Paul Sjorgen
Hi, my name is Paul Shogren. I'm the principal at Trinity Anglican School, which is based in Cairns in beautiful far north Queensland, Australia. And I'm here today to have a chat with the Primary Round Square Coordinator at TAS, the wonderful Miss Claire Bossingham. Good afternoon Claire.
Claire Bossingham
Hello Paul, how are you?
Paul Sjorgen
Very good indeed. Round Square is becoming such a part of everyday primary life at TAS. Can you tell us a little bit more about the program?
Claire Bossingham
Definitely. So the round square has been part of the primary school for quite a few years now and we really plant the seed very early. So with students, we start with our prep students and then take it all the way through to our students to year 6 and then they continue with it on in the secondary school. So with the prep students, it's very much planting a seed in their minds and introducing the round square through hands-on aspects of service and sustainability. So they might be doing things like recycling their fruit and veg scraps or they might be picking up rubbish and putting it in the correct recycling bin. So things that are very concrete and tangible for them. Then they move on in the older years in the middle school, years three and four, our students are able to participate in our round square committee where they can exercise their democratic right and they get to vote for a representative for each class and those students then meet in a committee where they discuss round square ideas and things that we could be doing at school like free dress day themes and fundraising initiatives and things like that. Then in years five and six, our students are becoming much more independent and they're able to work towards achieving their bronze, silver or gold award.
Paul Sjorgen
I love the way that the students have been embracing Round Square in the last couple of years and the enthusiasm and excitement you've brought in. And in particular, the bronze, silver and gold awards have been terrific. Kids are all talking about it. Tell us a little bit more about that, please.
Claire Bossingham
Yeah, so in year five, our students are able to go for their bronze or their silver award. And what that means is that they complete activities that fall under the six Rand Square ideals. So internationalism, democracy, environmentalism, adventure, leadership and service. And then over the course of year five, if they complete one activity under each ideal, they're eligible for their bronze award. If they do 2 activities, that gives them their silver award and then that helps them or prepares them for then taking on their gold award in year six. So that's something that's grown hugely at TAS over the last few years. About maybe four years ago we had perhaps three students that went for their gold award to this year where we had 38 students that wanted to do their gold award.
Paul Sjorgen
I can remember awards night and the number of students and the pride they had in what they'd achieved and how happy the parents were about that as well. One of the things I think that also develops is leadership by doing so as students are actually their actions are speaking louder than words. So tell us a little bit about that leadership development over the upper levels of the primary?
Claire Bossingham
Yeah, so the year sixes, once they apply to do their gold award, what that involves is those activities that they've done in year five are cumulative. So they continue on with that and they do a third activity under each ideal. But the big part of the Gold Award is that the students plan and carry out their own service project, which is student led. So the idea is that they come up with their idea of what they want to do, a charity that they might want to support or an organisation that they want to support. They then have to come to me with a proposal of what they'd like to do. We work together to make sure that it fits with our school policies and procedures. and then I support them in carrying out that project. So by the end of it we've got 11 and 12 year olds that are carrying out a student led service project that's benefiting a local charity or organisation and it's quite mind blowing what they come up with.
Paul Sjorgen
I've seen some of them have got to a state level and have been recognised statewide for what they've achieved. It really is remarkable. I particularly enjoy the way that you bring the ideals around Square and align them with our core values. I think that, talk a bit to that please.
Claire Bossingham
Yeah, so our core values, curiosity, perseverance, integrity and compassion. We talk about them all the time. We talk about them at assemblies, throughout our classroom days, but they are quite conceptual for young people. So the ideals really help them to put those values into action and basically carry out what it means to be compassionate and what it means to persevere. So sometimes when the Gold Award students come to me with an idea, it might take several goes for them to launch their project or it might not quite work out or a charity might not be prepared for a student to go along and help them. So they might have a couple of goes at changing direction or coming up with a different idea. So that's perseverance in action. So really bringing our four core values to life.
Paul Sjorgen
And I must say, I do love the fact that these core values being brought to life are occurring at school, they're occurring at home, and they're occurring out in the community. So thank you very much, Claire. I love what you're doing with Ransker. To see its growth and development at TAS has been a wonderful addition to our school life.
Claire Bossingham
Thank you. It's a great initiative to be involved in.
Paul Sjorgen
Welcome back. I'm here with our head of secondary, Miss Jen Fukushima. Good afternoon, Jen.
Jen Fukushima
Good afternoon, Paul.
Paul Sjorgen
I wanted to chat to you about Round Square in secondary and what's the key of embedding Round Square into the culture of secondary.
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