From the Headmaster

Hearty thanks to the community for the many heartfelt and warm wishes to our family after last week’s announcement. As I stated in the media, the time to pass the baton is when you are running at full speed and I have great confidence that my successor, whomever that may be will enjoy the same wonderful support and culture that has been afforded me.

There will be a time for a more fulsome list of thank you’s but for now, it is business as usual.

In the last two weeks Senior School Students, along with Junior School House Captains, have enjoyed attending the House Dinners. These events have reminded me of the many intangible but precious benefits of attending Girton. Jones House, in particular, enjoyed a night of celebration that danced beautifully on the line between etiquette and entertainment, with humour and humility in equal measure. All students conducted themselves as we would expect and have hopefully become acquainted with new people in their House.

It is a requirement of the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority that schools must devise and publish a Parent Code of Conduct. We have now published this policy, which is based on the premise that parents are the first and most important role model for children. The Code is intended to ensure that a sense of safety, collaboration and belonging, which our school already enjoys, prevails within the Girton Grammar community. A copy of the code is available on the School website:

https://www.girton.vic.edu.au/images/GGS-Parent-Code-of-Conduct_2019-.pdf

This time next week, our Year 12 students will have completed their final day of school with a Church Service, lunch with parents and carers and a final assembly, ending thirteen years of formal schooling and signifying the beginning of a new chapter. The graduating class of 2019 has been an excellent cohort of role models for younger students, and I wish them all the very best for their final examinations, for which their teachers have prepared them well.

Please join me in supporting our soon-to-be Old Girtonians’ in finding the right balance between work and rest as they prepare for examinations and I look forward to their final farewell at their Valedictory Dinner and Speech Night.

Matthew F. Maruff

Headmaster