What to do with an ‘ATAR surprise’ and body image support for young athletes

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Michael Broadstock

Hi everyone and welcome back to isPodcast, ISV's show for schools and the wider community. I'm Mike Broadstock. On today's episode, Natalie Moutafis has talked with Dr. Georgie Buckley from The Body Confident Collective about their new guide for helping people who take part in sport to develop a safer and more positive body image. But first, Shane Green talks with Career Confident Director, Helen Green, about what VCE students can do when they get a different ATAR to what they expected. 

Shane Green: 

Helen, welcome to isPodcast. 

Helen Green: 

Thanks very much, Shane. It's a pleasure to be here. 

Shane Green: 

For those who don't know, Helen is one of our leading experts on career guidance and advice for young people. And, of course, Helen, you've been a regular contributor to ISV's The Parents Website for the best part of six years on everything from the pros and cons of taking a gap year to finding that first job.

Helen, one of the most popular articles that you've written for us, and we publish around this time each year, it's all about ATARs. 

Helen Green: 

Yes. 

Shane Green: 

And what happens if you don't get the ATAR you expected? It can really be a challenging time for young people who find themselves in that situation. 

Helen Green: 

Yes. The ATAR, and I think just first, I might explain a little bit about what an ATAR is because most people see it as a mark. It's actually not. It's a rank, and the average or I should say the median rank in Victoria, for instance, would be roughly in the mid 60s, and the girls tend to get it slightly higher than boys and it varies each year. So most students go into year 12 and they have a bit of an expectation of what might be realistic for them.

There are various factors that can influence your ATAR. Obviously, this cohort now have had a similar experience to last year's cohort in that it's been a really tough few years with interrupted learning, feeling a bit disengaged and sick of study and all the rest of it. So that has impacted performance across the board. But students should feel reassured that that is taken into account when the ATARs are actually released. 

But if you do receive an ATAR that is not what you expect, it's okay to be disappointed. I think we expect young people to then think, "Oh well, it's okay. I'll just do something else or get over it." And what's a disappointing ATAR for one student might be amazing for someone else. So it's okay to be disappointed, but it doesn't mean that you should be abandoning all hope of studying in the area that you're interested in.

Most courses, and of course there are exceptions, but most courses or careers rather have got various pathways in, and students learn in different ways and there are often many advantages to taking these pathway courses. Often, they're actually vocational training courses that are run or co-located actually at the universities, and they're in smaller classes, at least two-thirds of the course is typically credited towards a degree course. 

So there are various pathways into what you want to do, and it can sometimes mean that getting a lower ATAR than you expect is just that you couldn't get into your top preference but you might get into preference three on your list, which might be equally as good. And that leads me to another point. A lot of people assume that the higher the ATAR, the better the course. 

Shane Green: 

Yes. I think that's really true, isn't it? People assume that high a ATAR equals high quality course. 

Helen Green: 

Yes, but not always. And I think that's important to remember. ATARs are based on supply and demand on most occasions, and there are many elements that you should look at when choosing the right course for you, and that includes the mode of teaching, the size of the university, the subjects that you'll study.

Often, students will tell me they love the look of the course, they like the graphics on the page and they love the title of the degree, but they actually didn't look properly at what they'd be studying. Is there much opportunity for work integrated learning or internships? These are the things that can make the difference between a really positive study experience and one that's not as engaging. So all is not lost. 

Shane Green: 

I think that's really good advice, Helen, because it can be a devastating time for a young person who had their sight set on a certain ATAR and it doesn't come in at what they were expecting. 

Helen Green: 

If you're feeling down about it, go and talk to parents, talk to the school, talk to your friends, surround yourself with supportive people and give yourself a bit of time and don't make any rash choices. Most of the universities are running change of preference information sessions this time of year, but you may not even need to change preferences. The other important point to keep in mind is that your ATAR is irrelevant very quickly. 

Shane Green: 

That's true. People stop asking about your ATAR pretty quickly if they ask at all. 

Helen Green: 

Yes. Most students tell me that it's only amongst your close friends that you would be discussing your ATAR, and I think that's absolutely fair enough. And of course, you've got about 10% of students this year in Victoria who are opting to go unscored as well.

So that's another trend on the increase, which I think is largely linked to the impact of students, of COVID closures, and learning online the last few years has had quite an impact on the mental health of young people. I think that's one of the reasons why we've got more students going unscored. 

Shane Green: 

Well, let's talk about the flip side of the lower ATAR, the higher than expected ATAR that presents its own challenges. 

Helen Green: 

It certainly does, Shane. Not that I can say I was ever in this delightful position, but most people think, "Oh well, it's wonderful. How lucky you are. You must be so pleased."

