Hero photograph
2014 Senior Prizegiving
 
Photo by Arnika Hazelwood

Head Girl Report

Helen Prime —

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today, to celebrate the end of another full and busy year at Logan Park.

For my speech, I thought, I could be a responsible, advising, fairy godmother-like figure, to give you all counsel and support. But then I thought, having sat through 4 years worth of these speeches, I know you don’t want that. You want to hear funny stories about my undignified time at Logan Park, and, more importantly, you want to hear all about the undignified things your teachers got up to during the5 years I have spent here. Having said that, I have been a debater for the last 2 years so I will probably end up trying to convince you of something or other by the end of this speech. I have also been told that if I don’t cry, as is tradition, Connor will. So I will try not to cry.

I have many memories of my time here:

I remember when Dr Thompson decided that the best way to demonstrate the properties of a certain alcohol was not only to hold the bottle upside down, because of course the alcohol won’t come out, but to hold it upside down over my school folder. Needless to say, the alcohol did come out of the bottle, and I spent the next 10 minutes frantically rewriting the entire year's notes as the ink ran and my chemistry folder turned into a blue mess. Lessons Learned: If a science teacher says something won’t happen, it will, and with more disastrous consequences than anticipated.

I could spend an entire speech talking about what has happened during my two years with Mr McKinney as my teacher, however, I shall content myself with just one story. In this particular lesson, Mr McKinney spent 10 minutes resurrecting a dead light bulb and making it teach us all about currents. No, not the currants in your cereal, the currents in electrical circuits! Lesson learned: Well, apart from everything about currents and currants, nothing. We all knew Mr McKinney has the amazing ability to make his lessons fun and interesting anyway.

I remember the time when Mr Spronken was relieving my biology class after Mrs Caulfield had gone on camp. Mr Spronken left the class for only a few seconds to greet the camp people, and, because we were a small class of trusted, hardworking well behaved Year 13’s, we immediately turned off the lights, put the chairs up and hid behind the whiteboard. The surprised and bemused conversation between Mr Spronken and *ahem* Dr Prime, wondering where we had gone and why, after 5 years of being well behaved students we decided to rebel now, was priceless.

I remember the time in Year 11 maths when Mr Major accidentally gave me the fright of my life, which reduced me to a shaking, crying, laughing heap for 10 minutes and caused me to be aptly described as a “beetroot wearing a wig” – thanks Josephine.

I remember the time in Year 10 when one of my friends who shall remain nameless was used as a toilet by a bird with serious bowel problems – I will just let you picture that for a moment.

I remember the mud walk at camp, when Mr Bayne was so desperate to not get muddy that he was walking along the sides of the “valley of mud”, only to hit his head on a tree, and fall into the knee deep mud he had been trying to avoid. But he is still, in his words, a “suave, sophisticated model of awesomeness”, and in mine, the best Group teacher I could have hoped to have.

But what, you may ask, is the point of all of these stories, other than a good laugh? The point is that these last 5 years at Logan Park have been filled with fun, friends and teachers who have a sense of humour and who don’t mind a bit of fun and teasing. My time here has been filled with laughter and I have done the unthinkable for a debater and am not trying to convince you of anything. Before I sit down, I will leave you with two pieces of advice. The first piece comes from Mrs Fraser, and that is that “boys cannot be ruled out as anything but random”. The second comes from Mr Tobin and Mr Fielding. Mr Tobin always used to say “Good luck for your exams, but remember; luck is no substitute for revision” Mr Fielding prefers to say “revision is no substitute for luck”.

Thanks for the memories Logan Park.