From the Principal
Dear Friends,
In anticipation of a great semester, our staff warmly welcome families back to the College. We are delighted that the new Junior School buildings have now all been handed over to the College, and that students and staff are enjoying their new surrounds. As with most new commercial projects of this size, there will be small issues to be resolved over the remainder of the year, but these pale into insignificance in the face of such a great facility. Thank you to our community for your patience as we completed this phase of the project. I am sure you will join with our staff in agreement that the new learning spaces are quite wonderful. I thank the building company, our architects, project managers, Maintenance and IT staff, and Managing Director of LMC Ltd for all that has been achieved. Our staff has covered these buildings in prayers of blessing for current and future families.
Over the semester break, many relocatable building units were removed from the College grounds in preparation for phase 2 of our project, the building of a new middle school facility. Their departure ended a significant part of Oxley’s history and the memories formed over decades of learning. By this time next year, we anticipate taking possession of this new building as well. I am pleased to say that the successful tender was again submitted by Melbcon, and we look forward to a continuing good relationship of accommodation and flexibility to have another amazing building completed. The contract with Melbcon has been signed this week. Once completed, the College will undertake significant landscaping and preparation of play areas for students’ recreation. We have indeed been wonderfully blessed to extend the quality of our facilities for our College community.
Unfortunately, with the delayed start to onsite learning this term, we have had to cancel scheduled camps and events on the College calendar. Our prayers continue to be for the wellbeing and protection of our whole community as they are affected by the rollercoaster of lockdowns, restrictions and isolation. Even under such constraints and limitations, we are still able to focus our attention elsewhere. Paraphrasing the Apostle Paul’s words to the church in Phillipi (4) …
The Lord is at hand so do not be anxious about anything. Rather, let your prayerful requests be made known to God, and His peace will be yours. Focus on whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable; and if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
To follow on, it is no accident then that the values we promote under a Christian framework for education are those of truth, goodness and beauty. While the modern era would largely see these as subjective experiences, the classical understanding is that truth, goodness and beauty have objective qualities, to which we can by reasonable agreement, assign objective measures. This is the thesis of C S Lewis in The Abolition of Man, that truth, goodness and beauty are underpinned by an inextricably linked, and embedded cosmic order, rather than just being the subjective experience or private preferences of people. That is, these things come from God. The classical Christian educational project has therefore viewed us as having particular divine obligations around truth, goodness and beauty that are attributed to and recognised in Christ. A story line for another time.
Warm regards,
Douglas Peck
