Seeing More

Prefect Alice (Year 11) reflects on how unexpected change can transform the way we see our everyday lives. 

Each week, our students share their insights with their peers in Assembly.

Over the last few years, I have learned something that I never expected: sometimes you don’t realise how small your world has become until you are forced to see more of it.

I have been a proud Wenonian since Kindergarten. For years, my life fit neatly into routines I knew by heart: the same streets, the same classrooms, the same faces. It was safe, comfortable and predictable.

But in 2023, everything shifted. My family ended up living across three countries. My mum and I were in London, my dad was in Austria and my siblings here in Sydney. Overnight, everything familiar disappeared. And for the first time, I had to start looking at the world, and myself, differently.

London was loud, fast, and unfamiliar. Nothing about it felt like home, but that was exactly what taught me the most. When you are placed somewhere completely new, you are forced to notice things you never paid attention to before: the way people speak, how they move, what they value, and how they live. You start to see more simply because you have no choice but to pay attention.

And then, when I eventually moved back to Sydney at the start of this year, something strange happened. The familiar didn't feel familiar anymore - not in a bad way, but in a way that made me realise I had changed. Suddenly I noticed things I had always walked past. I appreciated the people I hadn't really seen before. I understood myself more clearly because I'd been pushed outside of the version of me that was comfortable.

But here's the part that took me the longest to understand. Seeing more wasn't actually about London. It was not about a big move or a dramatic moment. The real change came from seeing how much of life I had been rushing past without noticing. It helped me to understand that sometimes the biggest shift is not your environment; it is your awareness. And once you open your eyes a little wider, even the most ordinary parts of your day start to mean something different.

Now, just to be clear, I'm not saying everyone needs to pack up their lives and move across the world to discover themselves. What I am saying is this: you don't have to go anywhere dramatic to see more. Sometimes 'new' is not a place; it is a perspective.

This year for me has been about learning to keep that perspective, to keep seeing more, even when life feels normal again. Because growth doesn't actually come from dramatic moments. It comes from paying attention. From looking up. From choosing to see the opportunities; the people, and the possibilities sitting just outside your usual line of vision.

It comes from being willing to step into the unfamiliar, not because you love discomfort, but because you know that staying in the exact same place, with the exact same mindset, won't ever show you anything new.

And honestly, I think that's what ‘Give More, Grow More’ really means to me. It is not just about giving more to others. It is about giving more attention, more openness, more curiosity to your own life as well. When you give more of your awareness, you grow more in who you are.

Moving countries forced me to see more, but now I try to choose it. To look for unfamiliar things in familiar places; to pay attention to moments that could easily pass by.

Now, as we get to the end of a big year, I want you to think about your version of seeing more. Maybe it was something that surprised you, something that stretched you, or something that made you realise that you are not the exact person you were in January.

Whatever it was, hold onto it. Because those moments are the ones we often overlook, and most often the ones that quietly grow us the most.

So, as we go into next year, choose to keep seeing more. Look for the unfamiliar in familiar places. Pay attention to the things you would normally rush past. Notice the people around you a little more deeply.

Because when you see more, you grow more.

*Adapted from Alice’s Assembly speech.