In his paper Enhancing our Anglican Identity 1, The Reverend Dr Daniel Heischman stated that ‘Perhaps the most defining mark of being Anglican is our worship: how we worship, that we worship and that our beliefs are supremely expressed through worship.’ For Anglican schools, our worship provides a platform for us to demonstrate who we are and why we are such a school.
1 The paper is available here: https://bit.ly/3tad2fL
As I write this message, Western Australia is in the grips of its first major COVID-19 community transmission outbreak since the pandemic began in 2020. Term 1 has looked and felt very different due to educational guidelines that prohibited many in-person gatherings and forced us onto online platforms to connect with one another. As we reimagined ways to maintain vibrancy in our co-curricular programs and activities outside the classroom, we focused on developing a set of principles to guide our decision-making during this challenging period. Essentially, we identified events and activities that were culturally significant to us and focused on ensuring that they could proceed in some way.
As you would expect, continuing to hold regular Chapel services was high on our priority list, thus we devised ways to maintain the School’s strong culture of worship. We commenced with short, pre-recorded messages from our School Chaplain, but when it became evident that we were in this COVID phase ‘for the long haul’, we quickly transitioned to fully streamed Chapel services, with one class of students attending the Chapel while others observed the service virtually from classrooms ensuring social distancing protocols were adhered to at all times.
Why did we prioritise this time of worship, even in a virtual capacity? Because during this period when we could not gather in person, these online worship opportunities were the glue that held us together. They offered our staff and students opportunities to cast their thoughts beyond what we were experiencing in Perth, Western Australia and think of those enduring war in Ukraine or devastating floods in Northern New South Wales and Southern Queensland.
Coming together in worship also provided immense comfort to our community as we mourned the death of our beloved 2021 Head Girl, who for seven months bravely fought to recover from critical injuries she had sustained in a car accident. We valued the stillness of reflection as we mourned a life cut far too short and
sought God’s healing warmth at a time of great distress.
I have been so thankful for our Chapel services, especially those of thanksgiving for our late Head Girl, as they allowed me to remove myself from the daily chaos of COVID management and relish the calm that worship provides. They also provided me with context, purpose, and light during challenging times.
As educators in Anglican schools, we have the capacity to shape young lives by modelling a pathway to deeper meaning and purpose. We can do this by participating or by playing a much more active role in worship and I believe that there is no greater privilege.
As we begin to settle into a new ‘post-pandemic norm’, I encourage you to look for purpose and meaning in our Anglican collective and to respectfully shape our students’ Anglican faith experience by encouraging them to question and seek answers, and to reflect on the meaning of faith in their own lives.
As I write my final ASA NEWS contribution as President, I want to thank you for the collegiality and support that you have offered our community over the past three years, especially as we navigated our way through a global pandemic, catastrophic fires and heartbreaking floods. I truly hoped we could gather in person at August’s annual conference. Alas, it is not to be.
I wish to make special mention of the commitment and dedication of the ASA Management Committee and CEO The Reverend Peter Laurence OAM for holding fast to the purpose of Anglican Schools Australia, which is to support and serve Anglican schools in fulfilling their Christian mission.
I look forward to joining you in Canberra next year in my role as ASA Immediate Past President.
Mrs Judith Tudball President, Anglican Schools Australia Principal, St Mary’s Anglican Girls’ School
The National Conference is only a couple of months away and Registration is now open. Our ‘Lifted in Spirit’ theme, selected some years ago, is ‘just right’ for both the local and global contexts in which we find ourselves today.
People have asked me why we made the call in January to ‘go virtual’, when Australia was coming out the other side of a two-year pandemic? The decision centred around ‘uncertainty’. The uncertainty of what was then the new Omicron strain. The uncertainty of the Western Australian border, given the conference was planned for Perth. The uncertainty of people around flying. The uncertainty of whether schools would want their key people travelling across the nation to attend what may be their first in-person conference in three years. The uncertainty of school budgets being able to support a number of people making such a journey, even if they wished to do so.
In a time of global uncertainty, the Management Committee made the decision to give certainty, by ‘going virtual’. It was a good call.
This decision has meant that the local Conference Organising Committee and our Conference Managers BCCM could give time to ensuring the virtual platform we use enables good engagement by delegates and sponsors. We believe this will be well achieved.
We have also taken the decision to establish CONFERENCE HUBS in each of the capital cities across Australia. These hubs will be located in schools or conference facilities and enable state and territory-based delegates to gather for the two days, engaging with the sessions through a ‘big screen’, and networking with one another in-person. Indeed, delegates can travel to a hub in another city, should that be more convenient! I am aware of a few delegates from the eastern states who are journeying to Perth (the ‘host’ venue for the conference), to join the WA hub! All registered delegates are welcome to connect with their local hub or beyond. There will be an option in the Registration Brochure for you to advise that you will be joining a hub.
Please CLICK HERE to Register for the Conference.
There will be two post-conference half day workshops – one for Chaplains and the other for those aspiring to lead in an Anglican school. Really engaging programs have been put together for these two half-day ‘virtual’ events. Registration for these also is available through the Conference Registration process. The details are:
Chaplains’ Networking Day WEDNESDAY 17 AUGUST 11am to 3pm – Eastern Standard Time
Leading in an Anglican School Day THURSDAY 18 AUGUST 11am to 3pm – Eastern Standard Time
After a number of postponements, the National Management Committee was thrilled to gather ‘in person’ on Thursday 2 June for a full day of Strategic Planning. The workshop was facilitated by Chris Green of StrategyEDU. Last year we sought feedback from our member schools to inform the planning. This information goes with us into the workshop.
It is timely to be reminded of Anglican Schools Australia’s current Core Purpose, Vision and Core Values:
Inspired by Christ, Our Core Purpose is to support and serve Anglican Schools in fulfilling their Christian Mission.
Our Vision - Anglican Schools Australia is a strong network of the Anglican Church, cohesive in connectedness, respectful of diversity and faithful to our Christian mission.
Our Core Values - We operate by Gospel Values, emphasising:
Service Supporting the needs of our member schools in the spirit of servant leadership Inclusivity Respecting the diversity of Anglican schools and their communities Integrity Being ethical, honest and transparent Courage Standing up for our beliefs Justice Acting justly and fairly Generosity of Spirit Treating others with love and kindness
Formally constituted in 1999, ASA is a Network of General Synod. As you read this edition of ASA News, General Synod will have recently concluded. Held on the Gold Coast for the first time since 2017 (it is usually held every three years), many matters which impact the life and wellbeing of students and staff in Anglican schools were debated.
It is also timely to remember that two of ASA’s core values are Inclusivity and Generosity of Spirit. Both values are defining components of the Anglican identity of our schools. That cannot be said of all religious schools.
As the Management Committee gathers to consider the strategic direction of ASA for the next four to five years, our core purpose, vision and core values will shape thinking and discussion. I look forward to sharing with you the outcomes of the workshop, as we seek member input and comment to finalise the new Strategic Plan.
Finally, I wish to express sincere gratitude to our outgoing President, Mrs Judith Tudball. As she writes above, her three-year term ends at our August Conference. Judith will remain on Management Committee for another three years as Immediate Past President. She has brought enormous energy and enthusiasm to the role, serving most of her term during a global pandemic. As Judith has said to me, the only president to serve without the joy of gathering at a faceto-face conference (the 2020 one being cancelled, and the 2021 and 2022 conferences going virtual). Thank you Judith and we look forward to your continued role with ASA, after you have handed the baton to PresidentElect Mrs Debbie Dunwoody (Principal, Camberwell Girls Grammar School, Melbourne) this August.
The Reverend Peter Laurence OAM Chief Executive Officer
Mr Alan Dawson, Richard Johnson Anglican School, NSW
Mrs Terrie Jones, Canberra Girls Grammar School, ACT (effective October 2022)
Ms Julie Jorritsma (Acting), Canberra Girls Grammar School, ACT
Mr Stephen McGinley, Beaconhills College, VIC
Dr David Mulford (Interim), Oxley College, NSW
Mr David Proudlove, Sapphire Coast Anglican College, NSW
Mr Tony Sheumack (Interim), Trinity Anglican College, VIC
Ms Narelle Umbers (Interim), Korowa Anglican Girls’ School, VIC
The Reverend Jon Cornish, St Columba Anglican School, NSW
The Reverend John Dougherty, The Southport School, QLD
The Reverend Jazz Dow, St Margaret’s Anglican Girls’ School, QLD
The Reverend Elizabeth Flanigan, All Saints’ College, WA
The Reverend Caro Hemming, John Septimus Roe Anglican Community School, WA
The Reverend Bryn Jones, Trinity Grammar School, VIC
The Reverend Jonathan Kemp, The Springfield Anglican College, QLD
The Reverend Dr J Hugh Kempster (Acting), Melbourne Grammar School, VIC
The Reverend Chris Lewis, Canberra Girls Grammar School, ACT
The Reverend Dr Gift Makwasha, St George’s Anglican Grammar School, WA
The Reverend Dr Satvasheela Pandhare, Hume Anglican Grammar, VIC
The Reverend Melusi Sibanda, Canterbury College, QLD
Ms Rebecca Clarke, Walford Anglican School for Girls, SA (effective December 2022)
Mrs Jenny Ethell, Oxley College, NSW
Mr Richard Ford, Launceston Grammar, TAS (effective May 2023)
Dr Julie Greenhalgh, Meriden School, NSW (effective December 2022)
Mrs Terrie Jones, St Michael’s Grammar School, VIC (effective September 2022)
Mr James Laussen, Overnewton Anglican Community College, VIC (effective December 2022)
Ms Julia Shea, St Peter’s Girls’ School, SA (effective December 2022)
Dr Mark Sly, Coomera Anglican College, QLD (effective December 2022)
Dr Julie Townsend, St Catherine’s School, Sydney, NSW (effective December 2022)
Ms Narelle Umbers, Ivanhoe Girls Grammar School, VIC (effective January 2023)
The Reverend Matt Campbell, Trinity Grammar School, VIC
The Reverend Iain Furby, St Luke’s Anglican School, QLD
The Reverend Caro Hemming, Swan Valley Anglican Community School, WA
The Reverend Rob Koren, Overnewton Anglican Community College VIC
The Reverend Kim Thomas, Peter Carnley Anglican Community School, WA (effective April 2022)
The Reverend Jonathan Whereat, The Southport School, QLD
Anglican Schools Australia invites principals, chaplains and teachers, as well as chairs, governors and friends of Anglican Schools to submit articles for publication in ASA NEWS. We are particularly interested in publishing articles about school
Religious Studies, Service Learning and Indigenous programs. We welcome submissions of feature articles of approximately 750-1000 words and news articles of 350 words, together with a selection of high quality digital images of 300 dpi. Please email submissions to media@anglicanschoolsaustralia.edu.au Submissions are published at the discretion of the Editor.
Cover Image:
Main Image - St Aidan’s Chaplain The Reverend Gillian Moses baptising a student.
The worship life of St Aidan’s Anglican Girls’ School is a treasure entrusted to us by the Society of the Sacred Advent, the Anglican religious order who founded the school in 1929. As the Sisters’ days were formed by the daily offices, they brought much of that shape and structure to the school. And even as we have modernised and reimagined much of our worship, the central and formative role of worship remains.
The twin objectives of worship at school are to create space where students, staff and the wider school community may encounter God, and to do all we can to ensure the encounter is a positive one. Our context, as with many schools, is an increasingly secular and multifaith community, so worship must also be invitational and inclusive, while remaining authentically Anglican. Whether we achieve this is a question for others to judge.
Part of being authentically Anglican is following the lectionary as closely as possible. Often major feasts like Easter and Christmas are celebrated slightly out of time, in order to include them in the school term, but the lectionary also invites us to remember the lives of the saints, or ‘friends of Jesus’ as I often call them. Year 3 might celebrate St Patrick’s Day by making trinity shamrocks and listening to Patrick’s story, while Prep and Year 1 celebrate the Annunciation by being in the garden with Mary, thinking about what angels are like and making flowers for Mary. St Julian offers hazelnuts and images of a mothering God, while Mary Magdalene reminds us of how highly Jesus regarded the ministry and friendship of women.
Although Covid offered significant challenges over the past two-and-a-bit years, the Eucharist holds a central place in the community as a communifying action. There is power in
The Reverend Gillian Moses, Chaplain St Aidan’s Anglican Girls’ School, QLD
eating together as a way of belonging together, and all are invited forward to participate in the Eucharist or to receive a blessing. The power of Eucharist to create community was brought home to me last week on one of our Year 7 Quiet Days. Each of these days ends with a celebration of the Eucharist and it was so heartening to pronounce God’s blessing on a student who, all day, had been fasting as part of her observance of Ramadan. My goal is not to convert her (or anyone) to Christianity, but to honour and support her own faith commitment, even as I express the belief that the same God blesses and calls us all.
In our Junior School, Messy Church has become the chief way in which we celebrate our Christian festivals with K-Year 4 students. Messy Church offers a hands-on, experiential encounter with God’s story as we explore Easter, Pentecost, St Aidan’s Day and Christmas. In keeping with the intergenerational theme of Messy Church, parents, grandparents and younger siblings are invited along to join in the fun. There is singing, storytelling, messy activities which help students to engage with the story, and prayers written and led by the students themselves, right down to Prep. All this in an hour, with the help of some wonderful Junior School teachers and aides!
The sacraments of initiation also play an important part in the life of the school. All Year 5 students participate in preparation for Admission to Communion, and each year about a third of the cohort make their first Communion at a special service, with some of those students also first being baptised. This has been an effective missional tool, as families of these students express their own interest and curiosity about what their daughter is doing, and often decide they too would like to explore their own faith life more intentionally. This may lead to confirmation, or reception into the Anglican Church. Each year we ‘book the bishop’ long before we know if we will have candidates for confirmation, and each year those candidates emerge!
Finally, worship bookends students’, staff’s and families’ time at St Aidan’s. We begin each year with a Commencement Service, we celebrate student leadership in the Senior and Junior schools, and we conclude the student journey with a Transition Service for Year 6 and a Valedictory Service for Year 12. Staff also begin and end their year with corporate worship. The message is that our time here is begun and ended, and held all the while, within the love of God. It is God who calls us, God who inspires us, and God’s family to which we all belong.
At a time when people feel ever more divided, isolated and unvalued, the worship life of our school reminds them that they have a community to which they will always belong, and a God who loves them. It is the message the Sisters proclaimed in starting St Aidan’s and a message we continue to proclaim through word and sacrament, and in our being together.
Congratulations to Mr Alan Dawson who was recently formally commissioned as the second Principal of Richard Johnson Anglican School (RJ). It was a significant service led by The Most Reverend Kanishka Raffel, the Archbishop of Sydney. We were delighted to welcome fellow Anglican Schools Corporation Principals and Board Members, amongst other distinguished guests, friends and family, to the school on this important day.
Alan Dawson said: “To lead a school such as RJ, is a tremendous honour and privilege. It’s difficult to put into words how I am feeling about today because it’s not every day you realise one of your dreams - something you’ve hoped for, worked hard for and dreamed the day would one day transpire.”
This year RJ celebrates 25 years of Christian education in Western Sydney. Much has happened in the intervening years, none more so than the growth in student numbers from 26 excited Kindergarten to Year 4 students in 1997 to over 1250 students being educated on two campuses in 2022.
RJ looks to continue growing courageous learners, connecting hearts and building community under the leadership of Principal Alan Dawson so that the school is the place to belong, to serve and at which to succeed.
St Peter’s College, Adelaide, takes seriously its commitment to create a greater awareness amongst our students and staff of the seasons and symbols of the Church’s Year, with an appreciation of the theology and liturgy that lie behind them.
A key component of Anglican Identity is to be found in the way we worship corporately. Lex orandi, lex credendi (literally ‘the law of worship is the law of belief’) means that the way we worship as a church informs and shapes our beliefs. If we are committed to shaping our students and staff in the Christian faith, as received and understood by the Anglican Church, then an appreciation of the Church’s seasons and symbols is a crucial part of this. This ensures a continuity with the wider Anglican Church, so that school chapel services, while remaining contemporary and relevant are, nonetheless, also connected with the customs and living traditions of the wider Church.