And often students are and they're often very humble about it, but it can also give rise to a lot of other emotions, feeling like they need to not waste their ATAR and they need to change their course if they were looking at doing a particular course that they should consider some of the really in demand and hard to get into courses like medicine, for example, because their friends would love to do it and now they've got this opportunity. But students must choose courses that suit them. 

I've had students come to me in tears because they've had multiple scholarship options and interstate offers and they just don't know what to do. And for those students who do know what to do and may have been eyeing off a course that was higher up on their list, it's a fantastic outcome, but just keep in mind that you should stick with your key interest areas. 

Shane Green: 

And I think there's a great phrase that you often use that's “be true to you”. 

Helen Green: 

That's correct, yes. It's very hard to not be a people pleaser at times. I know I'm guilty of that myself and I think I was probably like that at 17 as well. Yeah. Stick to what you're interested in because if you're studying a course that you're not genuinely interested in, it doesn't tend to have a good outcome for you. 

Shane Green: 

And of course, there's no end of well meaning advice. 

Helen Green: 

Oh yes, absolutely. And as a parent myself, I have to sometimes try to withhold my advice because it'll be largely ignored in any case, but it is hard when you've got everybody giving you advice as to what you could do or should do with it. And they mean well, but give yourself some head space.

There are some students that actually take a year off deliberately to give themselves a little bit more time to decide what they'd like to do with their ATAR. Others will actually decide that I'm interested in science but I really don't know whether I want to do engineering or medicine or law or something else, and they'll actually go with a broad based undergraduate degree. 

Shane Green: 

I mentioned at the start of our discussion that one of your most popular pieces is “should I take a gap year?” Could you talk about what's involved in the decision? It just doesn't mean travel, does it? 

Helen Green: 

No, it doesn't, and I think that's a popular misconception that students are going to be lying on the beach and the Greek islands, and good luck to those that do, but a gap year can mean so many different things. And I think it's also about educating parents and caregivers about the benefits of potentially taking a gap year. 

Shane Green: 

Yeah. 

Helen Green: 

I know if I had thought of such things at the time when I was going to uni, it would've been quickly condemned as like you'll never go back. I think things have changed a lot since then. Gap years are great for students that need some head space too. It's about having a break from study, discovering yourself.

There are many students who haven't had any work experience yet, partly because of the circumstances of the last few years. There are students that haven't got their licence, they've never learned a language, they don't know first aid, things that they might be able to do if they're on a gap year and save a little bit of money, but also have the time to do a bit of volunteering or work in a few different places, chat to people working in different occupations. 

I know students have used it as a way to investigate what it would be like working as a vet or what's it like working in marketing and have used it as a real taking a risk but also learning a lot about themselves and developing those skills that are going to be really good for them during their studies and beyond. 

Shane Green: 

Helen, finally, no matter what ATAR you get, there's a real need to keep a sense of perspective, isn't there? 

Helen Green: 

Yes, I think that's the important point. If I look back to my own experience, I know when I was in year 12, I had myself in a state, it was the absolute be all and end all of my life if I didn't get a great score.

And I look back now and think how deluded that was because there are so many people who I have met over the years who've got wonderful scores and those that have not got a VCE and they've had equal success in different areas. What most people are looking for is to have a meaningful career and to focus on their strengths and interests, and that will change over time as you grow and mature. 

So this is just the start of their journey, and I think there's so many exciting possibilities for young people in the careers that they'll be working in, a lot of which haven't been invented yet, and I think that's an important point.

And as I tell students, it's about getting those employability skills like problem solving, communication, data literacy, being able to manage yourself, resilience. These are the skills that are going to hold them in good stead regardless of where they're working or what they're doing. 

Shane Green: 

Helen, that's great advice. We'll put links to Career Confident and other information in the show notes. Thanks so much for joining us. 

Helen Green: 

Thanks very much, Shane. A pleasure. 

Michael Broadstock: 

New sports guidelines released by the Body Confident Collective, a group of health experts who wanted to create a positive change to how people feel about their bodies, note that athletes develop eating disorders at three times the rate of people who aren't athletes.

So how do we put our students' wellbeing ahead of their performance? Natalie Moutafis spoke with one of the authors of the guidelines, Dr. Georgie Buckley, about how schools can create safe, inclusive and welcoming sporting environments for our students. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Hi, Georgie, and welcome to isPodcast. Can you share a little bit about who you are and what the Body Confident Collective is and why those guidelines have been developed? 

