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MLC School's Vision and Values | Dare to Be More Podcast with Lisa Moloney
Episode 123rd October 2025 • dare to be more • MLC School
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Welcome to the premiere episode of "Dare to Be More," the official podcast of MLC School! In this inaugural episode, host Anthony Perl sits down with Principal Lisa Moloney to explore the heart and soul of MLC School.

Lisa shares the school's inspiring vision of empowering young women to become confident, compassionate, and capable leaders. She discusses how MLC School's values of respect, integrity, courage, and compassion guide every aspect of school life, from the classroom to co-curricular activities.

Discover how MLC School creates an environment where girls are encouraged to take risks, embrace challenges, and develop their unique talents. Lisa explains the importance of holistic education that nurtures academic excellence alongside emotional well-being, creativity, and social responsibility.

Whether you're a prospective parent, current family member, or simply interested in girls' education, this episode offers valuable insights into what makes MLC School a special place where every girl is encouraged to dare to be more.

Key Topics Discussed:

  • MLC School's core vision and values
  • The importance of holistic education for girls
  • Creating a supportive and empowering school community
  • How MLC prepares young women for future success
  • The role of courage and compassion in girls' development

#MLCSchool #DareToBeMore #GirlsEducation #HolisticLearning #EmpoweringGirls #SchoolValues #WomenLeaders

Connect with MLC School:

Host:  Anthony Perl

Production: Podcasts Done For You. For more information about podcast production services, visit podcastsdoneforyou.com.au.


Transcripts

Anthony Perl:

Welcome to Dare to Be More the podcast from

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MLC School in Burwood, Sydney.

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Today we're exploring MLC School's Vision

and Values with our special guest, Lisa

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Maloney, the principal of MLC School.

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In this episode, you'll discover the

core mission and values that drive

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this prestigious girl's school, how MLC

School empowers young women to become.

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Fearless thinkers and the way

the school fosters leadership

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and resilience in its students.

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MLC School is committed to empowering

young women to become confident,

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compassionate, and courageous

leaders who dare to be more.

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I'm your host, Anthony Pearl.

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Let's begin today's conversation.

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Well, hello and welcome to The

Dare to Be More Podcast, and I

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am delighted to have Lisa with me

here today for our first episode.

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Lisa, welcome to the program.

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Lisa Maloney: It's my absolute pleasure.

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I'm very excited about the opportunity

to chat a bit about MLC School.

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Anthony Perl: Fantastic.

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Well, I think we should start by letting

you introduce yourself to everybody.

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Lisa Maloney: For sure.

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So I'm Lisa Maloney, and I like to say I'm

the very proud principal of MLC School.

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This is my eighth year in the

role, and I absolutely love it.

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I, I fell in love very quickly

and that, that hasn't changed

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as the years have gone on.

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Anthony Perl: Just take me back to

that, coming into the school in the

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first place, what was that like?

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Lisa Maloney: It was quite different

because this is the first girl school

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that I have led and in fact, first

girl school in which I have worked,

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I've worked in boys schools before I'd

worked in co-educational environments.

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I do have four sisters, so I figure

I had quite a bit of all girls

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education just in a different way.

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But what I was struck by when I walked in

the door, Anthony, was the fact that these

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girls had a very strong sense of self and

that I have not wavered from that belief.

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And that's something that's, I

guess in the DNA of the school.

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And I, I said at the time, much

to my daughter's surprise, that

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if I had my time again, I would've

sent her to an all girls school.

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She had a very successful

co-educational experience.

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Seeing these girls in an environment

where they knew that they could

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do because nobody was telling

them that they couldn't, has been

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incredibly educational for me and

continues to inspire me every day.

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Anthony Perl: I love that and it's

so amazing to be part, I imagine of

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a school that has such a long history

because many be have come before you.

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Lisa Maloney: Absolutely, yes.

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Many great educators and people with

great vision, and I, I take that

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responsibility very seriously, you know,

to make sure we stay true to who we are.

