The Round Square experience

Mr Richard Foster Director of Co-Curricular

Round Square is a global network of approximately 250 schools in 50 countries committed to Authentic Character Education.

Strong engagement with undertaking Community Service (which aligns with one of Scotch College’s core values), travelling on exchanges and taking small delegations of students to Round Square regional and global conferences are central to some of the opportunities which being a global member school provide.

Currently, Scotch actively engages students with Community and Service initiatives and in

2023, we had 11 outgoing and 12 incoming International Student Exchanges. The exchanges were typically for four to six weeks with several up to eight weeks long. Countries included Switzerland, India, Jordan, the UK, the USA and Japan. Whilst on exchange, students are either accommodated with reciprocal homestay families or in boarding environments, which ensures immersion into the culture of the country that they travel to and the school community in which they are placed.

The aim, moving forward, is to provide some domestic exchange opportunities for Year 8s to other Round Square schools within Australia, as well as provide the opportunity for small delegations of students to engage in regional conferences and possibly Round Square International Service Projects.

The Round Square Organisation has six overarching I.D.E.A.L.S.:

International Understanding

Democracy

Environment

Adventure

Leadership

Service

At Scotch, student engagement in the many and varied leadership, co-curricular, outdoor education, service programmes and curricular opportunities ensures that Scotch students live a Round Square experience and engage in discussion and reflection of these ideals.

Given Perth’s global isolation, it is essential that we, as a College, continue to explore meaningful and authentic ways in which we can engage students in and with the global community.

Having just returned from a Round Square Forum with approximately 62 representatives from Australia, New Zealand and East Asia, it is heartening to learn more about the Round Square organisation and the broader potential opportunities that it can provide. As we move forwards, we will give further consideration to how we can adapt some of these initiatives to Scotch.

I am pleased to share with you that Scotch will host a Round Square Regional Conference in April 2025. This is likely to involve approximately 132 Year 8 students and 32 staff from the South East Asian and Australian Region, with likely representation of some other school delegations from further afield.

“Exchange really opened my eyes to the broader world outside Perth, and I would highly recommend going on exchange to anyone if they get the opportunity. It truly has been a once in a lifetime opportunity!”

Simon Pocock –Abbotsholme School, The UK

Below are some testimonials from the boys who have had the opportunity to experience international exchanges in 2023. Reading these words, it is clear how Round Square has enriched the lives of these young men and broadened their appreciation of the global world we live in.

“I loved every minute of my time staying in Zurich with the Bader family. I enjoyed a new style of learning and not wearing a school uniform. I made some wonderful friends whom I am still in touch with regularly. Visiting the Swiss Alps and Rhine Falls, and watching an exciting national ice hockey game whilst exploring the city daily was an experience of a lifetime.

I returned home confident and excited after travelling solo across the world and immersing myself in a completely different environment. My family was lucky to meet up with the Baders during the July holidays. It felt like a wonderful Christmas family reunion. I look forward to staying in touch as I grow up and hope to see them again in the future.” Lewis Stepatschuk – The Inter-Community School, Switzerland

“One of the greatest experiences of my life. Amazing food, amazing people, amazing culture, amazing history. India is the polar opposite to Australia and you just have to experience it.”

Matthew Berglin –Daly College, Indore, India

“Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.”

General Omar Bradley

Humans live a contradiction: most of us crave constancy and stability and yet we live in an ever-changing world, a world in which we are also constantly changing, along with the technology that surrounds us. So, until we can come to understand the full implications of changing technology, I think we need to remind ourselves, and embed in young people, what it means to be human and how to live a good life. The irony is that so many of us are so busy, being distracted by technology that we do not pause to explore this critical question and how we should approach our “one wild and precious life”, as poet Mary Oliver put it.

I believe that young people need a certain level of stability in their lives; this varies from individual to individual of course, but having a web of strong, healthy, and supportive reallife, face-to-face connections enables them to feel a sense of psychological safety. This, in turn, enables them to take risks, to fail, and to grow, rather than shrink and disengage from the world, stay within a very small comfort zone, and achieve only stunted growth at best. This provision of psychological safety is the central aim of our pastoral care systems and our wellbeing programmes.

The great danger of our time, aside from AI and war and pandemics and climate change, is how busy we have convinced ourselves we need to be; that we must be doing something with every moment to be worth something as a human. This tendency towards busyness is exacerbated by technology and the other things; they create in us a sense of urgency. And yet, it is the opposite of this. It is silence and stillness, or slowing down that often provides the doorway to far deeper understandings of our world.