The seasons of Lent and Easter provide a particular opportunity to connect with the wider tradition, which is replete with many beautiful, authentic customs. Students appreciate authentic customs, especially when the theology behind them is explained. In many ways, students are more open to authentic, historical, but living traditions, than they are to fabricated, ‘hip’ creations.
The marking of the season of Lent began with Ash Wednesday services for each part of the school. In both the Junior and Senior Schools, many students came forward to be anointed with ash. The tradition of the ash being made by burning the previous year’s palm crosses
was explained. In addition, the School Chaplain, the Rev’d Dr Theo McCall, visited the Early Learning Centre (ELC) and conducted a very simple service with the students, including an encouraging Question and Answer time, leading to an invitation to the students and staff to be anointed. Once again, many of the young students came forward to be anointed with ash.
In Holy Week, daily morning services allowed a real sense of entering into the Church’s liturgy, culminating in the Maundy Thursday Eucharist in the Senior School with many students and staff coming forward to receive Holy Communion. This solemn time allowed students and staff the opportunity to reflect on the theology of the cross and the hope of the resurrection.
Part of the experience of enhancing the Anglican Identity of St Peter’s College is to engage in profound theology, which challenges the minds of the older students. This year the School Chaplain explored the extraordinary theology of Jürgen Moltmann (admittedly not an Anglican!) and reflected on what a theology of hope means in difficult circumstances. As a prisoner of war at the end of the Second World War, Moltmann would walk around the various prison camps where he was held captive, feeling humiliated as a German. To his utter amazement, he
gradually began to experience God. He writes, “I cannot even say I found God there. But I do know in my heart that it is there that he found me, and that I would otherwise have been lost.”
Hope does not occur in isolation. The Last Supper, which the Maundy Thursday Eucharist remembers each year, tells us that Jesus knows what it is to suffer. Australians often don’t understand what remembering means in the Jewish faith. In the fullest, most beautiful, Jewish understanding of remembering, it is as if we are right there with the disciples at the Last Supper, listening to Jesus say, “This is my body, this is my blood”. So, we remember that Jesus knows what it means to suffer. He’s been there, on the cross. He is with us when we suffer. He knows that we sometimes struggle.
Thus, the hope which Moltmann writes about is an authentic expression of Christian hope. It is not a naïve hope. “Genuine hope is not blind optimism … It is hope with open eyes, which sees the suffering and yet believes in the future.”
A special Maundy Thursday service also occurred for the Junior School in the school’s Memorial Hall, incorporating a Last Supper Play. The enthusiasm of the students to participate in the Last Supper Play was incredible. This too was a service full of hope, but of course tailored to express the hope of Easter in a simpler way to the younger students. The goal of the service was also to help the students learn about and remember the Last Supper. It was also to reflect on our hope that life has meaning. Using the drama, the students were gently encouraged to learn that out of our struggle emerges a beautiful hope: the hope that God will, one day, draw us into the kingdom of his son; we have that lovely picture of eternal life, where there is no more suffering or pain or death.
“This is such a privilege for me as I stand on the shoulders of giants … leaders before me who have contributed in making this school the wonderful place it is.” These were the words of Mrs Tracey Gray on the day she was commissioned Principal of Frederick Irwin Anglican School.
Frederick Irwin’s greater community came together for this significant Service, including The Bishop of Bunbury, The Right Reverend Dr Ian Coutts, and CEO of the Anglican Schools Commission, The Reverend Peter Laurence OAM.
ASC Principals, Frederick Irwin Executive and Council, along with local Indigenous leader, Mr George Walley were also in attendance. Mr Walley’s ‘Welcome to Country’ was particularly heartfelt as he highlighted the time, he and Mrs Gray had already spent together focusing on building the relationship between the school and the Aboriginal community of Mandurah.
This day was made even more special with the presence of some of Mrs Gray’s family from the United Kingdom and the Eastern States, only made possible with the easing of COVID restrictions. Although the Frederick Irwin students and staff could not be in attendance, the Service was live streamed into classrooms across the two campuses.
The Commissioning Service included prayers, readings and musical performances from Prefects and members of the community, together with the presentation of symbolic gifts to the Principal from members of the greater school community. The most poignant moment was the official Commissioning by the Bishop and the presentation of Tracey to the gathering, as the official Principal of Frederick Irwin Anglican School. It was extremely emotional for all.
In her speech Tracey highlighted her focus for the school. “This year my theme for our school year is Joy! Through conversations and story sharing about our school I have had so many joyful stories shared. Conversations about how much the school is loved, the great place that it is and the many achievements of alumni students, most of all I have heard about the amazing staff who have made a difference.”
She then spoke of the importance of community, of building the school and its reputation and on focusing on the values of the school - respect, responsibility, honesty, compassion and courage. Her final words were of gratitude towards her family, friends and the greater school community.
The occasion ended with a morning tea and an opportunity for everyone to personally congratulate and welcome Mrs Tracey Gray to the school.
Frederick Irwin Anglican School, WARegular Chapel is at the heart of our worship at Brighton Grammar School (BGS). It provides excellent opportunities for boys to serve in a diverse range of activities. From reading, delivering prayers, singing in the choir or as an official Chapel Server; there are so many ways to participate and get involved each week. It also provides valuable time for meaningful reflection and spiritual contemplation, as well as aligning the boys’ attitudes to the school’s own values and traditions that we cherish and hold dear.
As we travel through the liturgical calendar in Religious Education classes each week, so each chapter throughout the year is observed. In addition to Lent, Easter, Pentecost and Christmas, we celebrate and observe ANZAC Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Founder’s Day and many of the formal BGS Leadership Inductions such as School Officers and Chapel Servers, Year 6 Graduation Liturgy, Junior School Speech Night and the Year 12 Valedictory Service.
During Term 1 we recognised and inducted our School Officers and Chapel Servers for 2022. These events are celebrated by the school community with parents and friends attending services at St Andrew’s Church. We also held our Junior and Secondary School Easter services where we ceremoniously unveiled and lit the new Paschal Candle of 2022, re-affirmed our baptismal vows and considered the Easter narrative from Good Friday through to Holy Easter Sunday.
At the commencement of Term 2 we held a moving and
memorable ANZAC service where we honoured Brighton Grammar Old Boys who fell and lost their lives in the Boer War, First World War and Second World War. Each of the 118 lives was represented by a white cross inscribed with a name, date and war which was carried in and placed by a Year 12 student. BGS Old Boys were in attendance and our Head of History, Mr Mark Sainsbery, and four of his senior History students spoke about four BGS Old Boys who died while making the ultimate sacrifice, providing a human face to war to which all boys and staff could relate.
The Junior School and Secondary School recently celebrated special Mother’s Day services in St Andrew’s. In three separate services, over 1400 boys and their mums sat side-by-side while the choir sang, reflections were shared, tributes flowed and poetry was said. Mother and son photos were displayed on the screens and beautiful Singapore orchards blessed and distributed. It is safe to say that there were not many dry eyes in church at these events.
Finally, the school community came together in sad times as well. At the start of Term 1 we farewelled a dear, beloved, talented and popular Year 12 student from last year who tragically passed away and was lost to us. Our communal gathering in St Andrew’s provided much needed healing, sharing and closure for so many in the community. It was a profound, unforgettable and deeply engaging ceremony that showed once again just how central worship is to us as a school at Brighton Grammar.
We look forward with great anticipation and eagerness for what the rest of 2022 provides for us at our regular Chapel gatherings. In many ways it is the very cement that holds our wonderful school together and keeps us strong in both fair and challenging times.
It is my great pleasure to invite your participation at the 2022 Anglican Schools Australia Conference, which will be hosted virtually from Perth.
This year’s virtual conference will bring together Principals, Chaplains, Church leaders, Board members, senior staff and inspirational speakers from across the country.
Our 2022 conference theme, Lifted in Spirit, is a fitting one given everything that we have endured these past two years. Attendees can expect to hear from a variety of international and local thought leaders who have demonstrated tremendous spirit in the face of adversity.
Speakers include The Most Reverend and Right Honourable Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York; The Most Reverend Kay Goldsworthy AO, Archbishop of Perth, who is the first female Archbishop in the Anglican Church of Australia; Dr Rishelle Hume AM, a proud Noongar woman who has devoted her working life to the advancement of Aboriginal people and her Noongar culture; and Dr Craig Challen SC OAM, the 2019 Australian of the Year and Australian cave diver famous for his efforts as part of the team that saved a soccer team of 12 boys and their coach in the 2018 Thai cave rescue.
The 2022 Perth ASA Conference will provide an opportunity for our community to gather virtually, learn from these extraordinary individuals and engage in conversations about how we can lift up our respective staff, students and communities through the vehicle of education and faith.
I am in awe of the creativity that our ASA community has demonstrated to remain united throughout the challenges of the past two years and I have no doubt that this will be on full display during what promises to be another fruitful conference.
I do hope that you will join us to be ‘Lifted in Spirit’ in August 2022.
President, Anglican Schools Australia, 2022 ASA Conference Chair, Principal, St Mary’s Anglican Girls’ School
The Most Reverend and Right Honourable Stephen Cottrell Archbishop of York
The Most Reverend Kay Goldsworthy AO Archbishop of Perth
Dr Rishelle Hume AM
Diversity & Inclusion Business Advisor Eurasia Pacific, Chevron Nick Pearce Co-Founder & CEO, HoMie
Dr Craig Challen SC OAM Australian of the Year 2019 and Thai Cave Rescue Diver
Registration is now open for the 2022 Anglican
To register
Please note all prices are displayed inclusive of GST. If you are having any trouble with the registration process please contact the Conference Manager, BCC Management (03) 8679 5460 or info@bccm.com.au
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It was 9:00am, Wednesday morning, Week 10 of Term 1. The Secondary School Easter services were due to commence at 9:30am. I was setting up the gym where basketball practice had just finished. Due to COVID restrictions, building works and a forecast of rain the decision had been made the day before to move the service from outside on the lawns into the gym. One 30-minute service for 1300 students and staff was now two consecutive 20-minute services for 650 students and staff.
Three senior drama students who were playing Thomas, Mary Magdalene and Peter were busily warming up with extensive vocal and body exercises. Part of me wanted to ask them to get to the script and their actual lines but I left them to it. This very gifted and obliging trio independently blocked their performance in the new setting and ran through their lines, scripts in hand.
When the services began Thomas, Mary and Peter ‘wowed’ the congregations. They inhabited the entire space. With movement and voice, they retold the Easter events from each first-person perspective in a way that was compelling and captivating. A choir and musicians shared music and song. Students shared poetry and dance. It was an evocative and poignant 20 minutes of multi-sensory liturgy. I had a sense of God’s presence and prayed a prayer of gratitude.
This story is a familiar scenario to many of you, albeit with your own contextual nuances. When we talk about worship in our schools what is it that comes to mind for you? I share my experience above because it encompasses a few elements that I find repeated regularly at Radford College. We work with large congregations. Our congregations are multi-faceted and multi-aged. Many haven’t chosen to be there. We need to be flexible in terms of the spaces we use. There isn’t always a lot of time to practice. We have wonderful students and staff who share their talents in drama, dance, visual art, and music in profound and beautiful ways.
At Radford College there are visible signs of worship taking place daily in chapel services, Godly Play, morning prayer for staff, interdisciplinary learning with prayer spaces, and whole College gatherings. At the same time, in terms of living into the call for worship as a defining
mark of identity and purpose, as The Reverend Dr Daniel Heischman advocates, there is an itch that needs to be scratched.
Definitions of worship tend to involve an intentional orientation and openness towards God in a way that seeks to honour God. Is that what is happening when students come to chapel or staff hear a prayer at briefing?
I am not the first to ask this question and won’t be the last. Andrew Stewart when he was Chaplain at Caulfield Grammar School responded to these questions in a previous ASA publication. Andrew talked about worship as “a person responding to God” and the challenges and opportunities that are posed.1
This second definition of worship begins to scratch the itch for me. As chaplains we prepare time and space to facilitate an encounter with God, a sense of the sacred and the opportunity to respond. At the same time the encounter and response are not up to us to assess or judge. We exercise trust in the love of God and respect the agency of students and colleagues.
At Radford we have adapted the Anglican Schools Australia poster, ‘What does it mean to be an Anglican School.’ We chose the word ‘gathering’ rather than ‘worship’ to communicate this part of our common life. We did this because we wanted to acknowledge the experience of all who take part. While students do speak about connecting with God in chapel, the sense of belonging and connection with each other is something many students attest to when describing chapel services.
The artwork in the poster by Wiradjuri artist Duncan Smith, hangs in our chapel a place where students gather regularly. The painting symbolises the ‘scar tree’ of the cross of Christ, human beings, animals, the earth, and the Radford community with the handprints of Radford staff and students included in the painting. The eagle is a symbol in Indigenous and Christian spirituality.
The nature and form of our gatherings at Radford, both the regular gatherings and the gatherings that mark special occasions and rites, are part of our purpose and identity. We do not shy away from naming the reality of God in
our midst, discerning where God is at work amongst us and beyond us as we learn about, engage and serve the world around us.
Is the use of the word gathering a watering down of worship? Perhaps. But I also know that Christianity is not only a set of beliefs and practices. Christianity is the formation of a new community where barriers are broken down and unity in diversity flourishes. We take every opportunity for our gatherings to shape and enhance the life of our community as well as facilitating the chance for encounter and response.
The church calendar including the Season of Creation and the school calendar with events such as National Reconciliation Week and Book Week provide much scope with which to engage. I was chuffed that in the one rehearsal we’d had prior to the Secondary Easter services the senior drama students had commented that the material was good to work with and they had some great lines. Often so much of what we do is receiving what is on offer, whether that be Scripture or the Storytellers who will embody it, and allowing them to do the work of communicating Good News.
Stephen Cottrell writes, “God is in Jesus, and therefore our humanity is joined to God and God is joined to us. Our flesh and blood humanity, and everything that it means to be human, is known by God. Jesus has become a meeting point, a place of union between humanity and God, between what we call heaven and what we know to be earth. And in that story of dying and rising, even life and death are brought together.”2
This ‘meeting point’ of God in Jesus is a space of invitation and transformation where there is room for everyone and a vision of abundant life for all. Through believing, thinking, welcoming, serving and in particular, gathering the invitation to participate in this “meeting point” is joyfully extended.
1Stephen Cottrell, Dear England: Finding Hope, Taking Heart and Changing the World: Hodder & Stoughton, 2021.
2Stephen Cottrell, Dear England: Finding Hope, Taking Heart and Changing the World: Hodder & Stoughton, 2021, p.63.
The Reverend Dr J Hugh Kempster, Acting Senior Chaplain | Melbourne Grammar School, VIC Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee. Saint Augustine, Confessions, Book I
In the opening to his Confessions, Saint Augustine makes an almost credal statement. To paraphrase: we are made to worship God, and we are not at peace as human beings until we awaken to this truth. Education, therefore, is arguably replete without the experience of worship at its core. Anglican educators have long built on this sure foundation, materially evident, in our older schools at least, by the Chapel at the heart of the school. The two Victorian schools in which I have had the privilege of serving as Chaplain, Geelong Grammar and Melbourne Grammar, likewise reflect this precept in their mottos: Christus nobis factus sapientia ‘For us, Christ was made Wisdom’; and Ora et labora ‘Prayer and Work’.
Moving between parish ministry and school chaplaincy over the years, one of the first things that strikes me with each transition is the question of volition. Parishioners choose to come to worship, but chapel services in most, if not all Anglican schools, are obligatory for students. In Augustinian terms, we may well be made to worship God, but should (or can) our students be made to worship God? Like all chaplains, I am sure, I can recall a legion of decidedly restless adolescents squirming in the chapel pews, clearly longing for the words of dismissal and final
release into recess, or at least the next class. Is this really worship, or closer to torture for all involved?
An epigraph to Evelyn Underhill’s twentieth-century classic Worship perhaps gives us a leg to stand on: All worship was to him sacred, since he believed that in its most degraded forms, among the most ignorant and foolish of worshippers, there has yet been some true seeking after the Divine, and that between these and the most glorious ritual or the highest philosophic certainty, there lies so small a space that we may believe the Saints in Paradise regard it with a smile.