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At the same time as looking forward

into how that, I guess, how that

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legacy needs to evolve to ensure

that our girls are ready for the

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world that's coming for them as well.

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And so it's a constant questioning and

discussion at the executive end, I guess,

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through the whole school around how do we.

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Apply this mission that is so long held

to make sure that our girls are, you know,

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able to be leaders in the future as well.

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So it's a, yeah, it's great

responsibility, but also a,

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a remarkable opportunity.

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Anthony Perl: Absolutely.

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And talk to me a little bit about the

vision and values of the school for

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those that may not be familiar with it.

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What are they and what do they mean?

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Lisa Maloney: Well, it's interesting,

the, I guess the formal statement about

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mission, which I'll mention in a moment,

is grounded in the history of the school

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and the fact that the school was set up

at a time where Sydney University had only

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just admitted its first women, you know,

and really women in academia wo women

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as lifelong learners was not something

that was, you know, really part of,

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part of society's expectations of women.

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And so the school was set up.

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With that strong belief that women had

the right to education, and that was

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quite challenging of norms in that time.

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You know?

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That's what that looked like.

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And so the mission today says that

our mission is to educate and inspire

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young women to be fearless thinkers

with moral courage and compassion,

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to be agents of change in their

own lives and the lives of others.

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So it's not just.

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Being educated for the

sake of being educated.

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This is about challenging.

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It's about leading.

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It's about doing so with

courage, but also compassion.

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You know, balancing that you know,

my rights and your rights and how

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these opportunities in education

that I have, have the privilege

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of experiencing at MLC School then

translate into my life beyond school.

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How do I use that for good, both in

my own life and the life of others?

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When I meet our old girls, you know,

many of whom went to school 50, 60 years

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ago, or whether it's five, 10 years ago,

there's a set of values and qualities

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that these women have, and you can

feel it when you're talking to them.

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But then also in their

professional and personal lives.

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What I see is largely they're working

in remarkable fields, but not for the

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sake of themselves, but for the sake

of being that agent of change and

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bringing about good in the world and.

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Trying really hard to make

their mark in a way that is both

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courageous and compassionate.

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So that mission, although it's really

only in the last, I guess, 10 years that

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it's been a statement in those words,

that feel is very much in our DNA.

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And so it's very exciting to

see, you know, to see that

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live out in our old girls.

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In terms of our values, what we did just

after I started was to go back through

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all the school documentation because

we didn't actually have the values such

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that we could write them on the wall.

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We sort of knew who we are, but we didn't

actually just reel them off, and that

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makes it difficult then to make sure

that every girl can live those values.

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So we did a lot of work of going

through all the documentation

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in the history of the school.

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What were the messages, what

were the themes that were coming

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through on a regular basis?

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And then we consulted with our

community at length around w who are we?

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And we came up with four official

values and one unofficial one

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that I talk about as well.

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So our official values are courage,

compassion, respect, and growth.

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And we went around it at length about

what they look like in our school

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context and, but there was this

other word that just kept coming up

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when people described the school.

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And that was joy, that our heart

was this belief that we also wanted

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every girl to experience joy.

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But then I guess the values

police got involved and said,

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oh yes, but is joy a value?

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You know, you can't really

have joy as a value.

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So it was, I guess we unofficially

adopted it as our fee unofficial value,

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and it is something that we strive to.

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Make part of a schooling experience

and joy isn't the same as

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happiness, it's deeper than that.

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It has a spiritual and religious

context for those who are,

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who are, who have a faith.

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But it's also a deep feeling of feeling

connected and feeling joyous, you know?

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And I want the girls to feel that on a

regular basis when they're at school.

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So we have our official values

and we strive very hard to live

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those out on a daily basis.

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And then we have joy, which

is just so much an important

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part of life's experiences.

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Anthony Perl: I mean, you know,

particularly when they're starting

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out, the girls looking ahead, it's,

you know, beyond the lifetime that

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they've already had of the years that

they're going to spend in school.