Georgie Buckley: 

Thank you so much for having me. So my name is Georgie Buckley. I wear three hats in this space where I work as an eating disorder dietician and I'm also an academic and running the organisation, Body Confident Collective, and also as well, I've been a former athlete myself and understand on the ground what it is like to be in different cultures that are both positive and negative for my own body image.

And at Body Confident Collective, we are a very new not-for-profit and we specialise in advocacy and education so that all bodies feel safe, included and welcomed and have a capacity to be able to develop positive body image. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

So that sounds like a lot. Now, you work with Dr. Zali Yager. We've worked with her before on The Parents Website and she's done some seminars around body image in our kids basically from the parent perspective. So we're looking at the Sport Guidelines today and how they fit in, in the school environment. So I know I've looked at the guidelines myself. So there are five main areas to these guidelines, but how can schools use the guidelines to support their students? 

Georgie Buckley: 

So there's five guidelines as you've said around communication, wellbeing, food, flexible uniforms and equipment and culture. And whilst they're geared mostly towards sporting organisations and people who work in sporting organisations or people who volunteer like coaches or parents and supporters of athletes or athletes themselves, they have really important applications in schools, particularly in health and PE departments where sport is.

Particularly, also in schools that have compulsory sport or who really strongly encourage sport participation in their students. And really as well, I think that there's a great wealth of information in there more broadly for anyone who has an athletic identity too. So there's a really great evidence base, and it's been based on my PhD knowledge, and it's a really great dissemination of research translation in that space. So if you're even just interested about the evidence that exists with body image and disordered eating, it's a really great resource to look at. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Looking at it, it's so easy to read. So it's one of those things that it makes sense, it's easy to read and easy to understand no matter what kind of space you're coming from. So I think you guys have done a really excellent job on it. 

Georgie Buckley: 

We really had individuals in mind when we did that and we really tried to make it inclusive for anyone to pick up, not just having academic jargon. So there's lots of athletes stories in there and there's lots and lots and lots of really tangible examples of things that you can do as a parent, as an athlete, as a student, as a teacher, anyone who has any kind of involvement in movement spaces. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Now with all of that, what are you hoping to see happen with body confidence in sport, particularly for those athletes that might still be at school? 

Georgie Buckley: 

So what we know specifically relating to eating disorders and body image concern is that people who participate in sport have eating disorders in three times the rates that people who don't participate in sport, which is a massive issue.

We also know that people who are former athletes who have left their sport have really similar rates too. So there's something there about sport and sporting culture that it seems like it actually might create a good food and body relationship when actually in reality, it really doesn't. 

So the aim for us is to shape all cultures, whether in Australia or whether locally or whether globally so that sport becomes something that people can go to, to actually feel good about their bodies and it'll improve their relationship with their body as opposed to walking away from the netball court or walking out of a gym and actually feeling like their bodies are something that they need to control and change.

We want people to walk out of that gym or that netball team or whatever it is as part of their movement to feel like, yeah, my body is amazing and it can do really cool things and it is good just as it is right now. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

So with those people or students in this case that are walking away that do have those negative feelings around it, do you think that they're more likely to drop out of sport or not even start because of what they're hearing and seeing with their friends and peers? 

Georgie Buckley: 

Absolutely. And I think there's two parts to that as well. The first part where I was an athlete myself and I look at my time as an athlete, particularly as a young person and see how it really, in a very layered kind of way, created in many ways a really great relationship with my body where I was strong and I could achieve what I wanted and build strength and feel fast and feel really great when those endorphins hit.

But in other ways, I had so many comments telling me my body needed to change in some way or I needed to change my diet because of my physical appearance. And for me, I can pinpoint those moments that it became too hard and I wanted to pull out of my sport largely because of those things, and that had nothing to do with my lack of talent or how well I was performing but more just that body pressure accumulating over time. 

On the other hand as well, I think in many sporting spaces, because physical appearance is prioritised so much that we "have to have a certain athletic type of body to participate in a certain sport." I think lots of people don't feel represented or feel like their bodies are the right kind of bodies to be in that sport. And that makes me really sad that people miss out on the opportunity of being able to connect with their body and all of those amazing things that sport can bring like community.

Some of my closest best friends are from when I did distance running even in back in primary school, and what an incredible gift that is to participate in sport. And it is sad that lots of people don't feel like they belong in those spaces. So that's part of creating these guidelines, is to get everyone on the same page so that all bodies are welcome in all types of movement and all types of sporting environments no matter how they look. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

So if you were talking to a school or a teacher right now, let’s just say, we've got a teacher listening right now who's HPE teacher or whatever they are involved in the sport in their school. What's the one main message you would like to give them about the sport guidelines? 