Elizabeth Waterhouse: Thoughts of a Tertiary
Far be it from me to categorise any of our beloved students as degraded, ignorant, or foolish, but there is such erudite optimism in the words of these two wise women from last century. Worship is worship is worship. The depth of our engagement, or lack of it, cannot ultimately sully the divine act. Even the most wriggling hymn-book-snapping adherent is guaranteed to raise a loving smile from the heavens. I like that.
One might also turn to the evidence of the statisticians and researchers for respite on those disheartening days of chapel distraction. The ‘Spirit of Generation Y’ project (Mason, et al., 2007) was a three-year study (2003–2006) of the spirituality of young Australians. One of the questions asked was simply: “Do you believe in God?” Remarkably, eight out of ten students answered either “yes” (48%) or “unsure” (32%) with only two in ten (19%) identifying as atheists. More recently McCrindle Research, on behalf of the Centre for Public Christianity, asked a thousand people about their openness to the existence of a range of spiritual realities: ghosts, miracles, angels, a higher power/God, the soul, ultimate meaning or purpose in life, and life after death. Notably, it was the youngest age group (18 to 26-year-olds) who showed the most openness: 61% either believed in God or were open to the possibility; 21% were agnostic, unsure if God exists; and only 18% either believed that God does not exist or thought it unlikely. In Natasha Moore’s ABC News article on this research, she quotes poet Les Murray, who as ever says it all: “I just speak as I am. I am a Catholic and I don’t believe that other people are necessarily secular. I think that intellectuals are mostly secular or are required to pretend that they are. But broader people are very varied.” We chaplains may be swayed on bad days by the ‘intellectuals’ and believe that no one is listening as we preach to our deadpan captive congregations. But on a good day, I’m not so sure.
Finally, an anecdote from my current school experience, just prior to Holy Week this year. In a moment of naïve exuberance someone (me) came up with the idea that we might try a whole-of-school outdoors ‘Stations of the Cross’ meditation at the end of Term 1. As the day
approached my esteemed colleagues started wondering (as did I in the early hours of the morning) whether this was such a clever idea after all. The day arrived, and the entire Senior School gathered in the Quad. ‘Restless’ was a fitting descriptor for the mood of the students as we gathered for this new worship service.
“I am deeply grieved, even to death … my God, if it is possible let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:389). Jesus prays with the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemene. He is human. He does not want to walk the way of pain and suffering that lies before him. We pray for all who suffer; all victims of war, violence and abuse.
Station by station the restlessness eased, and remarkably, overwhelmingly even, hundreds of teenagers and their teachers engaged in a solemn act of communal meditation. Our hearts found rest: believers, agnostics, atheists, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims. We worshipped together. It was a cold morning, and some were even shaking a little as we reflected together on the unjust execution of truly good man; the Son of God as we Christians call him.
The Fourteenth Station – Burial “Joseph took the body and laid it in his own tomb. Joseph then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away” (Matthew 27:59-60). Jesus is hastily wrapped in cloth and sealed up, a lifeless corpse, in a rich man’s tomb. The living Word of God lies silent in the sleep of death; heaven and earth are silent around him, waiting …
You could quite literally have heard a pin drop as the Headmaster said these final words, and we stood as one for a few moments of contemplative silence, before heading off to the first period.
Are we made to worship God? Yes. Should our students be made to worship as part of their education in an Anglican school? I think so.
References: Mason, Michael; Singleton, Andrew; and Webber, Ruth. “The Spirituality of Young Australians.” International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, vol. 12, no. 2. August 2007, pp. 149–163. Moore, Natasha. “We asked Australians if they believe in God or the supernatural. Here’s what they said.” ABC News, 4th April 2021. Accessed 7th May 2022
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-04/spiritualsupernatural-realities-australians-weig-in-thiseaster/100046122
Pusey, Edward Bouverie, trans. The Confessions of Saint Augustine. Project Gutenberg, 1838/2002. Accessed 7th May 2022
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3296/3296-h/3296-h. htm#link2H_4_0001>
Underhill, Evelyn. Worship. London: Nisbet, 1936.
As the Chaplain at All Saints’ College, I love sharing worship with all our students from Year 3 to Year 12 every week. Junior School chapel is one of the highlights of my Mondays and is always full of enthusiastic Year 3 to Year 6 students who love to join in. Our Senior School chapels offer a wonderful chance for reflection and prayer in a sacred space where all can come as they are and meet God. It is always a joy to be together.
However, like many, we have had to adapt how we do worship at times when Covid restrictions have meant we cannot always meet in person.
In Term 1 this year, our Senior School met together for chapel via Microsoft Teams - broadcast from the Chapel with a couple of student readers on hand. Students stayed in their Tutor Group classes, watching, listening and joining in with responses and a hymn recorded by our music team and some student singers. I heard that there was some particularly enthusiastic singing coming from some of the staff when the hymns came on!
For our Junior School chapels, we pre-recorded the service onto a PowerPoint (thank you YouTube tutorials!) and still had plenty of involvement from our Service Captains and
classes taking turns to read prayers, share photos and more. The students have become ‘pros’ at presenting to camera and it has been lovely to see them innovate and learn while still showing great respect as we lead others in worship.
Meeting virtually or via video hasn’t been quite the same as meeting in person, but our weekly chapel services still offered students the opportunity to connect to God and the wider community - so important in a time when we have often felt disconnected.
Our Easter Service is usually a big affair involving the whole school - from Kindy to Year 12 - and is a joyful celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. This year, we couldn’t all meet together, so some creativity was required!
Our Junior School students went on an ‘Easter Chapel Walk’ to hear the stories of Holy Week and have some time to reflect and pray. They heard about Palm Sunday while sitting under a tree and using their senses. Stopping near the Canteen, they were invited to reflect on The Last Supper. Pausing outside the Chapel and looking up at the cross gave students an opportunity to consider the events following Jesus’ arrest until his death. And finally, a walk through the labyrinth completed the journey from despair to hope and was topped off by tying colourful ribbons in a ‘tree of hope’ near their classrooms and making a ‘hope stone’ to take home.
Our Senior School Easter Service was delivered via Teams, although it included some special features. An amusing studentmade vox pops video on ‘What does Easter mean to you’ set the scene for students to share their thoughts. During the service we heard the story of Easter alongside the reflections of three senior students who offered their words of hope. One shared their thoughts via video from Covid isolation and another from home, safeguarding due to a compromised immune system. Their thoughtful and insightful musings included the role that God, community, family and the loving actions of others play in inspiring hope. At the end of the service, while listening to a beautiful rendition of Amazing Grace, students from each Tutor Group were invited to add a flower to a wooden cross which was set up on The Common. The decorated cross was beautiful and sent students off on holidays with a reminder how God’s love can even overcome death.
With all that has recently been going on in the world, from the pandemic to the war in The Ukraine, to all the many other troubles we are aware of, the words of Lauren Daigle’s song Look Up Child have kept coming back into my head. They especially spoke to me this Easter. When we find it hard to hope, when darkness seems to be winning - God invites us to look up and look around. God is there. God always was there and always will be - inviting us to receive love, forgiveness, strength, healing and hope.
When face-to-face worship has not been possible, God has been there – in the Teams meetings and student prayers and PowerPoint presentations. I am excited to transition back to being together again this term but have also really appreciated the opportunity to continue to worship together. I am so thankful for the technology that has allowed us to do so. Whatever our worship may look like, it continues to be the greatest privilege to share with our College Community and I look forward to continuing to witness God at work in and through all those present.
The Reverend Liz Flanigan, Chaplain All Saints’ College, WA
“Music … gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, and life to everything ...” (attributed to Plato)
As a music teacher, and a religious educator, I constantly see the powerful effects of music on students. Whether it is listening to a piece of music, singing and performing together in a worship band setting, or engaging with songs that are meaningful and liberating, students seem able to connect with their emotions, and the human condition, more expressively through this medium. This is an important consideration when thinking about teenagers and worship in an Anglican college.
At Coomera Anglican College, we have a significant worship band program that has been operating since 2011. In this program, we cater for approximately sixty students who are members of either the Senior Secondary, Junior Secondary or Primary Worship Bands. The focus of the program is to provide a safe and appealing space for likeminded musicians to connect and rehearse meaningful music for worship services and community events.
Each week our students attend a contemporary and thought-provoking worship led by either the secondary Faith and Spirituality Coordinator, or the primary Lay Chaplain. Most of our students come to us with little religious knowledge, and only a small percentage of the cohort regularly attend church. However, I believe music in a school worship setting has the potential to enable students to connect more fully with the intended message, if our choices are purposeful and thoughtful. As we know, adolescence is a time of puberty, hormones, and tremendous physical and emotional change making every lived experience appear vitally important. Teenagers
tend to be drawn to music as a source of comfort, selfreflection, guidance, and identity formation. It is important therefore to consider what will engage the students both lyrically and musically when choosing communal worship band songs.
Music has the ability to transcend emotions and invite us into liminal spaces. It also has the capacity to alter our perception of reality, so that we see the world slightly differently and become more open to the mystery of the divine presence. Through expressive melodies, driving rhythms and rising key changes, music can expand our consciousness and help us to convey a shared understanding of the world beyond the written and spoken word. I believe that through communal singing, using culturally relevant music with theologically accessible ideas, students can emotionally, cognitively and creatively engage in a more spiritual experience in the worship setting.
In everyday culture, students are hearing music in advertisements, on television, in movies and in gaming. The compositional techniques used in melodies and harmonies today are quite different from the music from even fifty years ago. Older hymns, with their distinctive religious language and sound, can be quite jarring to the ears of the modern teenager. If students are unfamiliar with the music and its context, it can seem dated, irrelevant, unimportant, and unapproachable. At the same time, however, not all contemporary Christian music is suitable in a school context either. Lyrics are often laden with heavy religious language focusing on the sacrificial blood of atonement. Furthermore,
2022 Coomera Anglican College Senior Worship Band
the style of ten minute, highly repetitive worship songs can be foreign to worldly teenagers. It is important to realise that not only can incorrect music choices be prohibitive to inclusion, but they can also undermine the affirming Christian worldview we are aiming to present. We need to ask ourselves, is this language and style helpful if we are endeavouring to engage predominantly secular students with an ever-loving, ever-present, ever-gracious God?
I believe that the guiding criteria for music in the worship setting needs to be authenticity. What music will allow teenagers to genuinely participate in worship? What words are meaningful and real for them? What is the Christian message that we ultimately want them to hear? We need to engage students with genres and lyrics that reflect their understanding of faith and speak to them in a meaningful way that is both affirming and invitational.
At Coomera Anglican College, we have found that the most authentic worship band songs in our repertoire are the songs that we have written ourselves. In partnership with professional song writers, we have composed three original songs with the Senior Worship Band and one original song with the Junior Worship Band in the last few years. As part of this process, the students are guided to create their own lyrics, melodies, harmonies, and structure. Interestingly, the students naturally generate meaningful and theologically sound lyrics from their lived experience as teenagers, and from what they know and have learned in the worship space. The music itself is inspired by the culture they live in, and the music they enjoy. As a result, the original songs in the worship band repertoire are favourites within our community because they are appealing to the student body, and they speak out of our culture. These songs represent our college’s authentic expression and understanding of the Christian message.
In conclusion, the Coomera Anglican College worship band program strives to involve our audiences and help them connect with meaningful lyrics using contemporary music that stirs the soul. The music we compose and perform addresses the important Christian messages of unconditional love, grace, forgiveness, acceptance, faith, and the serving of others in our community. We endeavour to provide advocacy to our music students in the faith space to foster an authentic spiritual response from the staff, students, and families at the college.
Sing with us! Imogen, Lindsey, Marie and Ashley.
Sharing the joy! Mitchell and Lescure.
Having a duo of a time! Hayden and Chelsea.
Keeping it casual. Ashlyn, Sienna and Lilly.
A few years ago, I was hiking with a group of Year 10 students on the Bibbulmun Track near Walpole in southern Western Australia. We often passed other hikers and struck up conversations. One woman to whom I spoke had been walking the track for weeks with her husband and was intending to complete all of it. She said, “Being out here like this, reminds you of how little you really need in life.” Some food, water, shelter, warmth and company and life was complete, even if you could fit most of it in a backpack.
Unusual situations do indeed have the power to remind us of things we otherwise would not have remembered. During the last two years many schools across the country have had to adjust the nature of their school worship because of COVID. Christ Church Grammar School has only recently joined this experience. Our adjustments to chapel services have reminded me of some important truths about worship, particularly in school settings. This has been especially evident in our Preparatory School services, directed at five to twelve-year-old boys.
Our Preparatory School services have moved from being a Pre-Primary-Year 6 gathering in our large chapel to a pre-recorded video service that students watch in their classrooms at the same time across the school. The feedback has been that students and staff preferred the video services over the in-person gatherings. I found this perplexing. What was more appealing about a video service? This is certainly not true of parishes, where overwhelmingly parishioners prefer to be there in person. One of the reasons, I believe, is that the video services effectively involve the senses. Music features in every
moment of these services. This may be the congregational hymns or songs the students sing along to in their classrooms, but more often it is the background music that accompanies the call to worship, readings, prayers, or homilies. Colours and pictures feature throughout. It just will not do in a video service to have a ‘talking head’ on the screen for too long.
As our video chapels developed, I found myself featuring less and less in the videos and students featuring far more instead. Editing the videos showed me that variety of involvement created more engaging viewing. Two Chapel Captains are appointed each term to assist with chapels and they ended up introducing chapels, conducting readings and prayers, and even writing and conducting the homilies. They would regularly involve friends when extra roles or bodies were required. Back in the classrooms, students would sing to hymns led on the screen, involving them and reminding us that the word ‘liturgy’ translates as ‘the work of the people’ and that it would not do to make these videos an entirely passive experience.
The Reverend Nicholas Russell, Chaplain | Christ Church Grammar School, WAThe services of worship in our prayer books contain something of a story. A story that moves through praise and confession, absolution, revelation, response and participation. Video services are no different. Children and adults are gripped by stories. The ‘screen-time’ we so quickly limit our own children to usually involves engagement with stories of some kind – whether these be in movies or TV shows, or even video games which nearly always involve a narrative of some kind. Worship without story is like food without flavour; bland and unappealing. Our series during Lent explored the Joseph story in Genesis. This was a story that seemed to grip the students and remained in their memories, so much so that throughout the term I found many students in class would mistakenly forget that we had covered Joseph in chapel, not class. I knew at these moments that the story had entered into their minds and would now not easily leave.
As I spent many hours over the last term editing chapel videos and viewing the end result, I was also reminded that no matter how slick my videos, no matter how much music or colour, narrative or student involvement I had, I could never compete on entertainment with what these students view in their own time. A Marvel movie, any Marvel movie is always going to be more entertaining to the students of Christ Church Grammar School than a
Preparatory School Video Chapel. But this reminded me that a video chapel is not primarily there for entertainment (even if they are entertaining). They offer something much more significant than the movies and games the students engage with in their own time – they offer Christ. Without a focus on Christ, these videos would be just a laughable attempt at entertainment. But with Christ they offer meaning, hope, purpose and life itself, even life to the full. My inability to match something of studio quality reminded me that this video worship is offering something far more powerful than any Marvel movie ever has.
I wonder if the life of the woman I met on the Bibbulmun Track changed once she returned to her home and normal life. Did she have a looser connection to her possessions, a greater desire to give rather than to receive, knowing that most of what we really need can fit into a backpack? I hope so. Likewise, will our worship change when restrictions are lifted and chapels return to normal? I hope so. Indeed, ‘normal’ has been irrevocably changed. Our in-person gatherings, when they return, cannot forget the need to engage the senses, a variety of people, story and most of all Christ himself.
God bless you on this journey in your school.
St Peter’s College, SA
2022 marks 175 years since the Church of England Collegiate School of South Australia opened its doors to 11 students in a school room of the Holy Trinity Church on North Terrace, Adelaide; it was 15 July 1847, just 11 years after South Australia was established. Following the arrival of the first Bishop of Adelaide, Augustus Short in 1848, the School’s name was changed to the Church of England Collegiate School of St Peter. In 1850, the School moved to its current Hackney location and Bishop Short was instrumental in establishing the School in the tradition of the great public schools of England.
