From the Senior School

I expressed in my introductory letter to families earlier this week how pleased I am to have commenced at College and to have welcomed back our wonderful staff and students. While only a short week, we have seen the College back at full tilt with a combined Junior and Senior School assembly on Wednesday, ANZAC Service on Thursday, and Senior School House Cross Country on tomorrow. 

Throughout this short week and my short time here I have been struck by the universally warm welcome and the positivity and openness with which College students have introduced themselves. They seem to me to be very proud of their school, and it seems to me that they should be. 

At our first assembly this week, I spoke about the importance of what we do together and how we are when together. What a pleasure then to see our assembled College on Wednesday and Thursday, listening not merely through politeness but with intent. In his ANZAC Address, College Historian and Archivist Neil MacLean strikingly illustrated the cost of war through some of the stories of Collegians killed or injured in the major conflicts of last century. This was the first opportunity this term that students had to learn from an assembly speaker and to set aside themselves in deference to something bigger than them – in this case both the memory of those who fought and died, and the wider assembled College community. I was enormously impressed by their capacity and willingness to do this, as were many of our invited guests whom I spoke with after the service. 

In a very different setting, but with a similar spirit, many of our youngest students in the Junior School came up to me after their first day back for Term Two to shake my hand and say hello. Through this and through the quick discussions with parents who jumped from their still-idling cars to introduce themselves, the sense of togetherness and community engagement here were again reinforced. 

I had hoped from this week to be able to welcome students back, but in their inimitable way they welcomed me, and it’s great to finally be here.