, students finished the day with a tour of the college’s Christmas door competition, where they were asked to vote on their favourite decorated door.
We trust that these upcoming students, like those above, left orientation day feeling, as Christopher Robin describes, ‘braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think’.
Words & image: Contributed