Incorporated in 1849, the School’s purpose was, and remains today, to teach the Holy Scriptures and the principles of Christian religion in the context of the Anglican Church through the development of a sound and liberal education. An Anglican school, St Peter’s College is inclusive and invites people of other faiths, or none, to join the community and take full advantage of the educational program provided. In 1890 the School adopted its motto Pro Deo et Patria (for God and Country) with its values centred upon truth and service. These values, along with respect, remain firm today.
For the past 174 years St Peter’s College has been honoured to have been educating the minds, hearts and spirits of our students. The School has a proud history of academic success including three Nobel Laureates, ten Australian Premiers, 42 Rhodes Scholars and a new generation of young leaders. Above all, the School is proud of the role it plays in developing confident, compassionate, capable and caring graduates who are positive contributors to our nation.
On the eve of St Peter’s College’s 175 Year Anniversary, plans are afoot to celebrate the School’s rich history, enduring traditions, achievements and values. A range of community activities and events including a Gala Dinner on Saturday 6 August 2022, will be delivered across the year providing opportunities for the School community to come together, to celebrate the School’s history and heritage and to commemorate this historic occasion. A St Peter’s College Community Church Service will be held
in the Holy Trinity Church, the School’s original site, on the eve of the 2022 school year and a Founders’ Day Service commemorating the founding of the School will be held at the commencement of Term 3.
It is fitting that St Peter’s College, one of Australia’s leading Anglican day and boarding schools for boys, will celebrate this significant milestone in what is also the 175th Anniversary of the Anglican Diocese of Adelaide.
Trinity Church c.1870
St Peter’s College c.2020
It was with great delight that Tintern Grammar was able to hold its annual Cathedral service during the time when the Cathedral was hosting the art installation of GAIA by Luke Jerram.
Every year, Tintern Grammar’s Secondary School plus community members and parents gather together to worship in St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne. This year our theme was, ‘Dear World, Love God’ with John 3:16 as our main focus. Throughout the service the music, the prayers and the sermon all reflected this theme and linked together to remind students of God’s love for creation, and God’s love for us. Our preacher was The Reverend Dr John Capper who enthralled the students with his reflection on this theme. The 7-metre-wide Globe hanging and rotating slowly at the front of the Cathedral meant that our world was central to the whole service.
Our choir sang, On Eagles Wings and our Choral Cocaptain Ella Jones performed an acapella solo of the song, His Eye is on the Sparrow, a hymn written in 1905 by Civilla D Martin and Charles H Gabriel. This, when placed alongside reflections on the vastness of the universe, provided a moving and grounding moment within the service. It also stood as a reminder that the God of the big is also the God of the specific.
The Reverend Alison Andrew, Head of RST/RAVE & School Chaplain | Tintern Grammar, VIC
Arden Anglican School’s Motto, In God My Joy, relates to the theme of Worship. Records suggest the Motto was chosen by Miss Emily Gurney, who as an assistant teacher at the Beecroft campus of Presbyterian Ladies’ College (PLC), Croydon bought the school from the PLC Council in 1929, renamed it Arden because the leafy surrounds reminded her of the ‘Forest of Arden’ in Shakespeare’s play, As You Like It, and became Headmistress in 1930. In our centenary year (1922 – 2022), it has been instructive to reflect on the blessings that God has bestowed on Arden throughout its history through the service of many religious people like Miss Gurney and ultimately their desire to worship and give praise to our God and Father.
Worship at Arden is integral to school life. Students enjoy opportunities to worship and staff share a worship time at the beginning of each term. Parents and families are included in both special and ordinary worship opportunities. Worship helps ensure the school community focuses on the opening words of the School’s Mission Statement: Centred on the Christian faith and finding joy in God
Worship starts with our Pre-Schoolers, who are introduced to God in their first week at school. Of course, many threeand-four-year-old children do not have any concept of God or have an emerging knowledge of God through their family’s encouragement. Worship for this age group starts as action songs which help the children learn about God. The songs create the opportunity to talk about God and to introduce children to the truths of the Bible. The songs become ‘hooks’ for remembering that God is great; God is everywhere, and that God has done and can do remarkable things. It is also a wonderful privilege
to share that God has amazingly strong love for us. With the support of the Pre-School’s educators, these songs become favourites to sing throughout the children’s time in the Pre-School.
Junior School Chapel times are an extension of what the Pre-Schoolers have experienced in their own classroom: action songs, a Bible message and prayer. The Junior Campus holds two Chapels each Monday to promote the need to meet together to worship our great God. The first is for the younger students and the second is for the older students. The two Chapels follow the same theme and basic content but allow the style of song and message to be tailored to the different age groups of the children. The students actively participate in the services through their reading of the Bible, leading of action songs and sharing of prayers. It is important that the children see themselves as active worshippers and not simply consumers of a product. Just like worship at church, worship at Arden encourages everyone’s involvement
David Watkins, Acting Chaplain & Head of Junior Campus | Arden Anglican School, NSWand emphasises the importance of our relationship with our Father and our Lord Jesus. The Junior Campus has a dedicated Junior Campus Chaplain, Mrs Bronwyn Friend. Her desire to help the students grow in their understanding and indeed their faith helps ensure our worship time is looked forward to each week and enjoyed by students and staff.
Our Secondary Chapel follows similar principles of worship to Chapel in the Junior school: songs of praise, a relevant message for the students and staff and prayer. A joy of Arden Secondary Chapel and worship has been the re-introduction post COVID of the Chapel bands. It has been uplifting to see our talented musicians and singers share their gifts by serving in this way. It is also a wonderful way of engaging secondary students as seeing their peers leading the music is a way to promote their involvement and interest.
2022 has also witnessed the Year 12 Christian Outreach Prefects leading some of the Chapel services. Ultimately, when the ownership of worship is shared between students under the guidance of committed staff, then the students see the relevance to themselves and hear the commentary of themes in their own words.
When I joined the Junior Campus staff in Term 4 2009, I saw there was no weekly worship time but rather a mixture of assembly and Bible messages several times a week. In 2010 we introduced two Primary Chapel times, similar to what occurs today. I have always seen weekly worship times at a school as occasions when the school community gathers to praise as well as grow their knowledge and understanding of the true meaning of the Gospel and its relationship to their lives.
In 2022, I have had the privilege of being asked to be the Acting Chaplain for the whole school. In addition to the Junior Campus Chaplain, we have been joined by an Assistant Chaplain, The Reverend Sam Hwang. Together we have begun planning worship across the school. Term 1 saw the theme of ‘Joy’ and the book of Philippians being shared with all students in the school. The term finished with a wonderful Thanksgiving Service at the International Convention Centre at Darling Harbour. This occasion was to thank God for one hundred years of Arden and to have the investiture of our new Principal, Mr Justin Beckett. Every student, Pre-School to Year 12, attended the event, along with special guests including The Most Reverend Kanishka Raffel, Archbishop of Sydney; alumni; past and present staff; parents; and members of the school community. This event captured Arden’s inclusive culture, highlighted our Christian focus and allowed worship and recognition of the role God has played in Arden’s development.
The journey of Christian worship at Arden has lasted for one hundred years and in our Centenary year the message of the Gospel continues to be the light that guides our school.
In God My Joy.
In Church circles, worship – Liturgy – means ‘the work of the People’. It’s something we do as part of our day-to-day activities because we were made that way. Made to be a People who look towards their Creator with gratitude for all of the forgiveness and blessings we have received. To gather in prayer to remember someone we have lost or to lift up our concerns to God.
We take this notion very seriously at John Septimus Roe Anglican Community School (JSRACS). We weave worship into the fabric of our life together as a school community. We take every opportunity to ‘Let the word of Christ dwell in us richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in our hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.’ (Colossians 3:16)
Term 1 2022 challenged our community as we strove to keep worship to the fore in the face of COVID-19 restrictions. We believe worship is integral to who we are as a community, so we created as many small-scale and virtual gatherings as we could. Examples included visiting our Chapel in rostered year groups during recess and lunchtime to light a candle for Ukraine and to mourn the loss of a staff member as well as live streaming significant services such as our primary and secondary school Easter services.
Does worship matter? It certainly does at JSRACS. We consider worship to be the day-to-day aspect of what it means to be a functioning human, individually and as a community.
The Reverend Mark McCracken, Senior Chaplain
John Septimus Roe Anglican Community School, WAEaster Service Jason Bartell, Principal The Reverend Mark McCracken, Senior Chaplain
Our general pattern of worship at St Mary’s Anglican Girls’ School involves a combination prayer, teaching and praise services, and Eucharists for our students in Years 3 to 12. The fact that we gather in our Chapel of St Mary, a consecrated building with an altar placed at the centre of a raised sanctuary, sets the theological context for Anglican worship.
Our Chapel’s walls are adorned with two icons, Madonna and Child and Jesus Blesses the Children, written by a staff member, Ms Giada Dalli Cani, and a large wooden cross, which is draped in cloths of the liturgical seasonal colour, stands in the corner. These symbols are visual reminders of biblical foundations that lie at the heart of our Anglican teaching and worship.
When we Eucharist together, we not only use A Prayer Book for Australia (1995) as our foundation, but we also give thanks with the worldwide Anglican communion. Every year group from Years 3 to 12 engages in a Eucharist once per term, with special occasions, such as our Patronal Festival, being extra celebrations. The school’s boarding community also has one or two additional Eucharists per term, which are occasionally shared with boarders from our brother school, Hale.
Our prayer, teaching and praise services are planned with the liturgical calendar in mind and often involve Anglican collects and other prayers. The Bible readings and hymns are, of course, like those used by many Anglican communities.
Every June, a group of students is prepared for Baptism, Welcome to First Communion and Confirmation, with one of the bishops at a wonderful Anglican Eucharistic. Anglican
baptisms, weddings and funerals are held regularly in our Chapel of St Mary and special services are offered for Old Girls, grandparents, All Souls, Remembrance and Anzac Day, new boarding families, valedictory and Christmas Eve, as well as carol services at St George’s Cathedral.
In summary, all our worship is deeply grounded in our Anglican identity and traditions, with the hope and expectation that by the time our students graduate, they will have an appreciation of the many gifts that can flow from their time spent in an Anglican school.
The Reverend Richard Pengelley, Chaplain | St Mary’s Anglican Girls’ School, WA
Easter is traditionally the one time of the year when Perth College students gather as a whole group to celebrate. COVID-19 restrictions meant re-imagining how we could celebrate together, without being physically in each other’s presence. As we mark our 120th Anniversary this year with the theme of Story, our aim was to convey the central Christian message in a meaningful and engaging manner.
Students were guided through key aspects of Holy Week through a range of activities, singing, praying and storytelling in their classrooms.
The older students learnt how to make palm crosses, while the younger ones made palm branches out of paper. Our Year 3 students were videoed performing a choreographed presentation of The Washing of the Disciples’ Feet and later the Discovery of the Empty Tomb A time of silence marked Jesus’ death. Two of our choirs were pre-recorded to assist in the community singing of Lord of The Dance and As the Green Blade Rises which could be heard from various parts of the school.
Our Paschal candle, lit by our Sacristan, is decorated with part of a mural completed by the school community last year to represent the Noongar Seasons. Djeran is when the cooler weather sets in and bulbs, seeds, jam gum and berries are plentiful. Fishing is also a source of food at this time. In acknowledging the importance of Aboriginal culture, we contribute to the continuing of the Resurrection story and our school’s Reconciliation Plan.
Instead of a Greening of the Cross, older students’ handprints were brought together at the end of the service to signify both Jesus’ life of service and the way we continue to contribute to resurrection when we use our own hands for service. Younger students decorated their own class cross with their handprints.
It would be a stretch to claim St Paul as an Anglican. I would however like to claim him as a model for school chaplaincy in Anglican schools. In his letters, Paul was at pains to develop his small communities, spread out across the known world. Paul understood and promoted his evangelical model as being based on small groups, who knew each other, and whose success as the protoChurch was dependent on the relationship of its members one to the other.
Paul was inclusive. All were welcome. His communities were diverse. The rich met with slaves, with merchants and tradespeople. In the cultural melting pots of Corinth, or Colossae the Silk Road and the ocean met, bringing different and distinctive religious and philosophical ideas into close contact.
Most significantly for me, Paul in his Areopagus sermon claims the plinth of the unknown god. “Well you know God now!” he says.
Paul was expert at entering a context, immersing himself in it, and finding out what God was doing. He then joined in, and with a theologically light hand on the tiller, steered and guided the nascent community towards this hitherto unknown God.
The Reverend Linda Pilton, Chaplain Perth College, WA The Reverend James Tabor, School Chaplain Frederick Irwin Anglican School, WAOur schools bear many similarities to this model; many of our students come with little knowledge or understanding of the Church, or from different faith traditions or agnostic traditions. Everyone worships something; it might be money, or a football team, or a celebrity. We all need to ascribe value to something outside of ourselves. It is part of our human identity. Too few young people see God as the answer to that yearning, but in the same way as Paul’s seekers did, we can point to the plinth and say, “There, that is your God.”
Many of our students are skeptical and are told from an early age to beware of metaphorical Greeks bearing gifts. With the plethora of sensory input, our young people need to place filters in front of everything and look at each new artifact with caution.
Against this backdrop, we are charged with encouraging our students to practice gathering, and to enter into a regular pattern of worship. The challenge for schools is: How do we encourage the ‘rhythm of life’ in our communities that Paul placed at the centre of his?
At Frederick Irwin Anglican School (FIAS) we looked to Paul for our solution. He had encouraged the worship of the Unknown God in tiny communities, characterised by invitational worship. Friends invited friends, and trust developed early on. There was social (and at times, political) risk in proclaiming faith in this God, and faith was not something to be shared too widely, or declared in public. Perhaps there was something in that. How could we model Paul’s ‘tiny communities’ at FIAS?
The answer lay in our Secondary School House Groups of 10-15 students which meet every morning. Up until the beginning of 2022 these groups comprised students from Years 7-12 but, in order to comply with COVID Health Regulations, the House Groups were reorganised into
groups of students from the same year level. We realised we had ready-made Pauline communities of friends who met regularly and for whom it was normal to do so. House Holy Huddles was born.
Holy Huddles was conceived as a Biblically-centred discussion and prayer time. Each week the students are given a Reading, a Reflection (written by the Chaplain) and a series of questions to discuss. Huddles also include recitation of the School Prayer and House Prayer. We had achieved our goal of a student led (and teacher supervised) opportunity to participate in prayer, reflection and discussion amongst friends. Topics for discussion vary, and the questions are altered to reflect the developmental stages of the students.
Each week House Groups have a new Huddle topic. Subjects we have talked about include Christmas (the Feast of the Annunciation, and waiting); St Valentine (What is love?); and Ramadan and Eid (How do others celebrate?).
After one term it is far too early to tell if Holy Huddles will enter into the ‘rhythm of life’ in our school. However, we do believe that ‘participation will lead to understanding’, and perhaps this will ‘pave the way for deeper understanding’ as The Reverend Dr Daniel Heischman suggests1
House Holy Huddles give our students an opportunity to lead worship among their friends, to see worship in this way as normative, to participate regularly, and to engage with the Unknown God in a trusting and friendly way. Perhaps Paul was on to something.
1Enhancing our Anglican Identity, The Reverend Dr Daniel Heischman, Anglican Schools Australia.
We’ve made exciting progress towards our goal for a carbon-neutral portfolio by 2030.
Last year we announced an ambitious target: a carbonneutral portfolio by 2030. The climate warnings are clear, and we can’t ignore them — it’s time for drastic action. As well as the environmental impact, inaction on climate means economic systems will face major disruption. We need to make a paradigm shift in our economic models to protect our members’ retirement savings.
We are delighted to announce that our work over the last 12 months has confirmed that a carbonneutral investment portfolio by 2030 is achievable. We’ve also set an interim target: by 2025, we aim to reduce carbon in our portfolio by 35%. By using the collective capital of committed NGS members, we will support companies building sustainable, lower carbon businesses, while aiming to improve on current average long-term investment returns to secure the retirement of our members.
As we continue towards our target, we maintain our core purpose to act in the best financial interests of our members. As an Industry SuperFund, this duty is paramount and is considered and reflected in all the work we do.
