Silkwood School Alumni: Finding Her Roots
What happens when a school believes in a young person before she fully believes in herself?
In Year 10, Tahlia sat through a botany excursion at Silkwood and felt absolutely nothing. Today, plants are her whole world.
Fast forward to today… Tahlia works full time at Mt Nathan Nursery on the Gold Coast, hands in the soil, doing exactly what she loves. She is working toward her Diploma in Horticulture - her training delivered on the job, with a trainer who comes directly to the nursery for her practical assessments. At home, she tends her own growing collection of plants. Somewhere between that indifferent Year 10 excursion and leaving Year 12, something shifted. Quietly at first – then completely.
For as long as she can remember, Tahlia has experienced the world a little differently. Busy classrooms, background noise, too much happening at once - things that barely register for most people made it genuinely hard to learn. Diagnosed with Auditory Processing Disorder in Year 1, she spent her primary school years working hard just to keep up, always wanting to be at the same level as everyone else.
When she arrived at Silkwood in Year 7, she finally got what she’d needed all along: the chance to start from the beginning. In a way that honoured where she was, without shame. At Silkwood, Tahlia could work on the foundations she’d missed while still progressing in the areas where she was ready to go further. For the first time, she wasn’t patching over gaps. But it wasn’t only the structure of learning that made a difference. It was the people inside it.
She speaks warmly of support from Lucy, and of Advisors Jordan, Carly and Reyna at the Senior campus who she credits with getting her through the biggest transition of her school life. The jump from Middle School to Senior School felt enormous at first. They were the first cohort to move to the Robina campus, and everything was new and different. “I truly felt they were in my corner,” she says. “Everyone wanted me to succeed and try. You were never just left to your own devices.”
There is a difference between being monitored and being supported. Between being managed and being believed in. For students who have spent years feeling like they’re almost keeping up, being genuinely seen by the people around them changes something deep.
Throughout her time at Silkwood, Tahlia was drawn to creative work. Writing, visual art, painting, film. In her final year, her Social Action Project saw her raise money for a youth mental health group through an art exhibition. She’d been accepted into an arts degree at university. It seemed like the obvious next step.
But something didn’t feel right. Art had always been an outlet, fulfilling and expressive. The idea of making it her career didn’t sit the way she expected it to.
She began to think differently. Looking back, the signs had always been there. She’d always enjoyed working alongside her dad, being outside and on the move. Her grandfather had managed macadamia farms, and her uncle worked at a nursery in Brisbane. Then, one day, a thought surfaced: what about horticulture?
She laughs when she thinks about the timing. Back in year 10, she’d sat through a botany excursion at Silkwood with barely a flicker of interest. “And now,” she says, “this is literally my life.”
Halfway through Year 12, she made up her mind. She walked nervously into the Real World Learning Coordinator’s office and asked if she could swap arts for a Certificate III in Horticulture. Within two weeks, the application was in, and by the end of the year, she had been accepted.
That ability to recognise what was right for her, and to trust it enough to act, wasn’t something that happened by accident. It was shaped, quietly, by years of being in an environment that invites young people to look inward. To reflect on what they enjoy, what they’re curious about, and who they are becoming.
When she thinks about what she’d say to a current student, or someone sitting with uncertainty, feeling the weight of decisions that seem enormous, her advice is both gentle and clear.
“Trust yourself. It’s alright to make mistakes. Even if it isn’t what you end up doing, it’s an experience. Leave as many doors open as you can.”
And on Silkwood, she is thoughtful. Honest. “It might not be for everyone,” she says. “But for the people it is for – it is extremely valuable. It can change the direction of someone’s life.”
For Tahlia, it already has. Not by telling her who to be or where to go. But by giving her the conditions to discover that herself, with the right people beside her, and enough space to trust what she found.
Some things can’t be taught inside four walls. The confidence to change direction in Year 12. The self-belief to back yourself when it matters. The quiet certainty that the path you’re on is yours.
These are things that last. And for Tahlia, they started at Silkwood.