Principal

Is it any wonder I couldn’t sleep on Sunday night with Melbourne recording its wettest day in two years earlier that week, and flash flooding stopping traffic across the city?! I lay awake, refreshing my BOM's app for most of the night, praying that the dry conditions promised for Monday’s opening of The Alexandria would hold and you know what, they did, leaving us to celebrate so much more than bricks and mortar. 

There are days in the life of a School that you know, even as they unfold, you will carry with you, along with a sizeable lump in your throat. The official opening of The Alexandria, in the 130th year of St Catherine's School, was one of them: a day that was both deeply moving and richly celebratory.

The official party arrived to a trumpet fanfare of Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and how apt a choice that was, for a day that at its heart, was an expression of sheer joy: in learning, and in what we had built together.

We were privileged to be joined by our beloved Patron, Lady Marigold Southey AC ('45), and her daughter Ms Lindy Shelmerdine ('80), a lifelong supporter of the School. Lady Southey, a Nil Magnum recipient and Lieutenant Governor of Victoria from 2001 to 2006, commenced in Barbreck in 1936, was part of the cohort evacuated to Warburton in 1942, and graduated from the Toorak campus at the end of the war. The Marigold Southey Sports and Aquatic Centre, opened in 2011, was named in her honour.

On stage with her was The Honourable Linda Dessau AC CVO ('69), who did the honours of cutting the ribbon with Lady Southey’s ceremonial shears. Like Lady Southey, The Hon. Linda Dessau began in Barbreck before graduating from Langley House and going on to study Law at the University of Melbourne, ultimately serving as the 29th Governor of Victoria from 2015 to 2023 and the first female holder of the office. We could not have asked for the more perfect embodiment of a St Catherine’s School education; two great women, decades apart, but so closely aligned by lives defined by service, a deep sense of duty to the common good, and the conviction that with privilege comes responsibility. 

We also welcomed our Chair of Council and Old Girl, Mrs Nina Aberdeen (Kirby '94), and members of Council, as well as our immediate past Chair, Ms Jane Hodder, whose bold vision and ambition for St Catherine's during her eight years as Chair found expression in the biggest capital project that the School has undertaken. Joining them were the President of SCOGA, Mrs Anna Foley ('92), and the President of the PFA, Mrs Lisa Yazbeck, representing the love and support of alumnae and parents, past and present, all of whom continue to shape our School in ways large and small.

The Reverend Dr Peter French, Vicar of St John’s, spoke to the girls of the long and abiding history shared between St Catherine’s School and St John’s Toorak (whose foundational meeting was hosted in Sherren House in November 1859) and about the ancient symbolism of blessing the building with holy water and a sprig of rosemary. 

And once the biggest light blue ribbon I’ve ever seen was cut, all the students finally flooded through the Qian Winter Garden with our littlest learners, hand in hand with our Year 12s, exploring every inch of the place and squealing in delight at the beauty of the bathrooms! With pop-up musicians playing Hedwig’s Theme from Harry Potter in one room or jazz in another, there was something for everyone, but most especially for the girls whose energy and delight was infectious.

Aptly named for one of the greatest cities of the ancient world, where our namesake, Saint Catherine, was born and raised, Alexandria was the city where Hypatia, a leading public intellectual, taught mathematics, philosophy and astronomy to students from across the Mediterranean, and where Cleopatra, a young woman fluent in no less than five languages, held her kingdom together with diplomacy and intellect. It was home, too, to a great Library that set out to amass every scroll, every poem, every play and every philosophical argument that human civilisation had produced. Was it any wonder Catherine became the woman she did, as a result of the city that willed her into being?!

It was for this reason that every guest was gifted a light blue leather bookmark – a symbol of intellectual courage and freedom. And like St Catherine, our girls sit poised on the threshold of possibility, ready to have and to take their moment. Of this much we can be certain. 

In the spirit of our Alexandria, and in the understanding that the privilege of legacy and intellectual ambition brings social and ethical responsibility, we made the promise: that what grows here will be more than knowledge. It will be character that holds firm, and intellect that serves the greater good.

Nil Magnum Nisi Bonum.

Ms Natalie Charles

Principal