Since making our announcement just over 12 months ago, we’ve hit the ground running and have made exciting progress towards our goal. We’ve recently released a comprehensive member update to let you know what we’ve done so far and what this work tells us.
We’re proud of the work we’re doing in this space — our carbon-neutral by 2030 target is yet to be matched by any other super fund. We hope that our ambition and achievements encourage others to take greater steps towards a brighter future for us all.
You can get up to date with our progress and find out what we’ve achieved so far at ngssuper.com.au/cnupdate
If you’d like to chat with our team, you can call our Helpline on 1300 133 177 Monday to Friday, 8am–8pm (AEST/AEDT).
The Anglican Schools Commission (ASC) Board launched its Strategic Plan 2025 in February this year on a very hot Perth day with a stirring Welcome to Country by Professor Len Collard, Noongar elder and friend to the ASC. The occasion brought together, in a socially distanced seating fashion, some 40 people whose commitment to Anglican schools is undeniable – former and present Archbishops, Chairs and Board members, Principals and significant players in the establishment and growth of the ASC. The pride in how this organization has grown from one school in Western Australia in 1986 to 15 schools across three states in 2022, with another one set to open in 2024, was palpable. Important to all present, was the consistent core purpose of our schools – to provide high quality, low fee, inclusive Christian education, firmly grounded in the comprehensive tradition of the Anglican Church. The first core direction of this 2025 Plan focuses on our Anglicanism, specifically ‘Growing our Anglican Identity’. Perhaps the most visible and central part to doing so is through worship, the outward expression of our faith, so it will be with great interest to see how this plays out.
In recent years though (and going a lot further into the past), the ASC Board through its CEO, The Reverend Peter Laurence OAM, has clearly demonstrated that worship is at the centre of what makes our schools distinctly Anglican, with a capital A? There are diverse components to this which come together in a purposeful manner, some at the macro and others at the micro level. Here are just some that have worked well from a governance and leadership level. Needless to say, our schools do all of the ‘onground’ work that builds their worshipping communities.
First, the Board is committed to our schools being living, breathing, vibrant, meaningful Anglican worshipping communities. The members’ expertise tick boxes that one would expect of any corporate Board, but unlike all Boards, it has a spiritual heart, filled predominantly with communicant Anglicans who view education in its broadest sense and a distinguishing element, namely, their commitment to the beliefs and values of our Church.
Second, the Board has the good fortune of an exceptional
Mrs Lynne Thomson, Chair, Anglican Schools Commission The Reverend Dr Gift Makwasha leads St George’s Anglican Grammar School students and staff in worship at St George’s Cathedral, Perth.CEO, who has kept the ASC’s Anglican identity at the centre of our being, with worship in schools key to its expression and development. What follows are just some of the steps taken to support and promote worship.
First, in the master plan for each new school is the location of the Chapel. Now we all know that a building does not a Christian make, but the location and architecture of each of the ASC schools’ chapels make a statement about the importance of worship in the life of the school community. They are beautiful, inspiring, peaceful places and the typically large glass window panes with light streaming through have us immediately feel God’s presence. For most in our communities, this is a building they may have never entered before coming to their school – it is different to their life’s experience, very different, yet the Chapel, and what happens inside it, has the potential to become integral to triggering new beginnings in their faith journey, new and marvellous spiritual insights, how they may develop as human beings and contribute to their small world, and perhaps in time, a much larger one.
Second, we know that the School Chaplain is key to any school’s Christian ministry. The Chaplain develops rich liturgies and leads age-appropriate worship – worship that is steeped in the Gospels, is joyful and musical, celebratory, prayerful and reflective; a worship pattern that is expected, in what is otherwise an ever-changing day and world; a worship space that is safe. It is with this worship background that Chapel can be a truly meaningful place when life doesn’t go as planned or when a community is faced with tragedy. Now, we all know that finding a priest whose calling is schools, is also well-equipped to develop, inspire and lead a worshipping community aged from four to sixty-something and is prepared, in some instances, to leave home, whether it be another state or another country, can be a rare thing. This is what ‘true vocation’ is all about.
The ASC is fortunate to have a CEO who has a big picture approach to seeking out chaplains for our schools. It can be particularly challenging for School Principals to know
where to start the search and to be patient waiting for success. Having one person who has a long-term view of attracting priests to school chaplaincy, who is creative in searching them out, who plants seeds with those he believes may be interested in coming to an ASC school at some point in their life have proven to be successful strategies leading to many wonderful appointments to our schools. We are blessed indeed to have a rich, diverse and deeply caring team of Chaplains leading worship.
Third, beginning in 2019, an initiative was promoted for ASC school leaders and aspiring leaders to study the oneyear Wollaston Certificate for Anglican Leaders. Initially, a face-to-face course, during Covid times it has been presented over Zoom with growing numbers involved. Most teaching is undertaken by the Wollaston Theological College lecturers. Comments from participants reflected the benefit of gaining deeper knowledge of the Bible (Old and New Testaments), the Church’s traditions, the contexts in which they were created and how they live out today. One of the many possible outcomes for schools is the more meaningful role these leaders can take during worship services. Young people seeing adults they know and respect being engaged, reflective and prayerful is a powerful role model indeed. One day we hope that most teaching staff in ASC schools will have undertaken this introductory theological certificate.
Fourth, each year Year 11 student leaders across all Western Australian Anglican schools spend a day with the Archbishop, The Most Reverend Kay Goldsworthy AO, the ASC CEO and other invited leaders, the focus of which is leading in Anglican schools. It is such a special day and opportunity for student leaders to meet the Archbishop, hear her story, her road to vocation, her commitment to God, the Church and its people and well beyond. Proximity to the Archbishop is powerful in the very best of ways. The day opens with a short liturgy and concludes with the Archbishop leading worship. Those students return to their schools filled with ideas to put into action, but more importantly, a worship experience with their Archbishop. Surely this brings them to experiencing their school chapel services with renewed hearts and eyes. We know this to be true, as these student leaders return for a half day reunion in Year 12, when they share their stories and struggles of leadership with the Archbishop and one another, culminating in a time of worship in the Archbishop’s private chapel.
I know that I have touched on diverse and what may seem like random thoughts on worship and how the actions of the Board and CEO in particular can contribute to worship in direct and indirect ways. As the hymn proclaims, “we are companions on a journey”, one that twists and turns at times and follows a straight path at others. Importantly, it is a journey that is always seeking to be “onwards and upwards” – a goal that can only be achieved if we understand the deep foundations of our Anglican identity.
Mrs Lynne Thomson
With the recent consecration of ‘The Chapel of the Good Shepherd’ by The Right Reverend Clarence E Bester, Bishop of Wangaratta, it is timely to reflect on the importance of worship at Cathedral College Wangaratta. The Chapel proudly resides in the heart of our school and is an inclusive, inspiring, peaceful and reflective space in which students, staff and the wider College community gather in worship and communion. It is a prominent reminder of what it means to be an Anglican School and worship’s important role in being distinctly Anglican.
As Chaplains, we ensure that worship is an integral part of our students’ school life through participation in regular religious and liturgical aspects of Chapel Services. The familiarity of regular worship, ritual and reflection provide students with a space to explore their spirituality and faith in a way that has meaning and relevance to them. Age-appropriate, pertinent and engaging, students are encouraged and empowered to participate in prayer and contribute to their own spiritual identity through group worship.
We are supported by The Right Reverend John Parkes AM, former Bishop of Wangaratta. During his address at the recent consecration service, he reflected on the paper written by The Reverend Dr Dan Heischman, of the American National Association of Episcopal Schools. Heischman’s paper, ‘Enhancing our Anglican Identity’, articulates the foundations for our College, and for the significance of the Chapel within it. Heischman identifies five marks of Anglican identity; Worship, Faith, Reason, Inclusion, and Character and Service. His reflections are shared below.
That we worship, how we worship and how we express
our beliefs through our worship define who we are as an Anglican School and shapes our Anglican identity. The regular rhythm of collective prayer builds us a sense of unity in our community. Our worship provides space in which the absolutely other can break through into every day. It offers a time of reflection and peace in an otherwise frenetic daily round. Participation in worship can open the door to a deeper understanding of faith and life. The Chapel of the Good Shepherd, at the centre of our school both physically and spiritually, proclaims the centrality of worship to our mission.
Faith and worship are obverse sides of the same coin. For us, faith is incarnational; that in Jesus Christ God took on our humanity to open for us the door to God’s divinity. It takes as a fundamental given that God acts in the here and now of everyday life. Our faith is not sectarian. We do not stand over and against the culture in which we live and move and have our being - we engage with it. We expect to find rumours of angels in the midst of the mundane daily round. Our faith is invitational, and not imposed. We invite our staff, students and parents to explore, study and
The Reverend Mark Mickelburough & The Reverend Catherine Carden, College Chaplains Cathedral College Wangaratta, VICtalk about the issue of faith. And our faith is interactive – we welcome the conversation with people whose faith tradition is other than Christian and with those of no faith.
Anglican theological understanding is expressed by analogy with the image of the three-legged stool. We look to revelation, tradition and reason to discover God’s truth. We don’t believe that Christians need to hang up their brains as they enter our Chapel. On the contrary, we see intellect as a gift from God, one of the primary ways we discover what God has made us to be. Our faith relishes interaction with the other academic disciplines. Does not shrink from asking the hard questions. Accepts the discoveries of science as part of God’s evolving interaction with the creation – to be embraced and not rejected because they may pose uncomfortable questions for belief. We value academic rigour and don’t seek to carve out parts of the world as beyond the scope of critical enquiry.
Cathedral College is intentionally an inclusive community. Since the school’s founding, there have been more nonAnglicans than Anglicans in our student body. Inclusion is both a reality and a goal. We believe that our school is enriched by the presence of those who practice other faiths or those who have no faith. We welcome respectful conversation and trust that we can learn from each other. Pluralism is not the same as relativism. We do not understand that all claims to truth are equally valid. We do not give up on the value of our Christian truths, but we can nevertheless respectfully and openly engage with those whose understanding differs from ours.
Character and service go hand in hand – in the words of the old song, ‘You can’t have one without the other’. Character leads to the service of others, and the service of others builds character. The model for us is Jesus, who came not to be served but to serve. Jesus the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep. Through service, we see more clearly our shared common humanity. We develop character – a moral and ethical framework to equip us well to deal with life’s challenges and opportunities.
Worship, faith, reason, inclusion, character and service. These are the foundational principles on which we build. The cross on the roof of our building tells the world what is important to us. As the beating heart of the school, the Chapel reminds us hourly and daily where our foundations lie. Building on those foundations, we have a structure that will be a blessing to us and future generations of staff, students and families, which the winds of change cannot undermine’.
Thanks be to God.
Canberra Girls Grammar School (CGGS) is delighted to announce the appointment of experienced educational leader Mrs Terrie Jones as its new Principal.
Terrie, who is currently the Head of St Michael’s Grammar School, a leading K-12 Anglican school in Melbourne, will commence in her role as the 16th Principal at CGGS in October 2022.
Terrie’s previous positions include Deputy Principal, Head of Learning Innovation at Ravenswood School for Girls in Sydney, and Director of Service Learning at Abbotsleigh. She began her teaching career in the NSW Government School sector before commencing her career in independent girls’ schools with roles at Methodist Ladies’ College Melbourne and Pymble Ladies’ College (Sydney).
Terrie believes schools have a very important role to play in the provision of learning environments that foster an acceptance and celebration of diversity, and encourage students as creators of a global future filled with hope and promise.
Terrie said she is honoured to become Canberra Girls Grammar School’s Principal at such an exciting time for the School, which will be celebrating its Centenary in 2026.
“Canberra Girls Grammar School is a well-respected educational institution in Canberra, nationally and globally and it is my privilege to have the opportunity to lead such a strong, resilient school community at this stage in its history,” she said.
“I look forward to working with the staff to continue to support and enable students to develop confidence and thrive socially, emotionally and academically, while discovering their strengths and interests in school and beyond.”
Mrs Sue Hart, Chair of the Board, said Terrie’s vast experience in single-sex girls’ schools and in coeducational contexts will greatly benefit the girls, boys and young women at Canberra Girls Grammar.
“Terrie is a strong advocate for the voices of young people and is committed to educational experiences that empower and enrich their lives so that they realise their potential and lead full and meaningful lives,” Mrs Hart said. “The Board is confident that Terrie’s vision, leadership and strong track record at a range of schools will guide Canberra Girls Grammar into the next stage of growth and development.”
Terrie has a Bachelor of Arts in English and Modern History, a Graduate Diploma in Secondary Education, a Master of Education and, has partially completed her Master of Business Administration.
She enjoys reading, walking in nature, the creative and performing arts, and engaging with a diverse range of perspectives.
Terrie succeeds Mrs Anna Owen, who stepped down in December after three years in the role. Ms Julie Jorritsma, who has been Acting Principal since January 2022, will continue in the role until the arrival of Terrie, with whom she will work collaboratively, ensuring a smooth transition until the end of the school year.
Everyone at Canberra Girls Grammar School – the Board, Executive team, staff, students and families – looks forward to welcoming Terrie to our school community.
With COVID-19 restrictions still in place in Western Australian schools and whole school events cancelled or moved online, planning an Easter Service was very challenging. Live streaming from the Chapel was possible but not very engaging for those viewing passively from a distant classroom. A pre-recorded service would have the benefit of being able to be shared with the wider community, including parents, but again most of our teachers and students would be unable to participate. How could we involve all our students from Kindergarten to Year 12 in a meaningful way?
At John Wollaston Anglican Community School (JWACS) our answer was to hold a ‘Lent Event’ – the idea being to plan a whole school activity which would take place during the period of Lent. An activity in which all ages could participate and reflect not just on the events of Easter but on its meaning for us and for our school as an Anglican community.
Paul, in his epistles to the Corinthians (2 Cor 5:11-21) and the Ephesians (2:11-22), talked about our ministry of reconciliation. If the death and resurrection of Jesus revealed God’s great love for us and enabled our reconciliation with God, how might we in turn be reconciled with one another? What would it look like if our school became a community of reconciliation? The first step would be to consider doing something together that gave everyone a sense of belonging and being valued. Of course, this linked wonderfully with the Anglican value of ‘inclusion’.
We asked our secondary student leaders for their ideas for a Lent Event theme and a whole school activity that would help us become a community of reconciliation. John Wollaston is a diverse school – with a mixture of cultures, races, abilities, and identities. We are also a Telethon Speech and Hearing School and our student leaders suggested that we hold a K-12 Sign-Along and make ‘Celebrating Difference’ our theme. During Lent we would all learn to sign a few words in AUSLAN. In
this way, we could celebrate members of our community with hearing loss and at the same time acknowledge the unique challenges they face with mask-wearing which prevents lip reading. By Easter, the whole school would be able to sign at least one song – We are Australian by the Seekers.
From Ash Wednesday until Maundy Thursday, every class from Kindergarten to Year 12 was busily engaged in learning to sign. By the end of Term 1, over a thousand students and teachers (and a great many parents at home) had participated in the Easter ‘Sign Along’ at JWACS. A compilation of film clips showing students of all ages signing became a much-anticipated feature of the pre-recorded Easter Service. As We Are Australian was projected into individual classrooms across the school, students and teachers could be seen signing along with the music.
Next year, we hope to come together as a whole school to celebrate Easter. It will be a traditional service in many respects but with one or two post-COVID changes. During Lent we will be participating in another whole school activity as part of our mission to become a community of reconciliation and at least one of the Easter hymns will be signed as well as sung.
A link to our AUSLAN ‘Sign Along’ is below: https://youtu.be/xHbbt6vCKf4
The Reverend Justine Coverdale, School Chaplain | John Wollaston Anglican Community School, WAChristian worship services in Australian Anglican Schools follow a rich tradition that is almost as old as the arrival of the First Fleet in Sydney Cove (Warrane) on 26 January 1788. By order of Governor Arthur Philip, the first Christian service conducted for the newly arrived settlers was held at 10.00am on Sunday, 3 February 1788. The service was conducted by The Reverend Richard Johnson and took place under ‘a great tree’.1
At The Illawarra Grammar School (TIGS) we have chapel once a fortnight for students in the Junior and Senior Schools. We do not have a dedicated chapel building, instead chapel is conducted in our large multipurpose buildings. Once a term in the Senior School, however, we have an outdoors chapel in one of our natural amphitheatres; we also have the occasional K-12 outdoors chapel. It is as close as we get to that first service under that great tree that the new Australians experienced 234 years ago.