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And that whole idea of it being

joyous, I imagine is something

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that is, you know, important for

them to feel from, from day one.

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Yeah.

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And for them to take forward,

you know, moving into the future.

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'cause there's nothing worse than

looking back on your schooling

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years and not having enjoyed them.

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Lisa Maloney: Absolutely.

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That's right.

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No, I completely agree there.

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So.

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I love the fact that, you know, almost

daily, you know, as I walk around

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school, I'm having conversations

with the girls or we're doing various

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events and so on, I can feel that joy.

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Yeah, I can feel that joy, uh, radiating

in different settings and it's just a

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lovely thing to, to see and experience.

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Anthony Perl: I'm interested as

well, because you've talked about.

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What the vision is for the school and

the mission, and you've talked about

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talking to some of the old girls and,

but how do you actually integrate that?

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How, what, how is that

intertwined in the DNA?

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What is it?

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What's the magic source

that happens throughout?

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Lisa Maloney: It's interesting.

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We have another unofficial, although it's

a, an unofficial, I guess it's a tagline,

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which is the notion of dare to be more.

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And it was.

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Dreamed up by somebody well before me

who, who really wanted to take that

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mission and make it a living thing.

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You know, how do you take a mission?

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How do you, how do you take words on a

piece of paper and turn them into action?

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And it was Barbara Stone in her

time, a couple of principles

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ago, and I spoke to her about it.

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And it was really this idea that in

order to, I guess, to really challenge

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ourselves as learners, as, as people.

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We do need to dare to be more in every

setting, you know, that we need to

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be willing to just step a little bit

outside our comfort zone every day and

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dare ourselves to be more, you know,

it's making sure that, you know, if I do

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something and I do it well, I'm looking

at, well, how could I do it even more?

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What more could I do?

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What else could I do?

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And that, that I think

has sort of been the.

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The great pipeline from what's

written on pieces of paper to what

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act actually happens on a given date.

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One of the other things that I

noticed when I started was that our

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girls were not reluctant at all to

ask why, and I've encouraged that.

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You know that if as students they're not

sure why something has been done or why

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a decision has been made, that they are

generally encouraged to ask that question.

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With respect, you know, so it's not at

all unusual for, you know, a junior school

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student to make an appointment with my

EA to come and have a conversation about

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something, to, to ask about something.

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It's not, you know, our

girls speak at assembly.

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We, we encourage them to get involved.

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We seek their opinions because

we do genuinely believe that

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they have a lot to teach us.

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And at the same time in doing

that, they are doing exactly

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what we ask, which is daring.

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To be more by asking that

their voices be heard.

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So I think that's a large part of it.

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It's that, you know, when we do our

co-curricular and our, um, immersion

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experiences and our adventure

experiences that they have the

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chance to physically dare, you know,

what happens if I try Siling Aussie

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year seven Canfield year in the.

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Can I dare myself to step out of the

comfort zone for some of the girls.

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It's going up to the highest abs

sailing peak and you know, dropping

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down as easily as anything.

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For others, it's actually

putting the harness on.

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I think they could do that, you know, so

it's providing those little opportunities,

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both from a learning perspective, but also

from a practical physical perspective to

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just step outside their comfort zones and

to, yeah, and to be encouraged to do that.

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To be supported when perhaps the daring

didn't work out and they didn't, weren't

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as successful as they would like.

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Encouraging them to get back up,

dust themselves off and try again.

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Help opposed to try something different,

to try and do something differently,

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or if they wanna keep pursuing

things, um, yes, it look, it, it can

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sometimes be challenging because it

does sometimes mean if you, if you

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empower and dare teenagers, you know?

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Yeah.

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Sometimes, sometimes I'll ask why, when

you don't want them to, but that's also

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part of, that's part of growing up.

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You know, you and I were

talking earlier about.

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You're about twins and, and teenagers,

but it's understanding that if we

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want the product of girls who become

women who are agents of change and who

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make a difference, then the need to

practice that when they're younger.

