From the Principal: guest post from Mr Geoff Connor, Vice Principal – Senior College, Administration and Students
A guest post from Mr Geoff Connor, Vice Principal – Senior College, Administration and Students
Across my 27 years at Tintern Grammar I have always been both encouraged and impressed by the wide-ranging career choices/pathways that our graduating students aim for and are accepted into: these career pathways regularly include entry into – medicine, pharmacy, veterinary science, physiotherapy, and other health careers; law; journalism; graphic and fashion design; teaching; commerce and business management; and engineering. These career choices have been clear evidence of Tintern Grammar’s ongoing commitment to support and enable our students to aim high for whatever career pathway might be their dream; to “dream big” and be the best that they can be. This support from the school both pastorally and academically goes “hand-in hand” with our underlying commitment to develop self-confidence / belief / assertiveness in our students in order that they will achieve fulfilment in their future lives. This focus on, and commitment, to personal growth were amongst the most important factors in my own family’s choice of Tintern Grammar as the most suitable School for our own two daughters.
A new initiative in this ongoing commitment to assisting our Senior students in choosing a future pathway is the Tintern Grammar Careers Night – ‘Find your Future Self’. There has been considerable interest in the evening from Year 9 to 12 families with alumni attending on the evening representing a diverse range of careers including: Environmental Management, Medicine, Law, Education, Commerce, Psychology, Allied Health industries, Sports Science, Engineering and Technology, Agriculture, Electrical Trade industry, Fashion Design, Travel and Tourism and the Visual Arts. The evening is designed to promote one-on-one interactions for students and their families. Learn more about Careers Night.
Date: Thursday 18 May 2017
Time: 7.00pm – 8.30pm
Location: CM Wood Performance Centre
Using our previously published University Entrance data from last year as a typical example, 100% of our 2016 Year 12 group who applied for Tertiary places received offers. The most common destinations for our 2016 cohort were Melbourne, Monash and RMIT Universities with the four most popular broad course areas, as indicated in the chart below, being Health Science courses, followed by courses in the Natural and Physical Sciences, and then “Society and Culture” and Engineering.
It was therefore no surprise to me as a member of the Committee which decided on this year’s awardees of our inaugural Avenue of Excellence, to see the spread of successful career pathways that our nominees have come from as a representative sample of Tintern Grammar’s now 140 year long commitment to excellence in education. We received 25 nominations and covered a myriad of outstanding accomplishments across many fields, which have included nominees from: the Performing Arts – drama/acting, singing, performing on live stage, film, radio or television; the Visual Arts; Politics; Business; Science; elite Sport – including Olympic games representation; Community Service/Social work; Literature.
The announcement of this year’s inaugural 10 inductees will be made in the coming weeks, with a special function scheduled for Saturday 9 September that our community will be encouraged to attend; with many of our inductees set to attend the function. The ten inductees will have their portrait and a summary of their career achievement installed in the Avenue of Excellence which will be positioned past the Principal’s Office on the pathway that leads to the CM Wood Centre; this positioning will create a visible display that all members of community are likely to pass on a frequent basis.
There is no doubt in my mind, that with our ongoing commitment to excellence and confidence, our future years will continue to produce a wide breadth of successful careers which will be represented in ensuing annual rounds of diversely talented inductees.
by Mr Geoff Connor, Vice Principal – Senior College, Administration and Students