Recently, I interviewed students across the Senior School to gauge their thoughts about the outdoors chapel. I knew that students really enjoyed the outdoors chapel, but I wanted to know why. I was impressed with the answers they gave.
Some students said our beautiful surrounds (and they are beautiful!) inspired their spirits to engage more with
chapel; others said that the sense of space the outdoors affords, gives them more room to allow their spirits to rise to the call to engage with God. On a similar note, some said the open spaces caused them to be more open to new ideas; others said the outdoors gave them a greater sense of agency as worshippers; and yet again others said chapel outdoors allowed them an opportunity to enjoy richer fellowship with their peers.
Place is an important theme in the Bible. My students have reminded me of this. Where we have chapel matters to them. It might have to matter more to us.
1 Murray, I.H. Australian Christian Life from 1788: an Introduction and an Anthology, Edinburgh, The Banner of Truth Trust, 1988, pp. 3-4.
The Reverend James Rogers, Deputy Principal & Chaplain The Illawarra Grammar School, NSWThere’s an old motto in Christian tradition, ‘lex orandi, lex credendi’, which means we express what we believe through prayer and worship. This is true in our Anglican schools where we express through worship what we believe about God and the Christian faith so that our whole school community can participate in the Christian story.
Worship originally came from an old English word, ‘weorthscipe’, and another word ‘worth-ship’. In other words, to worship means to acknowledge ‘worth’ and ‘worthiness.’ Thus, worship in our Anglican schools helps us to acknowledge God’s worth, to make time for the One who is “The Source” of all we have and are, and “in whom we live and move and have our existence” (cf. Acts 17:28).
At Lindisfarne Anglican Grammar School, Tweed Heads, we make and protect time for worship because we want our students to know that God is worth our time and that through worship we are drawn into an intimacy with this God and with each other.
This year at Easter, after devastating floods that left many in our community reeling, the story of the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, was particularly relevant
for our school community. It reminded us that God does not abandon us in times of suffering and immense pain. Rather, God shares our suffering and pain with us, and enables us with His Holy Spirit to get through the challenging times.
One of the most moving moments came when our Year 3 students dramatised the Easter story for our Junior School community. Through play and music, the teachers and students retold the story of God’s unconditional love for us, and reminded us that despite all that is awry in our world, our collective and personal lives will not end in tragedy.
It was a fitting way to end a challenging but utterly rewarding Term 1, buoyed by the hope of Easter and the joy of the resurrection.
The Reverend Constantine Osuchukwu, Chaplain Lindisfarne Anglican Grammar School, NSW
Members of the Beaconhills College community gathered at St James Anglican Church on Friday 25 March for the commissioning of the College’s Executive Principal, Mr Stephen McGinley.
A very warm and moving service marked this significant event in the College’s history. The Archbishop of Melbourne, The Most Reverend Philip Freier, delivered the sermon after which Stephen McGinley was presented with symbols of office representing different facets of college life.
Stephen received a Bible symbolising the faith and story upon which the College was founded from the Chair of Council, David Moseley; a student and staff roll signifying the importance of human relationships and the need to always remember the people you are charged to lead from Vicki Reid, the Head of Little Beacons, Sarah Rudiger, Pakenham Campus Principal and Sam Watson, Berwick Campus principal ; and a history of Beaconhills symbolising the need to nurture the College’s history and traditions as well as adopting new and contemporary ways of enhancing teaching and learning from the former Headmaster, Tony Sheumack.
He received a tree representing shared endeavour in educating the students and in accepting responsibility for their growth and welfare, and for learning to care for our environment from David Young, the College’s Business Manager.
Katie Bodsworth representing the Alumni presented the Executive Principal with a candle in recognition of their ongoing support for Stephen as the College’s leader. Katie said: “May your light shine, as you help other staff and students shine. May our College be a beacon of light in our community as we honour the pillar of Citizenship and Service - and may we always remember that making a difference for others and serving God honours our values of respect, compassion and integrity.”
In addition, Year 4 student Eve Moseley presented Mr McGinley with a hamper comprising a compass, football, musical score and a SolarBuddy1 symbolising the student voice. She asked him to … “accept these symbols of the other activities of the College, to develop students in all areas of their learning, experiences and opportunities. May the students learn, under your leadership and through the pillar of Our Global Community, about acceptance, tolerance and inclusiveness.”
Attendees including church representatives, College founders, staff, students, guests and Mr McGinley’s family were then treated to a performance by talented Year 10 flautist, Dylan Crossley.
Stephen McGinley acknowledged the wonderful opportunity he has been given to follow on from visionary College leaders who have impacted his life.
“You cannot imagine how grateful I feel to be here with you all in this place for this significant occasion in the life of our precious College,” he said.
“Beaconhills College is a shining light that has and will continue to shine in the lives of others.”
The Beaconhills community pledged to work with Stephen McGinley to further the College’s vision, mission and values and to create an environment in which all are valued and honoured.
1 SolarBuddy is a charity Beaconhills supports which helps supply solar lights to children and families around the world experiencing energy poverty.
Beaconhills College, VIC Year 4 student Eve Moseley presents Stephen with some symbols of office.
of worship given the now firmly established tradition of the whole school worshipping at St George’s Cathedral every Monday afternoon. You’ll know it is happening as the sea of bright red blazers weaves its way past businessmen and shoppers to meet me at St George’s Cathedral.
My family and I arrived in Australia in February 2017. The small town of Esperance was our intended destination to become the next chaplain at the Anglican Schools Commission’s school there. Plans changed however by the time I arrived and when my family and I landed in Perth, my destination was to become the Rector of Grace Anglican Church in Joondalup. I served this parish until December 2021, but always had a desire to return to leading worship within a school-based setting.
I gained my first insights into what it meant to be a School Chaplain when I was at Arundel School in Zimbabwe, an elite Anglican girls’ school. Becoming a School Chaplain was not entirely by desire at this time, but rather by divine dragging, despite my inherent passion for young people and helping them in their journey with God.
During my time in the USA, I always hesitantly accepted invitations to do school chapel services.
In 2011 I returned to Zimbabwe after 12 years in the USA and was appointed Dean of Studies at the Anglican seminary, only for the bishop to add another responsibility to my role that of Arundel School Chaplain.
It was at Arundel School that my passion for school chaplaincy was unearthed, and it has grown and evolved since that time.
I developed the passion to impact students as their School Chaplain with what I call the Three Ps:
1. Pray. In this fast-secularizing world students need spiritual role models who can influence them to enjoy worshipping and indeed appreciate the Anglican tradition of prayer and its importance in our lives. Living a prayerful life helps even in high school.
As the newly appointed School Chaplain of St George’s Anglican Grammar School (SGAGS) in the heart of the City of Perth, I am blessed to have St George’s Cathedral as our weekly place of worship. I have been given a magnificent building, steeped in Western Australian history, in which to develop an Anglican identity within the school.
In 2016 I visited SGACS on my first trip to Perth from Zimbabwe. I was visiting Perth on the invitation of the Archbishop of Perth to allow me to check if God was calling me to continue to serve and minister the word of the Lord ‘Down Under’.
As I passed by the school, I wondered to myself, “Quite interesting, a school in the middle of the city. How can that work?”. Little did I know that six years later I would become SGAGS’s first full-time School Chaplain. I must tell you SGAGS does work as a school and is an exciting and invigorating environment for students and staff. The school has a passion for its students and a deep sense
2. Play. School should be fun. I had fun in high school. I quickly realised that when you have fun at school you are likely to do well because you have a positive mindset. As a teacher now at St George’s as well as their School Chaplain, I am constantly seeking to instil a sense of fun into the work that I set for the students I teach, and I hope that my Monday morning reflections for staff also help them to see the fun in what they do as educators of young people in an Anglican School.
3. Plan. Students need to be organised, beginning with planning their day, doing their homework, distinguishing when to pray and when to play without confusing the two. This is probably the most important lesson that I am striving to deliver to all within the St George’s Anglican Grammar School community as its School Chaplain – this remains a work in progress but one that I continue to seek to master!
These are the skills that I hope to bring to St George’s as its School Chaplain.
I feel blessed to have been given this opportunity to work closely with St George’s students and staff. I am excited to be here to support the St George’s Anglican Grammar School community in any way that I can as their School Chaplain.
The Reverend Dr Gift Makwasha, School Chaplain St George’s Anglican Grammar School, WA Rev Dr Gift Makwasha is affectionally known as Father Gift.
The World Christian Encyclopedia tells us that the number of Anglican Christians has passed 110 million and that we can be found in approximately 170 different countries across the globe. Professor Philip Jenkins of the prestigious Baylor University in Texas has pointed out that after the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian denomination on the planet, and, based on growth rates in the Global South, will become the second largest at some point before 2050. This growth is driven by enthusiasm for sharing the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ. Like the Anglican Communion as a whole, we at Manning Valley Anglican College (MVAC), want to be intentional about sharing with all members of our school community Jesus’ invitation to follow Him (Matthew 4:19). One of the ways in which we do this is by seeking to be a nexus between the school and worship in our local parishes.
MVAC partners with St Matthew’s Anglican Church in Wingham to run a youth group every Friday afternoon. Youth group is followed by a family friendly service called, Faith & Fellowship, at 5:30pm. This weekly church service is completely student led except for the sermon and, once a month, when the service is a Eucharist, the liturgy is celebrated by the rector of the parish. The inaugural
service saw a congregation of 45 gather to worship God, of whom 27 came from MVAC. This Friday evening service is now in its eighth year of operation.
From its formation in 2003, MVAC has worked with Saint John’s Anglican Church in Taree to establish a Sunday evening congregation for college families. Although this
Mr Greg Anderson, Chaplain
Manning Valley Anglican College, NSW
congregation has waxed and waned over the years, it has witnessed the baptisms, first communions and confirmations of many students (and of several parents too) and even contributed to one school parent’s vocation to the priesthood. Last year, 13 MVAC students were baptised and/or confirmed at Saint John’s, Taree in a liturgy that was described as the “largest Confirmation service in the Diocese of Newcastle in recent years”.
Ten minutes’ drive north-west of Taree sits the picturesque of village of Coopernook, with a population of 561. Christian witness in the town had diminished in recent decades; the Roman Catholic Church had closed, the Uniting Church was struggling to remain open, and the congregation of Saint Luke’s Anglican Church had dwindled to three. MVAC partnered with Saint Luke’s to launch ‘Fun, Food & Faith’ which was a monthly afternoon of games, food and Bible study held before the Saturday vigil Eucharist. This assisted in growing the congregation to between 16-20, many of whom were children.
MVAC serves a considerable geographical region with students attending from all over the NSW Mid-Coast local government area. Consequently, students have been linked in with local Anglican congregations to serve as lectors, worship leaders, altar servers, participants in the offertory procession and a range of other liturgical ministries, (and bringing their pets along to church with them at local Saint Francis’ Day services!). Congregations in which MVAC students have exercised these ministries include Saint John’s Taree, Saint Mark’s Chatham, Saint Matthew’s, Wingham, Saint Luke’s Tinonee, Saint Alban’s Forster, Saint Paul’s, Nabiac, Saint Peter’s, Harrington, Saint Barnabas’ Upper Lansdowne, Epiphany’ Lansdowne and Old Bar Anglican Church.
Each year a number of MVAC’s Year 12 graduates choose to pursue tertiary study at the University of Newcastle. One of the most successful Anglican parishes in Newcastle in terms of ministry with university students, young adults, and young families is All Saints-ANeW, (ANeW = Anglican, Newcastle,
evangelical, Worship). It is a MVAC tradition to take the Year 12 graduates who are planning to study in Newcastle for a trip to that city and a guided tour of the university followed by some ‘retail therapy’ at the local shopping centre. The day culminates in attendance at the evening congregation of ANeW, where our students are always warmly welcomed by the large congregation and where they are able to make friends and find a church home that helps them settle into campus life.
Of course, like many Anglican schools, MVAC regularly holds ‘mission mufti days’ with all funds raised going towards supporting the work of the Anglican Board of Mission and Anglican Aid Abroad.
Likewise, students regularly bring in non-perishable items to support the local Anglican parish emergency relief programme. Last year almost 40 large laundry baskets of such items were collected by students, blessed at school Eucharistic worship, and then distributed to those in need in the wider community.
MVAC is regularly represented by students and staff at the commissioning liturgies of rectors in local parishes as well as at various ordination services, including the episcopal ordinations of the assistant bishops of the diocese at the cathedral. These experiences are important in allowing students to experience the life of the wider church beyond their local congregations.
One of our next plans is to roster students as altar servers at a regular weekday Eucharist in the local Anglican retirement village and to resume visiting the residents when conditions around COVID are relaxed.
MVAC engages in these activities as our way of embracing the diocesan vision of flourishing by grace and as our way of seeking to fulfil the Great Commission (Matthew 28: 16-20) entrusted by the Lord Jesus to His church until His return.
On Thursday 31 March, students, staff, Sister Gillian1, visiting clergy and special guests gathered for a whole school Easter Service and the commissioning of The Reverend Jazz Dow as Chaplain of St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School in Brisbane.
Bishop Jeremy Greaves presided over the service which marked the official commencement of Rev’d Jazz’s ministry among the St Margaret’s community.
During the service, Rev’d Jazz was presented with symbols of ministry by members of St Margaret’s including Sister Gillian, who gave her a prayer book.
The Co Deputy Chair of St Margaret’s School Council, The Reverend Jan Crombie, also participated in the service reading Acts 10:34-39.
During her sermon, Rev’d Jazz referred to a Brené Brown podcast where Brené and Karen Walrond discussed accessing joy and finding connection in the midst of struggle.
“They discussed the interplay between despair and joy and the strategies they use to access joy when life feels overwhelming. One of their key messages is that joy is an essential part of our work. We need to take time to access joy in order to work for peace to transform the world for good. Karen says: ‘I will never apologise for embracing joy and beauty even when the world is falling apart because joy is my fuel for activism.’ Karen continues: ‘We are made for ebb and flow, the rhythm of working and resting, working and resting.’”
Rev’d Jazz said: “So, accessing joy is vital, even and especially when it feels too hard or even self-indulgent.
“So today we are embracing joy and we are celebrating the joyous festival of Easter where we embrace the joy of the resurrection … that death does not have the final say, that life will always triumph over death,” she said.
Rev’d Jazz concluded her sermon with this message to students: “At the end of a pretty challenging term, you might find yourself in a state of despair, exhaustion and uncertainty about the world. May you hear the message of Easter that you are of infinite worth to the God who turns death to life, who brings peace in fear. Let these school holidays be a time for you to access joy.”
The message to embrace joy was encouraged by Archbishop Phillip Aspinall in his 2022 New Year message and has since been adopted by St Margaret’s. The students certainly embodied this theme as they joined together in glorious song for And All the People Said Amen. It was a joyful moment of song and dance that will be remembered as a highlight of this special service welcoming Rev’d Jazz to the St Margaret’s community.
1The Sisters of the Society of the Sacred Advent established St Margaret’s School in 1895 and it is their philosophy that remains at the heart of the school today. Sister Gillian is one of the two remaining Sisters of the Society of the Sacred Advent. She is the Mother of the Society but goes by name of Sister in deference to Mother Eunice, who was Mother for a long time and who passed away in 2021.
St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School, QLDSt Margaret’s Anglican Girls School, QLD
At Brisbane’s St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School, Prayer Spaces are held each term for the primary and secondary students to explore life’s big questions, spirituality and faith in a safe, creative and interactive way.
The most recent of the school’s Prayer Spaces was themed around Easter and the Lenten season. Students in Years 7 to 10 journeyed through the school’s Chapel, which was transformed to feature eight stations with activities based around Palm Sunday (Joy), the Last Supper (Friendship), Gethsemane (Big Questions), Carrying the Cross (Sensory Station), Forgive them (Fizzy Forgiveness), The Cross (Sorry), Resurrection (Hope Blossoms) and a space for mindfulness. St Margaret’s Chaplain, The Reverend Jazz Dow, said the Prayer Space was an invitational space for students.