Georgie Buckley: 

All bodies are valuable. And I think as well, we need to put aside the assumption that sporting or athletic bodies look a particular way. I think we often have a lot of unconscious bias that we praise certain people for looking a particular way and encouraging them to engage with certain sports.

Whereas, if we actually just provided a safe environment, irrespective of how someone's body looked and just were encouraging and supportive and provided the environment and culture for that to happen, we're going to have such a better result with people staying in sport, starting it and keeping it going for a really long time, i.e., not just encouraging, tall people to play basketball, to encourage- 

Natalie Moutafis: 

I’m laughing because I'm really tall, so I had that my whole life. 

Georgie Buckley: 

Tall people get that all the time. It's like, "Wow. You must be good at basketball." 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Yeah. I've never played basketball either. Sorry. I went off track there but that just cracked me up. 

Georgie Buckley: 

It's such a good example though of physical appearance actually having nothing to do with athletic ability. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

No. No. 

Georgie Buckley: 

People haven't even played the sport or don't even know the rules and yet, they're told they're good at that sport. Wild. So I think that's a really obvious example, but more subtle ones occur all the time. I think all bodies belong in all different kinds of sports, and maybe certain bodies look a particular way only because tall bodies have been encouraged to do basketball all this time.

Whereas, what if we actually included across the spectrum, maybe they might be able to bring different skill sets to different teams and it actually changes the way that the sport is performed. Also, what if we were just there to actually enjoy and participate and have all those wonderful things that sport creates? 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Yeah, just have fun. 

Georgie Buckley: 

Oh, so underrated. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

So where can schools find these guidelines? 

Georgie Buckley: 

We have a website, bodyconfidentcollective.org and we'll link all of these resources in the show notes. So if people go to the website and click on the specific tab that has sport and movement, it'll have a sport guidelines section.

We'd also love to hear if you're interested in taking them up in your school, we'd love to connect, we'd love to chat. We really love to see schools really trying to do the right thing and create supportive environments. And we have heaps of resources and webinars that we can also share with you. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Fantastic. Now, are students involved in these as well or is it just for educators? 

Georgie Buckley: 

The best part about these guidelines is the way that we've written them to be inclusive across all levels. And there's a specific athlete section, so also I would extend that to people who like movement in any capacity or are a supporter of a friend who is an athlete or a ballet dancer or someone in performing arts, any broad aspect of movement, it has really clear ideas of how you also shape culture. So even if you're the person that's feeling a little disconnected or not feeling great about your body in the sport, what we've really tried to do is create really tangible things for you to feel empowered to shape and change the culture in a positive way so that other people don't experience that same body image concern that you have. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Thank you so much, Georgie. 

Georgie Buckley: 

My pleasure. Thanks for having me. 

Michael Broadstock: 

We're going to leave you today with Year 9 Bialik College student Ethan Lust's award-winning poem, Blissful Ignorance. Our student poetry competition judges said Ethan's enthused performance successfully displays the conflicting face of summer. 

Ethan Lust: 

Hello. My name is Ethan Lust and I'm a Year 9 student at Bialik College. Today, I will be reading for you my poem titled, Blissful Ignorance. 

Dearest Summer. How I loved you, longed for you, relished you.

How you brought me inexplicable joy, the euphoric sense of elation and contentment in life.

High on dopamine, indulging in the omissions of all worries, transported to a fantastical dream, one of spectacular landscapes and unblemished bodies.

How I reminisce on the experiences we shared, distorted by nostalgia by the illusion of simpler times.

You leave me with a forever unfulfilled desire to return to dreaming and to never wake up. 

Dearest Summer, how you're my favourite of all the seasons. 

Dearest Summer, you have changed.

You have turned on me.

You have stabbed me in the back.

You have lied to me.

You were just that, a dream. There's no truth to my perception of your perfection.

You capitalised on my naivety.

I no longer long for you.

I dread you.

Entrapped in your interlocking arms, suffocating, I fight but you do not let go.

Your sickly fingers enclosing onto me, decrepit, obnoxiously large and cast a shadow.

It looms over me, and I cannot help but turn around to ponder disgustedly a disgustedly shadow, infinitely heavy.

Like a magnet, I am pulled towards it.

I have lost sight of my path, disorientated, confused and longing to fall back into my blissful ignorance, into that fantastical dream and to never wake up. 

Michael Broadstock: 

isPodcast is brought to you by Independent Schools Victoria. It's produced by Duncan MacLean and presented by Shane Green, Natalie Moutafis and me, Michael Broadstock. Our podcast theme was composed and performed by Duncan. There are transcripts of our show with links to what we've discussed at podcast.iseducation.com.au.  

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