Challenging opportunities in a close-knit environment

Boarding is a warm, enriching experience at Ravenswood, where small numbers ensure strong relationships and a close family atmosphere.

Known for its holistic approach and individual care, Ravenswood has a new Principal and a focus on academic excellence. The school offers the rigorous International Baccalaureate and is now also embedding the philosophy of positive education in a meaningful, comprehensive way. New Head of Boarding, Jackie Gilson, has extensive training in the practice of positive education and uses its techniques with the boarders every day.

‘Each night we sit and talk about what has gone well that day and what we can build on,’ says Sophie Chirgwin, a Year 11 student from Bathurst who moved into the Boarding House at the beginning of 2016. ‘Sharing our successes has helped us to bond and we take as much pleasure in each other's achievements as our own.'

The boarders’ weekends are filled with fun trips to Sydney’s entertainment and cultural attractions, alongside study and sporting commitments. Ravenswood is the only Sydney girls' school to offer a cadet program and many boarders participate in exacting camps and weekly activities run with Knox Grammar School, developing practical skills and leadership qualities that will prove enormously beneficial in later life.

Roughly a third of Ravenswood boarders come from Sydney, a third are from rural Australia and a third come from overseas. ‘It is a great balance,’ says Mrs Gilson who sees the girls as an extension of her own family. 'I attend parent-teacher nights on behalf of the girls’ parents to make sure they are tracking academically and try to be in the audience or on the sidelines when the girls receive an award or participate in a music or drama performance or sporting match.'

‘The main thing I would say is that we all feel like family,’ says Sophie, who is aiming to study Law or Paediatric Medicine at university. ‘I miss my own family of course but the Boarding House is a really happy place and it feels like home’.