Karen Gorrie Deputy Principal
GLOBAL COMPETENCY
at St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School The importance St Margaret’s places on global citizenship is explicitly acknowledged and embedded in its practices in many ways. The school’s mission states that it '…aims to provide excellence in learning and teaching within a broad, balanced and flexible curriculum complemented by other school activities, preparing confident, compassionate, capable women able to contribute in a global community'. The school’s mission was again recently articulated in its new Strategic Plan entitled ‘A Local School with a Global Outlook 2020 - 2025’. For the first time, the strategic plan also outlined an Envisioned Future for 2025, which signposts St Margaret’s as 'an innovative school which has a global outlook’. Two of the strategies sitting under the goal of ‘Strengthening the St Margaret’s Experience’ pay particular attention to this global outlook. They are: • To ensure a focus on developing our students’ global outlook; specifically, enabling resilient and responsible engagement in a multicultural and globalising world
SUNATA
• To develop our careers and employability programs for Years 9 to 12 which help students identify and develop the necessary skills to participate, thrive and lead in a global economy.
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As a school we have long promoted and believed in fostering global citizenship in our students, and our language, goals and underlying mission mirror that belief. More importantly, we provide many opportunities to open our students’ minds
and broaden their horizons to ensure they are ready to enter a global community once they graduate. As a boarding school with around 186 full time boarders from Years 5 to 12, who all come from geographically widespread locations, the school places a high value on diversity. Our boarders hail from rural and regional areas across Australia; we have partnered with Yalari for many years to offer Indigenous scholarships; we have international students from many different countries; and daughters of ex-pat Australians living overseas also attend the school. This cultural and geographic fusion combines with the day school which is also quite diverse, bringing a cultural richness to the entire school community, which is widely celebrated and from which everyone benefits. Some years ago, the school wanted to further broaden the opportunities for our students to experience global cultures and learn new skills beyond the classroom, beyond their hometown, and beyond the Australian borders. We introduced a Global Exchange Program – a robust experiential program that would provide students with an opportunity for incredible personal growth. This program is specifically for our Year 10 students. Students who are successful in being selected for the program spend one term at a partner school in another country. As it is a reciprocal exchange, it means that their partner will come and spend a term at St Margaret’s.
