Introducing our Head Students for 2022
Posted on September 22, 2021
We are so pleased to introduce our new Head Students for 2022, Shriya Anil and Gryff Connah!
Shriya has been at The Friends’ School since Kindergarten and enjoys violin and debating. Shriya is passionate about diversity and adolescent mental health. During her time as a Head Student, Shriya hopes to improve the level of awareness regarding the challenges faced by migrants when settling in Tasmania.
In her speech, Shriya said:
I want to emphasise that even though I have my own ideas I don’t want to force my preconceived notions on how to better the community, that is up to everyone here. I want to act as someone who can voice all of these ideas, as well as being a person that everyone is comfortable enough to come to if they want to make change in our already safe and welcoming school community. As well as being a voice for everyone here, I do have a few ideas of my own on how to do this, with the help of everyone here.
You may know Gryff from his starring role as ‘Donkey’ in the Junior Musical several years ago. Gryff has been at The Friends’ School since Year 3 and is passionate about the wilderness and issues of social justice.
In his speech, Gryff said:
I have come to realise many things about us as a group of people over my time at Friends’; when we start here, we are all seeds, blown in from faraway places and we find our soil here. We grow and hopefully we blossom. But sometimes, some of us don’t find the soil, and we’re unable to take root, to stay steady and to eventually flower. Because of this, we are at risk of being overlooked, of being misunderstood and of being misheard. And this is not right. No one should feel as though they cannot do something here because of race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity or ability – it is these categories that estrange us from the fact that when it comes down to it, even though I just made us all sound like plants, we are human beings first, who have more in common than we don’t. We are all equal. And whilst I deeply value our equality, the purpose of a head student is to lead.
We are so excited to see the wonderful examples of Leadership that these two young people will bring to their Head Student roles.
