Happy National Boarding Week
This week, Wenona joined schools throughout Australia in celebrating National Boarding Week, an initiative by the Australian Boarding Schools Association (ABSA), to highlight the experiences and vibrant communities within boarding schools across the nation.
This year’s theme − ‘Threads of Connection’ − represents the “bonds formed between students, staff and families that are what hold our communities together”. According to ABSA, “It's this interconnectedness that makes boarding more than just a place to live − it makes it a home.”
At a special Boarders’ Assembly on Tuesday, Wenona Boarding Prefect, Bethany, and Boarding Captain, Asha, touched on this theme while leading the celebrations. The event provided a chance for the Senior School to focus on our boarders, who come from far and wide to live in a community grounded in “kindness and respect”.
“To celebrate this year’s theme, on our closed Sunday this term, we all sewed a letter to add to our boarding banner, which is now hung up in the garden,” Asha said. “It’s a small symbol of something much bigger: the many threads that connect us as boarders.”
Asha started in boarding as a Year 9 student in 2022. She hails from a canola and wheat farm in the small rural town of Illabo. As the only boarder in her year group, she told Assembly that at first she felt daunted, but soon realised she had “nothing to worry about”, as friendships quickly formed. “Being a part of such a small boarding community makes it so easy to build connections and a second family with girls of all ages”, she said.
Bethany shared her different journey, explaining that while she began at Wenona in Kindergarten, she moved to Singapore for two years when she was in Year 7, in the middle of COVID, which she describes as “rough”. “I was very glad to come back to Sydney EVEN if it meant living at School,” she said. Bethany’s boarding experience commenced in Year 10, which she found exciting but nerve-wracking. “But I quickly found my way around within this supportive and friendly community,” she said.
Rather than just another building in the School, Asha and Bethany described the Boarding House as a web of shared stories, late-night chats, daily routines, and moments that tie the community together. “The ‘threads of connection’ are found in the small things: sharing a smile as you pass someone in the hallway, chatting over dinner each night, helping each other through homesickness, and the quiet solidarity of study marathons during exam blocks. Over time, these threads weave together a home away from home. The boarders come from different backgrounds, but within the Boarding House they are stitched together by their common experiences, and that’s what makes the Boarding House so special,” Bethany shared.
At lunchtime on Tuesday, the Boarding House hosted a fundraising barbeque in support of Lymphoma Australia. Lymphoma affects more than 7,300 Australians per year and is the sixth most common cancer for women and men in the country. This charity is very close to the boarding community’s heart, as a member of staff lost her husband to Lymphoma. “In his honour, we would like to continue raising funds for families and individuals who have been touched by this, putting the funds raised towards further research,” Asha said.
Throughout the rest of the week, Wenona’s boarding community has embraced the ‘Threads of Connection’ theme with several activities. These have included dinners, one of which staff were invited to attend, and a sleepover for invited day girls on Friday.
"Living at School might sound terrible, but living with your friends and not having to wake early to travel is the best thing ever," said Asha, capturing some of the spirit that makes the boarding experience at Wenona truly special.