“It is a space where students are invited to participate in the activity or choose to just be still and enjoy the calm and quiet of the chapel.”
“The lives of students are busy. They work hard and go to before and after school activities. Prayer Space allows students to slow down and take a break from the busyness. It allows them to feel their feelings and rest for a moment so that they can re-enter the business of the day with renewed focus and energy,” said Rev’d Jazz.
“The invitational nature of Prayer Space reminds students that all are welcome, no matter what their beliefs. It also reminds students that prayer is multi-dimensional – that there isn’t one way to pray but that the possibilities for prayer are infinite.”
One of the many aspects of Prayer Space that students enjoy is the interactive nature of each station or activity. At the Carrying the Cross station, for example, students were encouraged to let go of their worries that can sometimes feel like a heavy burden. This sensory activation invited students to dip their hands into a tray of water beads while imagining letting go of their worries.
While at the Garden of Gethsemane station, students were encouraged to reflect on Jesus’ big questions while he was in the garden that night. They were then invited to write down their own big questions and peg them to the string hanging from above. By the end of the week, hundreds of big questions were gathered. The activity helped students to ask things they might not feel comfortable asking aloud, and the process of writing it down was cathartic in itself.
The Palm Sunday station was an opportunity for students to reflect on the joy of the crowd that gathered to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem and then to name what they are grateful for in their own lives. Many students expressed gratitude for family and friends with one writing: “I am thankful for my family, friends and people who have supported me.”
At the end of each Prayer Space session, Rev’d Jazz asks for feedback from the students.
“One student said the Big Question (Gethsemane) station helped her to better understand what other people are going through giving her greater perspective. Another student was moved by the question about when the war between Russia and Ukraine would end, saying it reminded her of what is happening in the wider world.
“An appreciation for a quiet and still space was also shared by many students and even teachers with one saying, ‘this is just what I needed’,” Rev’d Jazz said.
During the two-week Easter Prayer Space, students in both the primary and secondary schools also observed Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Lenten season. Ordinarily, a whole school service would be held to mark this important holy occasion; however, COVID restrictions in schools meant no large gatherings could be held. This led Rev’d Jazz to reimagine Ash Wednesday, creating a popup, outdoor, mindfulness activity.
Built around the theme ‘stronger together’, the activity invited students to consider committing to an act of kindness for Lent. Students wrote or drew their commitment on brightly coloured sticky stars, resulting in hundreds of kind commitments by the end of the day. There were many messages displaying kindness to others, to friends, family members siblings and even some that involved displaying kindness to the earth, with one student writing, “For Lent, I’m not going to use non-reusable plastic in my lunchbox.”
Rev’d Jazz says that as students step into Prayer Space the impact is visible.
“It’s as if there is a collective sigh from the students – a letting go of any stresses or worries they are bringing with them. There is also a sense of awe and anticipation evoked by the fairy lights, colours and the setup of each space.”
In April Queensland’s The Springfield Anglican College commissioned their new Chaplain, The Reverend Jonathan Kemp.
Rev’d Jonathan is no stranger to the ASA. After being appointed the inaugural Head of RAVE at West Moreton Anglican College, he attended ASA conferences in Adelaide and Perth, before joining the organising committee for their 2010 Conference in Brisbane.
“I vividly recall a conversation with a Chaplain at one ASA conference which really planted the ordination seed. So, I decided to leave the classroom and go to work for the Diocese of Brisbane as their full-time lay Director of Youth, Children and Families Ministry, a position I held for nine years. During that time, I was approached to consider ordination, and I knew I had to say, yes. The Formation journey through St Francis College was tremendous, and the next thing I knew I was ordained and on my way to The Springfield Anglican College,” Rev’d Jonathan said.
And what does he make of his new home?
“I’m extremely fortunate to be a full-time Chaplain with no teaching load – allowing me to lead worship across the separate Primary and Secondary campuses, coordinate
the College’s Service program and RAP group, check in with students and staff who are going through tough times, and just try to be otherwise helpful and lend a hand wherever needed. I have a very supportive and knowledgeable Principal in Steve Morris, and our goal is to develop a culture of authentic community, grounded in a generous and inclusive Anglican ethos, building new and existing relationships with a range of local Anglican agencies (including the parish of St Andrew’s Springfield which meets inside the College grounds). Having just over 500 students on each campus is a great size to work with. The pastoral care system here is very strong already and our RAVE curriculum, like all curricula, can always be improved on a continuous basis. Although I’ve said goodbye to full-time teaching, my teaching background definitely helps in terms of empathy with what the staff, students and parents are all likely to be going through.”
Outside of school Rev’d Jonathan enjoys guitar, geocaching and family time and says he is looking forward to renewing friendships with ASA members from across Australia, including the Chaplain who planted that life-changing seed of a ‘second calling’.
The Springfield Anglican College, QLD
Hume Anglican Grammar appointed The Reverend Dr Satvasheela Pandhare as Associate Chaplain at the beginning of the year. One of her main responsibilities is to develop links between the school and the Parish of Hume, where her husband, The Reverend Prashant Bhonsle, is the local minister. School Chaplain, The Reverend Peter Waterhouse, sees this as a pivotal appointment at the school, as a considerable number of students have either an Indian or Sri Lankan background and there are many first-generation immigrant families in the local area. Sheela is especially seeking to build relationships with the parents across the school’s three campuses. She is also assisting at regular chapel services and assemblies, as well as engaging with students in religious education lessons.
Rev’d Dr Pandhare began her ministerial journey as a Sunday School teacher in her local parish in the state of Maharashtra in India. At the time she was actively involved in the parish’s youth group. While she was completing her Bachelor of Commerce degree, Sheela enrolled at the United Theological Seminary of Maharashtra (Pune) where she completed a Bachelor of Theology degree in April 1999. She would go on to complete a Bachelor of Divinity Studies, a Master’s degree in Theology and a Doctor of Theology at the Senate of Serampore University in 2020. Sheela was ordained in 2000. Whilst working as a priest and pursuing higher studies she taught at The United
Theological Seminary of Maharashtra. In 2014 she was invited to be Principal of the Seminary. In addition, Sheela has taught at Bishop’s College, Kolkata (West Bengal) in the department of Religions and was part of the clergy team in the St Paul’s Cathedral, Diocese of Kolkata (Church of North India).
Sheela and her husband moved to Australia in October 2021. They saw a great scope for ministry within our multicultural society. Sheela has a deep concern for justice and peace in society. She is interested in promoting Interfaith harmony.
The Reverend Peter Waterhouse, School Chaplain | Hume Anglican Grammar, VICOn Friday 18 February 2022, St Columba Anglican School had the pleasure of commissioning their new School Chaplain, The Reverend Jon Cornish.
In a beautiful service, attended by The Right Reverend Dr Murray Harvey, Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Grafton, as well as current and former Chairs of School Council, our Foundation Chaplain, The Reverend Duncan McArthur, and special guests, Rev Cornish was commissioned as the third School Chaplain at St Columba. Guests also had the pleasure of hearing musical pieces from the Secondary School String Ensemble, the School’s Chapel Band, the Combined Choir and various soloists.
Following Bishop Murray’s formal commissioning, Principal Terry Muldoon delivered his address. He noted, “We believe the gifts Jon brings will enrich the life of the School, its students and staff.”
Rev Cornish said it was a great honour and a privilege to be given this opportunity to share the Good News of the life of Jesus with everyone in the community.
“To be commissioned is to be asked under orders to go to a place to serve the Lord in his mission to bring a little more heaven to earth. This is my job. What a joyful job that is!
I hope that I too can not only speak of the Good News, but walk with St Columba Anglican School Community in allowing all the Good, the True and the Beautiful here to flourish and grow. To allow the gifts of everyone to be identified, nurtured and revealed.
To ensure that no matter what faith, gender, or background – that all feel safe, included, respected and cherished.
I’d like to thank all of you who have been able to attend this commissioning. To the Year 11 students, musicians, all the staff and other visitors for taking the time to honour this occasion and the importance of God’s mission. It does mean something to me – your generosity is gratefully received.
Finally, I’d like to thank my parents, who are no longer here. Today I wear my father’s black stole for this commissioning service – memory was everything in education in the Ancient world – the truth of that is this – we all have a memory of God and Jesus has come to shake our cage – to wake us up – and open our hearts to that truth. Amen to that!”
St Columba Anglican School, NSW
The Reverend Bryn Jones, Senior Chaplain | Trinity Grammar School, Kew, VIC Patterns of worship at Trinity Grammar School, Kew are in the process of being redrawn and re-imagined after two-and-a-bit years of COVID disruption. Just as students and teachers are learning how to be together in class again after the lockdowns, we are also re-discovering what it means to worship together.
Worship is about orienting all of life towards what is true, good, just and beautiful. Another way of putting it is that worship is an individual and shared practice which disposes us to be open to the transforming power of love. Worship reorients, re-directs and re-focuses; it turns our gaze inwards to encounter the divine image in ourselves and outward that we might recognise it in others. Worship in Anglican schools like ours is nurtured, nourished, and inspired by our regular encounter with sacred story in formal chapel gatherings but hopefully then propels us out into the world to ‘do’ it and ‘live’ it.
I have only been at Trinity for half a year, but my sense is that worship here has always meant more than just ‘doing liturgy’ together. As you will see in our Director of Outreach’s article on p.58 (reverse page) of this edition of ASA NEWS, worship at Trinity has always been strongly connected to loving action and service. Whether fully owned as an expression of personal faith or as an intuitive questioning towards a more authentic self, I have witnessed students engage whole-heartedly with opportunities to serve, to speak, to advocate and to provide material assistance. And what is most impressive, is that these initiatives are predominantly student-led. Watching students inspire and lead other students is deeply encouraging. As teachers, there’s almost a sense of ‘job done’. What more can we really ask for?
I experienced my first ‘Harambee Sundee’, Trinity’s main annual mission fundraiser, earlier this year and was encouraged to see such strong participation from the whole school community. ‘Harambee’ is only one component of the mission committee’s work. Throughout the year there are many other hands-on opportunities to use the funds raised on Harambee Sundee to assist others.
Worship frames our acts of service and justice and clarifies our intentions, but it also helps us tell a story about ourselves individually and corporately. Worship helps us make sense of the milestones in life and at Trinity, that finds expression in carefully planned liturgies marking key events, relationships, and transitions. As an Anglican school, we are conscious of the bigger narrative of the liturgical year and plan rich and meaningful celebrations for Easter, Pentecost and Christmas. We are also conscious of the more ‘inward-looking’ seasons of Lent and Advent and try to offer opportunities for students and staff to live these times intentionally, helping us let go of old patterns that no longer serve us. Then there is always the privilege of being called to walk with people through the key life-transitions of baptism, confirmation, marriage, and funerals. We gather at St Paul’s Cathedral to welcome the new Year 7s, and regather at the end of the year to send our Year 12s out with God’s blessing and the blessing of the Trinity community. Assemblies, ANZAC Day, Reconciliation Week, House breakfasts and dinners, and weekly Morning Prayer in the Chapel, are all planned with worship, understood as an intentional orientation towards God, in mind.
As we rediscover old patterns and sketch new ones here at Trinity, please pray for us that in all we say and do, God, the Source of Life will lead us into more life, more love, greater freedom and wholeness, so that as a community we better reflect the one who’s name is Love. Please be assured of our prayers you who will read this, and for the wider community of Anglican schools throughout Australia.
At Trinity Grammar School, Kew, everything we do is uniquely designed to offer our boys social, emotional and worldly life experience. Our student-led outreach program, ‘Harambee’, facilitates opportunities for Trinity students to contribute to the global community with courage, humility and integrity.
The Harambee program, which is named after the Swahili word ‘harambee’ meaning ‘all pull together’, provides a long-term framework for students to engage and support communities in need. We work with non-profit organisations to invest in community and educational development on a local, national and international level.
Every Friday morning at 7:45am, over 40 students from Years 7 to 12 gather to plan our outreach initiatives and discuss how they can best be agents of change for poverty and inequality in our world. At its core, Harambee is a faith-based program where students are also encouraged to develop their spirituality to become the best people they can be.
The program’s largest initiative is ‘Harambee Sundee’. This is a student-led event where the whole school comes together to run, ride or row to raise over $50,000 for international programs in Uganda, Kenya and the Philippines. While important, fundraising is just one part of Harambee. The program is embroidered into Trinity’s cultural fabric, empowering boys to belong to a collective effort to serve others and make the most of their distinctive Trinity journey. Throughout my life, I have been blessed with many opportunities, but none more so than leading the Trinity community as Director of Outreach. The position has been a daily source of challenge and inspiration in my life. We are called to continually look beyond our own privileged backyard and help others wherever there is the need.
Tom Purcell, Director of Outreach/Assistant Chaplain
Trinity Grammar School, Kew, VIC
At Swan Valley Anglican Community School (SVACS), our Buddy Program has become a popular feature on special days when we recognise social justice issues as a whole school, including the National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence, Harmony Day and R U OK? Day.
On these important days, over 1260 students from PreKindy to Year 12 join together for a fun shared activity as part of the Buddy Program with Primary students being paired with their Secondary student buddies. The goal is to develop relationships between the younger and older students, enhancing the sense of a friendly, warm and supportive school community.
Buddy Programs aren’t just beneficial for younger students. They also help older students understand how important they are, as an individual, within their school context. Big buddies can see that who they are, and how they think, act or behave, contributes to school culture.
Regardless of the activity, the benefit is in the familiarity and friendship that is forged between the little buddy and their big buddy!
At SVACS, we recognise the National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence as a whole school community each year. Activities have included students tying white ribbons onto the tree in the Friendship Garden and onto door handles. Primary and Secondary students have joined together to make buddy bands and share white chocolate hearts. Students from Pre-Kindy to Year 12 have also made and shared anti-bullying videos emphasising the importance of the message: Bullying No Way!
Without a doubt, an exciting and unifying highlight was when all students and staff joined together to form a huge community heart, symbolising our commitment as a school to standing together against bullying and violence.
Harmony Day is also a special day in our calendar. It is a celebration of inclusiveness, respect and a sense of belonging for everyone.
With the central message of ‘Everyone Belongs’, students and staff wear orange (the official colour of Harmony Day), traditional dress, or clothing that represents their own cultural heritage.
On Harmony Day, SVACS buddy pairs have coloured cutouts of individual people that were collected and joined together to create a chain of united people. Buddy pairs then made multi-coloured friendship braids to be worn as Harmony Bracelets.
Principal Melissa Powell said, “We are very lucky to have such a diverse and inclusive school community, with more than 40 different nationalities represented.”
Staff and students wear yellow and join together to recognise the importance of always looking out for our family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances on R U OK? Day. As part of our Buddy Program, Primary students have met with their Secondary student buddies and iced biscuits with yellow icing and sprinkles which they then shared together. Our School Psychologists also organised a pledge wall to remind us all to take care of ourselves and support each other.
Our Buddy Program has become so successful that staff and students are always suggesting new ideas about how we can come together as a community to share those very important social justice messages of fairness, equality, respect for diversity, and human rights.
Ms Melissa Powell, Principal Swan Valley Anglican Community School, WA
While volunteers can no longer get together to serve meals to the homeless, there are more and more people who are hungry and in need of our help.
Hale School has responded by offering opportunities for families to show their care in a different way. Students and parents have cooked meals together at home and packaged them up ready to be dropped to the Salvation Army to distribute to those in need.
This year different year groups are being called upon to contribute throughout the school year. First up were the Year 7s and their families, who cooked about 500 meals in total from their homes and dropped them at school on Friday 25 March ready for distribution.
Richard Jones was one of those Year 7 students. He worked with his mother to make 20 containers of chicken cassoulet and butter chicken. He said he was happy to play his part and work side by side with his mum.
“We thought it would be nice to give back to the community and show the Hale motto of ‘Duty’,” he said. “It is a nice feeling.”
Classmate Zane Lucev – who contributed 10 containers of bangers and mash – agreed: “If we have food to give then we should give it when there are other people who have nothing.”