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And you know, sometimes they might

need a little bit of guidance in how

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you practice that and how you do that,

but that's also part of learning.

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Anthony Perl: How do you

ensure that that whole idea.

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Goes through not only all of the staff

that you're looking after, but also

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the parents, because that's the key

part, players in all of that as well.

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Lisa Maloney: Mm-hmm.

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I think that's, I think that's an

interesting question because I think

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with our staff, largely they, you

know, they, they understand who we are

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and that's actually one of the things

that they love about working with us

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is that they, they have, they, they,

when I meet with new staff, one of the

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things they talk to me about all of.

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All the time is the thing

they love is the girls.

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These girls are so ready to ask questions.

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They're engaged, they want to know why.

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They want to learn more, they

want to to understand and

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that, and the staff love that.

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As I said, sometimes they might think, oh

yeah, be nice if they were just sitting.

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Just be called, but right.

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But, but very rarely does that happen.

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I think for parents, sometimes it

can be a little bit challenging

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because it does mean that sometimes

their daughters might fail.

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Because if you, if you are continually

challenging yourself, you know, and

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I guess I go back to when babies

walk, you know, in order to learn

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to walk, a baby has to dare to

stand up and try and will fall over

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and we might need to help 'em up.

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Sometimes they'll call back up themselves,

but by continuing to keep going, even

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after what could be seen as failure in

the first instance, they will grow from,

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they will become, they'll become walkers.

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Learning is like that.

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Learning in an environment where we're

daring them to be more is like that.

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And so sometimes it can be

challenging for parents if they

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think their daughter has failed.

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It's, it's a mindset around, okay, so

that's an opportunity for growth that

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we really have to encourage and support

as opposed to something is wrong.

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Because what we know is the

greatest learning comes from when

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we do try something different.

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We try something that

we're not comfortable with.

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We may fail.

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So within, with support, we work out

what to do differently and we continue

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to improve until such time as we

can do something or we've achieved

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whatever it is that we want to achieve.

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So I, our parents know who we are.

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They absolutely, you know, the,

the fact they often tell me the

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dare to be more is part of why

they wanted to join the community.

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But it does sometimes take

an education to understand.

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That means sometimes that.

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Not everything's going to be a

hundred percent perfect every time

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because we're actually always trying

to improve and that does sometimes

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mean that sometimes we need to, yeah.

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To step outside the comfort zone

and sometimes it doesn't work.

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So Yeah, it's very interesting.

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Anthony Perl: And I just wanted to ask you

as well before we start wrapping things

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up, is really around this whole idea of

leadership and resilience, which is, you

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know, the terminology that's quite popular

in this day and age, but I'm interested

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in the stories that you've seen.

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Unfold really demonstrating that

in your time at the school and the

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people that you've talked to that

have finished the school as well.

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Oh, sorry.

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So there's a lot of talk these days

about, you know, resilience and

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leadership, but I'm interested in

how that has actually played out

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in what you've seen in students.

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What are the stories that you

can tell about it, it happening

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in school and post-school life?

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That there are many of those.

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Lisa Maloney: Yes, and it's

interesting 'cause I think our.

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As I was saying earlier, I think

sometimes our instinct is to not

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want children to fail and not want

them to experience difficulties.

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But guess what I've seen time and

time again is sadly we dunno what

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the world brings for children or for

people as they move through life.

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And sometimes it does get tough and it

is really, really important that as young

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people, they learn to manage the little

difficulties, the little disappointments,

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the little things that go wrong and to.

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To work out how to overcome those and I

guess develop that resilience, I guess,

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that we hear people talking about so much

so that when the big things do happen, as

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inevitably they do in all our lives, they

can draw on those, that self knowledge

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and those experiences to work out.

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Then how to navigate and

how do I change force?

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How do I pick myself up?

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What do I do about that?

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I think that that

translates into leadership.

