Preshil Weekly – Term 1 Week 1

Dear Preshil Community,

Hello, and welcome to the first edition of our Preshil Weekly for 2025!

A space dedicated to sharing a wide array of things within the weekly cycle of our unique and young person-centred learning wonderland—Preshil!

I extend the warmest of welcomes to our new and returning families as we embark on the 2025 school year.

It is an absolute privilege to serve as Principal of this extraordinary school—a place where young people are nurtured to flourish. Preshil is a deeply human-centred community, committed to fostering thoughtful, peace-loving, and courageous citizens.

Over the past week, it has been wonderful to see students settling back into both the Arlington and Blackhall campuses. As previously shared, we worked extensively over the break to enhance, repair, and beautify our learning spaces. While these improvements are valuable, it is the students themselves—finding their places of connection, engaging with one another, and shaping these spaces as their own—that truly bring our school to life.

This is also a fitting moment to acknowledge our reverence to the land on which we gather and learn. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Custodians of this land. We pay our respects to Elders past and present and recognise their enduring relationship with Country—one of care, knowledge, and culture that continues to inspire our own learning and stewardship.

This connection was beautifully honoured on our first day together, with Uncle Perry from the Wurundjeri Council leading us in a Welcome to Country and a Smoking Ceremony.

As a school, we immensely appreciate and embrace this connection to Country, recognising that reconciliation is an ongoing journey—one that requires sincere listening, understanding, and meaningful action.

Our Shared Purpose in Education
Before the school year began, our staff engaged in thorough discussions about our purpose in education—what sets us apart, what we stand for, and how we live this through every interaction, exchange, and lesson. While I will continue to provide updates as this work evolves, I wanted to share an important outcome from these discussions: a consolidated perspective on progressive education.

We arrived at the understanding that progressive education is intentionally responsive to both the individual and the collective. At its core, it is always student-and human-centred. This definition is intentionally broad because, by nature, progressive education is not static—it does not have an endpoint or a single fixed definition. Instead, it requires us to work within the grey, embracing ongoing reflection, iteration, and evolution. We are committed to challenging ourselves, our assumptions, and the status quo to ensure that every choice, action, and approach is truly in service of the young people in our care.

Continuing the Conversation
This thinking will continue to shape our work throughout the year. As part of this commitment, our staff are engaging in fortnightly workshops, unpacking key educational principles and exploring how they apply in our current context. We look forward to sharing these reflections with you, as we believe that a truly progressive school thrives on a shared understanding between students, staff, and families.

Our aspiration is not only to be transformative within our own community but to contribute to a broader shift in education. Preshil has long been a beacon for reimagining what education can be, and we look forward to continuing this journey together.

Warm regards,

Aaron Mackinnon
Principal

The Rest of Arlington
The Lighthouse children began the year cooking chips with Clinton, drawing huge crowds, as one might imagine. Then they were off exploring the campus, and sharing their thoughts. While the Prep children will spend the first week or so in their playground during break times, before long they’ll be confidently enjoying the whole of our grounds.

The Lofties took time to reflect on the Smoking Ceremony through art, expressing their thoughts and feelings. The range of artistic responses was as varied as our children, with sculpture, sketch, painting and assemblage. Edward chose to paint, and wrote, “This is my smoking ceremony reflection and this is how I felt. Today at the smoking ceremony, I felt really nice with the smoke, but the smoke really smelled. The person who was talking’s name was Uncle Perry. Uncle Perry was talking about the smoke taking away your bad spirits, about being lucky to be on this aboriginal land, and more aboriginal culture etc. By the time we got back to the classroom, I felt really relaxed now that I was away from the smell of smoke.”

For the Sunroom, they began with some games to get to know one another, then did some exploring of a philosophical kind. “What it everyone squeezed a cat?” was the provocation, and they used this to consider how they might work together as a Homeroom community. Participating in building a set of values that matter to the children in the community is an annual consideration, and one which has become a little more expansive with the emphasis on our Educational Principles.

The Peppercorns returned to establish a true sense of their ownership of the classroom space, by deciding together just how they would like it to be. Resources were sorted, and the group nested in. We often say to the children that “The school belongs to you all”, and it is in this way that they invest in the spaces and feel a true sense of belonging. They are already planning for their Ballarat Camp, and so working together to build a menu for the event.

Fireside Chat
Despite a slight detour to mention the school’s former sheep, Ali-Baa-Baa, and his unfortunate demise, the evening was a celebration of what makes our school such a unique and special place. Through the lens of the Preshil Educational Principles, Aaron and Cressida shared stories and examples of how these are a truly vivid experience for our children. Then it was off to the Homerooms to gain a deeper understanding of the program for the year ahead. Thank you to all who could attend, and for those unable to make it, your Homeroom will be posting their slideshow on SeeSaw, or sending it home via Compass.