Sarah Haynes, school captain at Sydney's prestigious Ravenswood School for Girls, has used her end-of-year speech to point out what she sees as obvious flaws in the schooling system.
In the speech, Sarah talked about having her speeches reviewed by teachers throughout the year before she could say them.
"Early this year I was speaking at an open day - I was selling the school - I thought I'd be really clever and include the school motto in there. 'Ravo isn't perfect, but we're always towards better things.'"
"I received a reply: 'great speech, but change the ending.'"
She also mentioned the unachievable expectations put on both the schooling system and students within it.
"I'm very sorry to say this to all the parents today - but Ravenswood isn't perfect," she said. "And I'm sure you already know that."
"If a school can't admit it isn't perfect, how can they expect extraordinary adolescent girls to strive to achieve something unattainable? I saw Ravenswood as perfect, other school captains as perfect, and I knew that I wasn't. But I wanted to give the impression I was."
"I'm far from a model student. I've been kicked out of geography class. I've had a detention. I've said things I shouldn't have. I've hurt people that didn't deserve it."
"These aren't things to be proud of, or things to look up to. But they are things to learn from."
"Mistakes and failures are inevitable."
A focus of her speech was the commercialisation of schools into "businesses," which she lamented and condemned as sad examples of today's society.
"From Year 6 I would get picked for a lot of events... But I don't think a lot of people got the opportunities I did."
"It seems to me that today's schools are being run more and more like businesses."
"Perhaps this has become a necessary view in today's society... But I'd love to see Ravenswood work to something better."
At the end of her speech, Sarah was met with a standing ovation from both her peers and parents of students.
