Through our Pastoral Care program, we are committed to helping students explore real-life issues in a safe and relatable way, considering these from a Christian perspective. By engaging with these topics through storytelling and drama, students are able to view challenging issues with some distance, helping them reflect with clearer, more critical eyes.
These pastoral care events are held periodically throughout the year, providing a valuable opportunity for students to engage with important topics in a fresh and thought-provoking way. Our Pastoral Care groups then continue to unpack and explore these issues in subsequent PC sessions, grounding the learning in a Biblical understanding of relationships, empathy and respect for others as image-bearers of God.
Last term, students in Years 7–10 had the opportunity to attend the student wellbeing performance ‘Verbal Combat’, presented by Brainstorm Productions. Verbal Combat was a live theatre experience that explored issues such as cyberbullying, social media, friendships and mental health. The performance highlighted the importance of empathy, respect, assertiveness and self-compassion, and raised significant questions about group dynamics, personal responsibility and the role of bystanders at school and online.
The issues were unpacked in a post-performance Q&A and are continuing to be explored further in our Pastoral Care groups through follow-up activities and discussion. Verbal Combat formed part of our student wellbeing curriculum and had been developed by education and mental health professionals.
The engaging live show used humour, audience participation, relatable characters and real student experiences to spark conversations and facilitate further learning in the classroom. As a Christian school, we valued this as an opportunity for our students to reflect on how their words and actions can reflect Christ’s love, compassion and justice in the way they treat others, both online and face-to-face.
Brainstorm Productions is one of Australia’s most experienced and respected theatre-in-education companies, performing to over 260,000 students every year. They offer a range of programs to help schools nurture healthy and harmonious environments, addressing issues such as mental health, online safety, bullying and resilience. They are endorsed by the eSafety Commissioner as a Trusted eSafety Provider and are listed as an evidence-based program on the Victorian Schools Mental Health Menu.
We were excited to welcome Brainstorm Productions to our school last term, and it was wonderful to see how the performance encouraged our Years 7–10 students to think critically and Biblically about kindness, responsibility and living out their faith in the digital age.
Mrs Kathryn Breen
Assistant Head of Secondary
Back to All News