INSIGHT MASTER CLASS BY DIANA ZHANG (WOMEN IN STEM)

All 21 of us were excited to attend a Masterclass presented by Diana Zhang, a Fulbright Scholar and PhD student. Diana spoke to us about her life in High School, becoming a professional violinist and then wholly changing degrees in University to become a scientist, including creating a chemical instrument that has a 96% accuracy in detecting Parkinson’s disease. Her presentation gave us all an insight into her life working in STEM and how it has sent her to many places in life. We learned from Diana that working in STEM requires you to think with a growth mindset. This means staying persistent and never giving up. She shared with us two useful phrases as advice.

The first was: Ask yourself ‘What if?’ and use this question as inspiration to create a new idea. The other: If you have yet to succeed or achieve your planned outcome, don’t stop trying, say ‘Not yet,’ and continue until you reach success. Learning from Diana’s experiences was one of the most interesting things in this masterclass. It taught us that you can achieve whatever you desire and must stay persistent and determined. Additionally, it is inspirational how Diana’s degree in music and science has allowed her to partake in such different fields yet make a notable impact in the scientific world through her constant effort.

– Amandee Wickramasinghe and Hannah Griffiths, Year 10

This year we have established CGS@Home, a parent partnership programme of events where we invite prominent speakers and experts in their fields to assist and educate parents on pertinent issues affecting our children.

To start, we welcomed Kirra Pendergast from Safe on Social, who is Australia’s leading expert on how we can safeguard our students online.

Topics covered included:

• Age Recommendation Guidelines and The Law

• Safeguarding and healthy habits to assist with safe technology use

• What to look for and how can we protect our children from potential exploitation and grooming online

• Specific App awareness and settings to minimise potential harm or exposure.

• Legalities surrounding the online safety space; and

• How to report Cyber-Bullying. We hope to continue working closely with Kirra and Safe on Social.

Next, we welcomed Maggie Dent, who is a parenting expert celebrity! Her presentation was centred on “10 Building Blocks for Children 0 – 12”. The range of topics included:

• Nutrition

• Strong adult attachment

• The importance of play

• Life Skills; and

• Forming and maintaining boundaries. The message I gained as a parent was “Embed love deeply. Love ferociously and unconditionally”.

We have also welcomed Tessa Opie from ‘In Your Skin’. This was a confronting yet important topic in the developing space of inclusion, identity, sex and gender. Topics covered were:

• The sexual health and behaviour of Australian secondary school students

• Gender and sexual diversity

• Prevalence and safeguards to sexual violence

• The impact of the media, including online pornography; and

• How evidence-based ‘Relationships and Sexuality Education’ can improve young people’s sexual health and safety.

We will continue working closely with Tessa to embed these principles in our daily conversations and student interactions.

Next term, we are excited to welcome Peter Sullivan, a Mathematics expert. Peter will work with parents on how they can support their child’s love of maths and encourage skill development based on games and greater engagement with numbers and patterns.

– Lauren Dunn, Director of Students