Last week, our Year 6 girls finished reading Ruth Park’s Playing Beatie Bow, watched the Senior School’s outstanding production of the novel, and then walked through The Rocks where the story unfolds. Three ways into the same story, in the space of 48 hours.

The conversations that followed were remarkable. Girls were making connections between what they had read and the interpretations they saw on stage. They were questioning how characters had been portrayed and whether the performance had changed how they understood relationships in the story. They were debating which moments landed most powerfully and why. This is the kind of thinking the NSW English syllabus describes: students responding to texts in ways that are interpretive, critical and imaginative. Our girls were doing exactly that, with a depth and confidence that comes from engaging with a story through more than one lens.

Girls talked about which performers had inspired them, and more than a few left imagining themselves on that same stage in their Senior School years. Seeing older girls perform with real skill and thinking “I want to do that one day”, is one of the genuine strengths of a Pre-K to Year 12 school.

It is rare for a learning experience to come together quite like this: novel, stage, and the streets of Sydney in the space of two days. When English, Drama and immersive experiences work together, our girls learn to think more deeply, to question with confidence, and to draw their own conclusions.

I am grateful to our Dean of Music, Ms Jodie Spooner-Ryan, for extending the invitation for our girls to attend the production, and to the extraordinary students and staff who brought Playing Beatie Bow to the stage.