Living our Anglican Identity

By Ms Elisabeth Rhodes, Principal

| President of the Association of Anglican Girls Grammar Schools of Victoria and The Reverend Fiona Raike | Chaplain Lowther Hall Anglican Grammar School, VIC

On the first Tuesday of March each year, Lowther Hall’s 850 students from Kindergarten to Year 12 leave their usual Earlsbrae blue school wardrobe items at home and don casual clothes. They pay $4 each for the privilege of a free dress day and the $3,400 raised is donated to Anglican Overseas Aid to support their work supporting women experiencing violence in Kenya West or to specific emergency relief appeals that are the focus of the organisation in a given year.

On the first Tuesday in December, on the annual ‘Celebration Day’, girls from across the School bring toys for distribution by Anglicare. The Cultural Centre stage is filled with items that have been purchased and the day culminates in a Chapel Service for the whole school during which a representative from Anglicare speaks to the school community about the work being done to support local families in need.

Our year is intentionally bookended by these two events connected to Anglican agencies. Why? Well, partly because they ground us as a community in three of our most important school values: Living out our school motto, “not for ourselves alone”, through a proactive demonstration of social responsibility; Having individuals work together for a common good and; Engaging in the global, national and local community. But these particular values could be met in a variety of ways through a variety of partner organisations – and indeed, at other times of the year, they are – be it via fundraisers for the Australian Himalayan Foundation, participation in period positivity campaigns, food collection for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre or through other student led initiatives developed via the House system or by the Social Justice Committee.

Our commitment to ongoing engagement with Anglican Overseas Aid and Anglicare is because we are, proudly, an Anglican school. It is reflective of another of our school values which speaks specifically to embracing our Anglican context. Whilst it is important to us that the girls have a voice each year in crafting a dynamic and responsive program of philanthropy and service, it is equally vital that these flexible elements sit within a framework that is anchored in our Anglican identity.

The valuing of our Anglican context and the recognition of Archbishop Lowther Clarke and the Diocese of Melbourne in the establishment of Lowther Hall also informs our ongoing connections with the archbishop, with St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne and with other bishops and clergy across the school year.

Perhaps the most public of these connections is through the Girls’ Voices of the Cathedral Choir. Established in 2016, with choristers drawn from Years 5 to 10, the choir travels into St Paul’s to participate in Evensong each Wednesday after school and also attends each Sunday for a morning or afternoon service (alternating with the boys’ choir) during school terms. There are also special services, such as at the recent Commemorative Choral Evensong marking the Coronation of King Charles III, or state memorial services which see the girls combine with the rest of the Cathedral choir to provide music.

This program provides incredible opportunities for the girls to develop their choral skills and their general musicianship but it also requires a high level of buy-in from the students and families (a six- year commitment to 7 hours a week of rehearsal and service time) and strong support from the School through the provision of staffing and vocal programs. Without a firm foundation in the School’s values, this would be hard to sustain. It is the case, however, that the Girls’

Voices of the Cathedral is one more way in which we can live out our Anglican identity, honour our Anglican beginnings and maintain our Anglican context.

These factors also inform the links that Lowther Hall has made with bishops and with local clergy, whether it be at the annual Senior School Easter Eucharist Service (to which local clergy are invited to assist with the dissemination of bread, wine and blessings), through voluntary service by Anglican clergy on the School Council or by the involvement of the area Bishop at the School’s Commencement and Leadership Commissioning Services throughout the year.

Perhaps more than anything, however, Lowther Hall’s commitment to ongoing engagement with Anglican agencies, institutions and individuals is driven by our mission to equip girls for meaningful participation in the adult world. We seek to educate our girls for the whole of life and in so doing we want to expose and connect them to organisations and people to which they can anchor themselves in their lives beyond school. Not only in their continuing faith journeys, their existential questioning, in their dialogue and in their debate but also in their service, their philanthropic decisions and the honing of their own values, it is our hope that in Anglican agencies and Anglican elders, our girls will find wisdom, compassion, leadership and thoughtful modelling from which they can gain inspiration for the remainder of their lives.