Farewell Class of 2018

In the final week of Term Three, the College farewelled the Class of 2018 celebrating friendship, friendship, family and academic achievement.

2018 College Captain, Jaime Dunn reflected on their journey at the Year 12 Academic Assembly.

Have you ever separated yourself from school routine, and actually considered why we do school? Wondered, what is it really, that my learning can do for me? Six years at Bennies and I’m finally able to offer an answer to this important question, and it is this: if we are asking what our education can do for us, we’re asking the wrong question and completely missing the point. The real question is what can our education do for others?

We have status and influence within our society. We are young women of the Western world, able to speak and act freely, influencing our family, peers, friends, and community. And we are privileged. The Class of 2018 have been blessed with loving families, and we are grateful to them for their constant support, not only this year, but pretty much since the day we were born. We are privileged to have always had the support of this school, and as we graduate today, we give thanks for the opportunities and guidance that have always been available to us. We are the product of years of care, attention and nurturing, from pre-school until today, and able to celebrate this milestone because of the time and love that has been poured into us by family, peers, and teachers every step of the way.

If you take a closer look at the Class of 2018, you see this power so clearly. Look at our Design and Technology class, who empathised with members of our community, using their many skills to create major works designed to aid and enhance life for those less privileged. Look at the girls who travelled to the Philippines, who shared their time and love of learning with a Kinder School in Bacolod. Look at our Communications team, who have used their IT skills behind the scenes to serve this school at every assembly and event over the past year. Look at…look at a myriad of acts, mostly small, sometimes unacknowledged, never insignificant that make a big difference in the lives of others.

And this is only what we have already done…what is truly exciting is that we are on the cusp of a new stage, another beginning, countless possibilities and opportunities to champion those with no voice, flex our muscles for the powerless and imagine a more magical existence for others.

Let’s not learn so that we can just pass a test. Applying what we have learned in action is the real test. Let’s learn so that we might be able to empathise with others, to better serve them, to speak for them. Learn so that we might be able to love others.

You’ve heard me say many times that the greatest story is the one we write together. In truth the greatest story is the one we are about to write as we head in many different directions, but united by the place which we depart from, Bennies. And bound by the foundation of character, opportunity and purpose that all in this room have laid for us.

On behalf of Year 12 2018, to all who have brought us to this moment, I say thank you.