Character in Action: Fostering Personal Growth and Community Service

“walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love“

Ephesians 4:1-2

Dear Students, Parents and Carers

The beginning of the New Year is always an exciting and busy time at Shore. We extend a warm welcome to new students and families to our School community. Our Pastoral Care team is already hard at work, having hosted Year 7 camp this week at an Anglican Youthworks site in Port Hacking and a Year 8 seminar titled Connections that Count with external experts Your Choicez. We are committed to knowing each student and fostering a supportive environment, so they can thrive academically and have opportunities to engage in the full life of the School.

We have a comprehensive approach to pastoral care at Shore, with our House system as the cornerstone. Our Housemasters and tutors are actively ensuring that all students have the information and resources they need to start the year on a positive note, providing encouragement and setting high standards for behaviour and conduct in these early weeks.

At Shore, we Build Good Men through an holistic approach to education that emphasises our School’s guiding virtues, such as respect, humility, service, and integrity. Our School virtues are embedded in the School culture, ensuring that principles of character are consistently demonstrated and reinforced to our students. This is achieved in various ways, including service opportunities, assemblies, House meetings, camps, and being modelled in leadership roles, making our School virtues visible to all students throughout their educational journey.

In the forthcoming weeks, our students will embark on a new Character in Action programme during tutorial sessions, which aims to instil our School’s core virtues. This year marks the beginning of a more robust approach to character education, designed to build personal growth through increased community service opportunities and explicit teaching of our School virtues. Our goal is for students to engage positively with the community and have them reflect on these experiences to understand the importance of helping others and learning from people with different perspectives and life stories.

A distinctive feature of our approach to character development over many years has been the involvement of Year 11 students, who facilitate sessions and mentor their younger peers. These sessions, which will take place in Term 3, are aimed at deepening the understanding of the School’s virtues through critical reflection in the context of service learning. Such activities provide practical opportunities for these ideals of character to be applied and ingrained through habituation.

We are committed to not only growing character but also instilling hope and empowering our students to actively seek out opportunities to make positive change. Toward the end of 2023, Shore announced a new initiative in the Senior School, The Shore Student Committee. This is the first of its kind at Shore and serves as an important student representative body in the Senior School. The aim of this group is to meet throughout the year to explore various issues and ideas, represent the boys across the year groups and give feedback to Senior staff in a collaborative and constructive manner – a genuine student voice in the School. Mr McCormack (Head of Students) will assist in leading this group as they meet and build some momentum throughout 2024.

Around 100 boys from across Years 8 to 12 and across the Houses applied to be a part of the Shore Student Committee. Each boy needed to submit their reasons for applying and what they aimed to contribute to the role if chosen. 18 boys have been chosen to form this team, representing all 18 School Houses. The Shore Student Committee will meet at least three times a Term, plan events, raise and discuss various issues within the student body and seek to allow the boys an opportunity to work as a team in the important area of a representative voice within the Senior School. The appointment to the committee is for the duration of the 2024 school year. We have high hopes and expectations of the Shore Student Committee and look forward to their contributions to life at Shore.

Our Student Committee has been given the opportunity to collaborate with various schools, including several girls’ schools with which we have existing partnerships. Shore has a longstanding tradition of boys’ education, and we recognise the importance of collaborating with girls’ schools to ensure a comprehensive and balanced approach. We have benefited greatly in the past from joint learning initiatives with schools such as Wenona, Roseville College, Queenwood, SCEGGS Darlinghurst, Pymble Ladies College, and Abbotsleigh. These collaborations, through programmes like Cadets, Crusaders, Drama performances, School musicals, and social and emotional learning experiences, have provided and will continue to offer significant opportunities for mutual growth and learning.

In Term 2, our Year 11 boys will once again take part in the Building Connections day alongside Roseville College and Queenwood, listening to expert speakers and engaging in group discussions on important topics such as respectful relationships, mental health, and student leadership. Additionally, the boys will have the opportunity to visit these schools, learn alongside students with different perspectives, share their own experiences, and develop ongoing relationships that enhance their educational journey and personal growth. We seek to expand these partnerships in 2024 to provide a more comprehensive programme across the Senior School.

Our partnership with parents is crucial for maintaining the safety and wellbeing of all our students. By collaborating with the Shore Parents Association, we aim to bring in engaging and insightful external speakers. This initiative helps to equip our School community with essential tools and knowledge, enabling parents to support their sons’ growth and success in school effectively. This collaboration takes on added significance as we address critical topics such as cyber safety, fostering positive masculinity, cultivating respectful relationships, and promoting safe social experiences for our boys. This year, we are proud to host several esteemed expert speakers, with the first event featuring Dr Justin Coulson on Wednesday 20 March. We strongly encourage all to attend this significant event, where Dr Coulson will deliver a compelling talk titled Raising Young Men of Character.

We are excited about the launch of our new initiatives and are looking forward to the year ahead, as we encourage our boys to adopt the character attributes advocated in the New Testament:  “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:1-2).

Please note: We encourage expressions of opinion by our Student Editorial Team without necessarily endorsing or embracing them as a School position; furthermore, boys write in a range of styles, including satirical, and not every critique should be taken literally.