Hale School’s 2022 Parents’ and Friends’ Association President, Peter Pynes, said he was very proud of the boys’ selfless service.
“To witness the beaming smiles (behind their masks) of the many boys who presented the meals outside the Senior Admin building today was a very touching moment for all of us, only surpassed by the excitement and gratitude that we
received when we unloaded the meals to the Salvation Army volunteers at their Northbridge depot. The pride shown by the boys in helping others is a quality that hopefully they will hold onto during their Hale journey and beyond.”
Salvation Army Volunteer and Logistics Coordinator, Raoul Smith said the meals would be distributed to the homeless, those in need and those without cooking facilities. Anyone can access the free service.
Year 10 boys are the next to test their culinary skills. In Term 2 they will donate meals to young people in Anglicare transitional housing. Hale’s Year 10 Anglicare WA Ambassadors will work with the School Chef, Herb Faust, to make a delicious yellow curry in the school canteen.
Hale School has a long tradition of service learning, with hundreds of boys volunteering in various ways each year to help those in need, including the homeless, the vulnerable and the aged. The school is however very aware that the assistance it offers is contingent upon support from Hale’s supportive and compassionate families. Indicative of this was the response to a call for help from St Bart’s1 for meals for its residents in the lead up to Easter. Hale families provided 588 meals. Staff and volunteers at St Bart’s expressed their deep gratitude ‘for this wonderful contribution’ during difficult and testing COVID times.
1 Founded in 1963 by the Anglican Church in the Diocese of Perth as a homeless shelter for men, St Bart’s is a not-for-profit organisation that seeks to provide safe, supported accommodation and services to people who need it most, regardless of background, age, gender or ethnicity.
Hale School, WAWaterford’s Canterbury College hosted the second annual Anglican Schools Student Leadership Symposium for senior school leaders from six South-East Queensland Anglican schools on Friday 18 March 2022.
This year the symposium theme was Embracing Joy. Set against a backdrop of the global pandemic, war in Ukraine, climate change and the recent floods in Logan, the young leaders were encouraged to look for the positives in any situation. The day’s vision was to bring student leaders together, nurture school relationships and support leaders in embracing the joy of difference and diversity that help strengthen Anglican unity.
Students then heard from experts in leadership development including Duku Forè GAICD, former refugee and founder of Rich Dreams Program and App; The Reverend Richard Browning, Director of Mission, Anglican Schools Commission Southern Queensland; and Natalie Waters, Business and Leadership Coach and Mentor.
The keynote speakers’ messages were powerful and motivating as evidenced by the student leaders’ feedback.
In the lead up to the symposium
Canterbury College’s Spirituality Captain Prince Cubahiro said the keys to joy are kindness and compassion. “Embracing joy means to embrace yourself and those around you – joy comes from the kindness we share towards one another, the loving and compassionate words we spread. Joy is the feeling of belonging.”
Canterbury’s College Captain, Kristina Mrsic said: “It is important to celebrate diversity as diversity helps to shape how we view the world around us. As a diverse and multicultural nation, celebrating each other’s differences and traditions widens our perspectives on life and helps us to embrace everyone’s individuality”.
Mr Greg Wacker, Head of the Canterbury Centre for Entrepreneurship and Learning, who organised the symposium, is passionate about the event’s objectives.
“We believe in the potential of young people,” he said.
“We know that when their community embraces and supports them, they thrive – allowing them to achieve remarkable things like solving significant problems and creating new assets beyond our current imagination.”
He hoped that by embracing joy “our young people will appreciate the true meaning of servant leadership and understand their Anglican identity and purpose.”
The program began with a service in the Canterbury Chapel led by new School Chaplain, The Reverend Melusi Sibanda. Senior students and staff prayed together for a joyful year for their respective schools/colleges.
“Leadership is about putting yourself out there, taking risks, and respecting the people you represent.”
“Be the role model you needed when you were younger.”
“Growth is only possible outside your comfort zone; that saying yes opens a million opportunities; and that you just need to put yourself out there, because anything is possible.”
“Their stories were very engaging, and the topics they brought up were extremely applicable, especially for Year 12 students.”
“The diverse panel of speakers showed me that being a leader is a diverse experience.”
Special thanks must go to the staff who escorted their students from the following schools: The Glennie School, St Andrew’s Anglican College, Toowoomba Anglican School, The Southport School and Coomera Anglican College.
Canterbury would also like to thank the Principals and Headmasters of the attending schools for their continued support of the symposium.
The 2023 symposium will be held at Canterbury College on Friday 24 February 2023.
Interview with our new Canterbury College Chaplain Reverend Melusi Sibanda. YouTube Weblink - https://youtu. be/kSmXK16hskY
Bishop Druitt College celebrated Harmony Week the Bishop Druitt Way through interfaith dialogue, cultural dress, cultural food sharing, performances, a bake-off sale, assemblies and gatherings. Our Anglican foundation was embedded in our Harmony Week festivities with our community showing mutual respect, service, inclusivity, integrity, courage, justice and generosity of spirit.
Amid a current surge in COVID-19 cases in Western Australia access to readily available Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) is vital to the community. Of particular importance is the availability of free RATs for at-risk and vulnerable groups, who may not have appropriate documentation to access RATs via pharmacies or Government programs.
The student-led Harmony Week assembly began with an Acknowledgement of Country from the BDC Goori Group. This was followed by an Interfaith Peace Greeting, with students using religious and cultural language to share words of peace across religion and culture. This was an expression of the values and ethos of Bishop Druitt College to intentionally make space for interfaith dialogue amongst students.
Harmony Day is an opportunity for sharing stories, and Year 10 student Rajah Abdullah shared her story as a refugee, escaping danger, living in a refugee camp and settling in Australia. Academic Captain Mikal Tesfamariam hosted a panel discussion named ‘On the Couch’ of students’ experiences of multiculturalism. This was followed by a passionate live performance of ‘What a Wonderful World’ by students Mahi Khobragade and Sureyya Brennan. The college ensemble ‘Highly Strung’ added to the diversity of presentation with their excellent performance.
Cultural food sharing was a highlight as we all dived into the different cuisines available from cultures from Eritrea, Sudan, India, Greece and Hawaii. Food was made in our families’ kitchens, with funds raised going to Zonta International and STARTTS.
The Bishop Druitt Way nurtures character and community to transform children into world prepared citizens who are empowered for life, embrace diversity, prioritise wellbeing, pursue personal excellence and serve our community. We are blessed to have been part of such harmonious celebrations and the leadership shown by these students was inspiring.
A team of Service Learning Representatives at Peter Moyes Anglican Community School (PMACS) is helping to make the testing kits fully accessible and available to vulnerable people. Led by PMACS Chaplain, The Reverend Jean-Pierre Schroeder, the group of students organised the distribution of surplus test kits to Black Swan Health for their Freo Street Doctor program, a mobile medical health service that provides primary health care to disadvantaged and homeless people in the community.
Rev’d Jean-Pierre said: “We recognised that the school had a large number of RATs which were surplus to our needs and so our Service Learning group discussed ways in which we could assist the community and make a significant contribution to people in need. We chose to donate to Freo Street Doctor as they provide a free and vital service for many of our fellow West Australians who otherwise would go without medical care and support.”
Sarah Tadier, Chief Operations Officer of Black Swan Health, is immensely grateful for the donation of the testing kits and says the support of PMACS is hugely appreciated. “With low vaccination rates among the homeless community, the current surge of COVID-19 cases in WA is particularly concerning. To be able to provide more free RATs to these vulnerable members of our society will make a real difference in slowing the spread of the virus and providing appropriate healthcare to positive COVID cases. We thank the students of Peter Moyes Anglican Community School for their kindness and compassion.”
The Freo Street Doctor clinics are held for three hours per week across the cities of Fremantle, Cockburn, Melville, Canning and Rockingham. Consulting hours can be found on their website: https://www.blackswanhealth.com.au/ freo-street-doctor/
Bishop Druitt College, NSW PMACS Service Learning Representatives Martino Bellu and Abby PalmerSmith, with Deputy Principal Mr Roger McNamara.Cathedral College Wangaratta, VIC
On Thursday, March 24, 2022, The Right Reverend Clarence E Bester, Bishop of Wangaratta, formally consecrated the Cathedral College Wangaratta Chapel, ‘The Chapel of the Good Shepherd’.
Distinguished guests, community members, staff and students were welcomed into The Chapel of the Good Shepherd by a smoking ceremony conducted by Bpangerang Elder Aunty Betty. Participating in the consecration and the dedication were The Right Reverend David Farrer; The Reverend Peter Laurence OAM, CEO of the Anglican Schools Commission; Canon Scott Jessup, the Bishop’s Chaplain; The Reverend Dr Mark Mickelburough, Cathedral College Chaplain; and The Reverend Catherine Carden, Cathedral College Chaplain. The Right Reverend John Parkes AM led the Sermon, and readings were shared by Mr Nick Jones, Principal of Cathedral College Wangaratta and Bella Bridgeman and Skip Pieper, College Captains.
Principal Nick Jones explains: “The Chapel of the Good Shepherd is an inclusive, inspiring, peaceful and reflective space where students, staff and the wider College community will gather in worship and communion. The Chapel proudly resides in the heart of our school. It is a place where all members of our community will gather to find peace, calm and comfort, irrespective of religious tradition. It symbolises our commitment to ensuring worship is an essential and integral part of our students’ life at Cathedral College Wangaratta. It is a place where students and staff will celebrate their spirituality and participate in the religious and liturgical aspects of our fortnightly Chapel Services.”
In honour of Christ the good shepherd, the new College Chapel will be known as ‘The Chapel of the Good Shepherd’.
In Jesus’ description of himself in St John’s Gospel, he says;
I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.’ (John 10.14-16)
Within the main Chapel sits a smaller, more intimate side chapel. The side chapel was dedicated in honour of Saint Catherine of Alexandria.
According to legend, Saint Catherine of Alexandria was an extremely learned young girl of noble birth, possibly a princess. She protested the persecution of Christians under the Roman Emperor Maxentius - whose wife and several soldiers she converted while imprisoned - and defeated the most eminent scholars summoned by Maxentius to oppose her. Catherine is the patron saint of students and teachers, and therefore a suitable patron of the internal Chapel.
The dedication and opening of St John’s Anglican College’s new Middle School Precinct on Wednesday 27 April 2022 represented a significant milestone in the College’s journey of growth and learning.
The vision to deliver the very best in experience, environment, and opportunity for learning for St John’s students, is now a reality.
The Precinct has been designed to optimise collaborative learning. It has an abundance of social and outdoor learning and gathering spaces so that students can connect in groups, create mindfulness time and easily interact between the spaces.
St John’s Principal, Mrs Maria McIvor said: “This purposeful approach to the design of this precinct promotes learning and activities, enriching our experiences and connectedness which is St John’s theme of 2022, the ‘Year of Connectedness’. This facility will enable our Middle School students to focus and discover deep learning.”
She went on to say, “Our Mission for you at St John’s is to inspire lifelong learning. A love of learning has a lot to do with learning we are loved, that trying and failing is no less valuable than trying and succeeding. All lead to growth, building academic resilience and commitment to success”.
In St John’s Middle School, we emphasis service to others, teamwork, taking initiative and developing responsibility. These are the social building blocks students will take
with them as they progress through to Senior School. The innovative design of this new building promotes personal and collective learning and provides social opportunities to foster the College spirit of collaboration with community.
It is our community spirit that grounds the students, giving them self-confidence, fostering tolerance, and preparing them to actively contribute to the society of the future. We look forward to watching our students develop their competencies and confidence during their time in Middle School.
St John’s welcomed Her Excellency the Honourable, Dr Jeannette Young PSM, Governor of Queensland, and Bishop John Roundhill to this occasion.
St John’s Anglican College, QLD (Left to right): Bishop John Roundhill, Manya Kosla, Year 12 student and The Reverend Juliana Bate, College Chaplain (Left to right): Bishop John Roundhill, Mrs Maria McIvor, Principal, Her Excellency the Honourable, Dr Jeannette Young PSM, Governor of Queensland and Dr Carla Tromans, College Chair.St Paul’s Anglican Grammar School, VIC
St Paul’s Anglican Grammar School in Traralgon recognised its 20th Anniversary with a celebratory Service on Wednesday 4 May. It marked the first time the whole school (Prep - Year 10) was able to assemble in over two years.
Bishop Richard Treloar, Archdeacon Clem Watts, Board Chair Mr Darren Jennings and guest speaker Mr Richard Prideaux, who was Principal of St Paul’s in 2002 when the Traralgon Campus opened with students from Pre-Kinder to Year 3, were among the special guests who visited the school. Some Foundation staff members, Foundation families, former Heads of School and former Board Directors also attended the service.
The occasion was also a time to celebrate the completion of the new Basketball and Netball Complex and the decision to construct a $7-million ‘Futures Centre’, due to begin mid-year, in preparation for the school expanding to offer Years 11 and 12 from 2026. This will be stage one of an ongoing $21-million capital investment in the Campus as the school caters to increased demand for student places and facilitates a purpose-built learning environment to develop curriculum and co-curricular offerings.
Principal of St Paul’s, Mr Cameron Herbert said: “St Paul’s is excited to commemorate 20 years since our beginning in Traralgon and see the expansion of choices in schooling for
students in the region. Importantly for our students and their families, travelling long distances by bus to access a quality independent VCE education will be a thing of the past. The ‘Futures Centre’ signals the first step in our significant plans which will see major and ongoing investment in the Gippsland region over the next decade.”
The ‘Futures Centre’ will be a striking multi-level building with outstanding performing arts facilities, a modern secondary library adjoining a large spacious open cafeteria, a community hub and a range of student learning and gathering spaces, both large and small. Following on from the building of the Futures Centre, from 2025 consecutive stages consisting of specialist and general classrooms will be built to cater for the delivery of a highquality VCE curriculum.
St Paul’s has an ongoing commitment to the Gippsland community and will be shortly inviting local builders to tender for the project. This investment will support ongoing employment and business opportunities that will benefit the local economy.
In addition, St Paul’s will be celebrating 40 years since beginning in Warragul in 1982 at this year’s Whole School Anniversary Service planned for August.
Traralgon Secondary School Captain, Nicholas Fenech addresses the audience at St Paul’s 20th Anniversary Service of the Traralgon Campus. Celebrating the expansion of St Paul’s Traralgon Campus are special guests, staff and students at the school’s 20th Anniversary Service.
Trinity Anglican School, QLD
Trinity Anglican School (TAS) recently celebrated the opening of new Early Learning Centres at its White Rock and Kewarra Beach campuses. The school’s early learners are in for an exciting time as they adjust to their new bush-style environment complete with beehives, chickens, water play and wildlife.
At the beginning of Term 1 Richard Johnson Anglican School’s (RJAS) Marsden Park Campus families were delighted to explore a brand new Block C comprising 12 classrooms and project areas. Extended playgrounds with new play equipment and shade structures were included in this outstanding development.
TAS Principal, Paul Sjogren was joined by the Bishop of North Queensland, The Right Reverend Dr Keith Joseph and Business Manager, Kathy Romano at a ceremony to mark the opening of the buildings. The Early Learning Centre at Kewarra Beach is a brand-new build whereas existing classrooms were extensively refurbished at White Rock.
According to Mr Sjogren, the development of both centres was completed over a nine-month period and in time to welcome 66 ‘kindy’ students to each campus at the beginning of the 2022 school year.
“These facilities provide such a wonderful environment for our youngest students to learn in and watching them engage with nature surrounding them is heart-warming. It is a very exciting time for us at TAS,” Mr Sjogren said.
Of note, TAS White Rock Early Learning Centre was recently named as Exceeding the National Quality Standards set by ACECQA and the Kewarra Beach Centre has been named as an official Nature Play Education Provider.
RJAS began the Marsden Campus in 2016. It had humble beginnings with one demountable building (Block A) offering one Pre-K class. The Campus has since grown to 278 Pre-K to Year 6 students and will introduce Year 7 classes in 2024.
The school is very thankful to God for His provision and grateful to the many stakeholders who have contributed to the Campus’ success. We are excited about Marsden Park’s future and are especially looking forward to the construction of our next building - our first secondary facility!
