Year 9 Reflection Day
“You are truly beautiful—inside and out.” On Friday 25 August, Year 9 girls gathered in the MSC to participate in a Reflection Day. The day was opened with a prayer, with a focus on humility. We learnt that true humility is being completely honest with yourself and with others. With this in mind, we then explored the meaning of ‘true beauty’.
This topic was very interesting as it required us to open up about who we are on the inside, rather than focusing on physical beauty. Strangely enough, this process was at the same time confronting and enlightening, in the sense that we were encouraged to acknowledge the fact that our inner beauty is what defines us as a person and makes us unique.
We then turned to the Bible to uncover what it has to say about ‘true beauty’. The Bible revealed to us that our God sees our inner beauty and urges us to be true to ourselves, so that we can become the person that we are meant to be. In the Letter of St Peter, we read that, “your beauty should consist of your true inner self, the ageless beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of the greatest value in God's sight.” After thoroughly exploring several Bible passages, we all entered a time of personal reflection and reconciliation. This prepared us for acknowledging our true selves.
Next the groups went away to individually create a link to a chain, that included a word and a symbol representing our greatest gift or quality. The individual links were then joined together to create a Chain of Giftedness, which symbolises the best characteristics of our year group. It also symbolises our interconnectedness as a year group, our endless support for each other and our ability to strengthen each other through our shared giftedness.
After a lunch break, the year group was introduced to a Community Service Program which we will be participating in as Year 10 students. The day was concluded with a prayer and a small overview of the day in the chapel.
I want to thank all of the Year 9 girls, who participated in this reflection day, for being open about their thoughts and ideas, for being non-judgmental and for making this day memorable, in the sense that we will all be able to continue drawing on the learnings of the day. On the grade’s behalf, I would also like to extend thanks to Mr Gattone, Mr Ashkar and the Year 9 Pastoral teachers for helping to facilitate the day.
Ruby D - Year 9 Student