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That's, I think the best leaders

are those who are resilient, who are

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able to look at a situation and say,

well, look, it may not have gone as

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well as we liked this time, or how we

imagined it would go this time, but

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what we can do is try X, Y, and Z.

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You know, we can do it.

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It's motivating people, bringing people

along, and I think that those, I guess

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if we tie it all together, that daring to

be more approached to life, meaning that.

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We do allow children to, to

have those little upsets and

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disappointments, which means they

then build the resilience over time.

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Means that as they then move into the

world of work and show themselves to

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be adaptable and capable and resilient,

and able to take things on means, people

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see in them those leadership qualities

and those things that will enable them.

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To bring about change and that they

then are seen as the leaders of tomorrow

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and they can then use all those skills

to then go on and be that agent of

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change that we are so much wanting

them to be, uh, as a consequence of

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their MLC education and certainly, you

know, in all forms of work and life.

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I see all girls, as you have said

previously, are leading and being, making

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a difference in their world, you know?

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That starts young, it starts at school.

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It starts, you know, with a student

who didn't think she could, who

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found out that she can, if she puts

in the right efforts, if she could

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manage to get up after something

doesn't go as well as she would like.

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Anthony Perl: Lisa, just to wrap things

up, something we are going to carry

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throughout the podcast series and it's

something that you've just touched on

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a few times is dare to be more, but

in the context of you and your role as

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principal, what does DARE to be more

mean to you and how you approach things?

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Lisa Maloney: Look it, it does

sometimes mean that I have to take a

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step back from perhaps what I want.

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Elisa personally wants to think about

the bigger picture of education, the

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bigger picture of schooling, what it

is that our girls will need as they go

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on into the world, and how it is that

we're going to equip them for that.

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So it does mean sometimes I need

to perhaps make a decision that's

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not popular with everybody.

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You know, somebody.

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Once said that if you want to

be popular as a principal, you

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know you need to get a dog.

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Because the bottom line is that often we

have to make decisions that may not, it

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may not be popular with everybody, may not

be approved by anybody, and it does it.

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It does at times take a bit of daring

to actually go, no, actually this

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is where I think we need to go.

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It also means as a woman and

as a female leader of a girl's

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school, really sometimes standing

up and saying no as women.

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As the leader of these young women, we

need to do X, Y, or Z, because if we

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don't, then women's roles and women's

rights and women's contributions

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will continue to be overlooked.

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So I think part of the daring in a

world where many schools are going

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co-ed or perhaps where the world

would like to think that opportunities

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are equal for men and women.

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Sometimes that daring is to actually

point out to the fact that it's not.

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I'd love it if it was, but that at

the moment for girls, we still need

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environments where they can grow up

free from preconceptions about what

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they should and shouldn't do as young

women, so that by the time they get

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out into the workforce and certain

parts of the community start to

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tell them that what they should and

shouldn't do based on their gender.

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They already know that's

actually not true.

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They actually know they have

that strong sense of self.

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They know who they are and they

go out believing that they can.

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And so I think probably the most

important part of daring I have

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is to make sure that we continue

to promote the importance of girls

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schools and the importance of raising

young women who know that they can.

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Anthony Perl: Fantastic.

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Lisa, thank you so much for

being a part of the program.

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I know we're gonna have you back

in the future, but it's been an

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absolute joy hearing so much about

the school, the history and where

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:

it's going and the impact it's making.

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:

Thank you.

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Thank you for joining

us on Dare to Be More.

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:

If you enjoyed this episode, please

subscribe wherever you get your

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podcast so you never miss an episode.

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:

Your likes and comments also

help more families discover

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:

these valuable conversations.

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For more information about MLC School

and their approach to girls education,

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visit their website@mlcc.msw.edu.au.

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Check out the show notes

for more information.

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The Dare To Be More Podcast is

produced by podcast Done for you.

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I'm your host, Anthony Pearl,

and we invite you to join us next

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:

time as we continue to explore

what it means to dare to be more.

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