From the CEO

From the Chief Executive Officer

THE REVEREND PETER LAURENCE OAM

Contents

From the CEO

2 ASC International 4 Peter Moyes Anglican Community School 6 St Mark’s Anglican Community School 8 John Wollaston Anglican Community School 9 Georgiana Molloy Anglican School 10 St James’ Anglican School 11

Cathedral College Wangaratta Staff Spotlight 12

13 Dear Colleagues We are more than two years into the global pandemic. Western Australia was impacted by Covid-19 in 2020 and 2021 in a very different way to those in our Victorian and New South Wales schools, and the rest of the world. The wave of Omicron cases we experienced earlier in the east, and are experiencing in such large numbers currently in the west, has tested our communities.

St George’s Anglican Grammar School

14 Frederick Irwin Anglican School 15 John Septimus Roe Anglican Community School 16 Trinity Anglican College 17 Cobram Anglican Grammar School 18 Anglican Identity 19

Cover Image: John Wollaston Anglican Community School. Schools have done a remarkable job this past term managing the rising Covid caseloads. Our principals, teachers, chaplains and all other staff have worked tirelessly to support students, families and one another as positive case numbers rose daily in our schools. From the first reported Covid-positive cases in our schools at the start of the year, living with the virus as a highly vaccinated community has been the focus. Keeping schools safely open and ensuring the continuity of teaching and learning, pastoral care and support remains our priority.

NEW ASC SCHOOL Last month we launched a new ASC school in Victoria. All Saints Anglican School in Shepparton joins our other three eastern sates schools in the Diocese of Wangaratta. It will open with all classes Preparatory to Year 7 in 2024 and grow through to Year 12 by 2029. All Saints will be the first new school opened by the ASC outside WA. Cathedral College Wangaratta (CCW), Cobram Anglican Grammar School and Trinity Anglican College Albury-Wodonga were existing schools acquired by the ASC; CCW from 2011 and the other two from 2015. All Saints is located on a 16-hectare site, six kilometres north of the city centre on the traditional lands of the Yorta Yorta people. For some months we have been working with Vincent Chrisp Architects to design a modern, attractive and functional campus. Stage One of the school will comprise classrooms for primary and early secondary years, specialist facilities for science, music, art, design and technology, food technology, an oval, hard courts, a canteen and covered area as well as passive recreational spaces. Site preparation will commence in a few months, with Stage One Construction underway by the end of 2022.

Enrolments have opened for the school. A principal will be appointed by the first quarter of next year. Further details are available on the ASC website or at www.allsaints.vic.edu.au.

Our new strategic plan commits to new schools’ growth in Western Australia, Victoria and surrounds, while expanding support to our existing schools. The opening of All Saints Anglican School is another step in achieving our mission and purpose.

INCLUSION AND RESPECT Earlier this term, I wrote to our school communities about issues involving the treatment of students and staff in faith-based schools who identify as LGBTQIA+. It was a topic of much discussion and widespread public outcry after a Christian school in Queensland sought to insert controversial sexuality and gender identity clauses in its enrolment contract for school families.

Shortly afterwards, the Commonwealth Government’s Religious Freedom Bill narrowly passed the House of Representatives after a marathon overnight sitting, then was withdrawn from debate in the Senate. While it has always been a controversial piece of legislation, the current concerns centre around protections (or the lack of such) for transgender school students. ‘Inclusion’ is one of the ASC’s six Core Values. For us, inclusion means our schools should be places where diversity is promoted and difference is respected and celebrated. The ASC’s current Strategic Plan 2025 has, as one of its objectives, ‘Respect for all people and cultures’. Our schools are inclusive and diverse communities which welcome all and where hospitality is given to every student, regardless of religion, ideology, ability, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. FAREWELL We say goodbye to our Director of International Programs, Ms Amanda Fritz, as she leaves the ASC to take up a position at the University of Western Australia (UWA). Amanda joined the ASC in May 2016 and since then has overseen our move into international student education, growing it into a key part of the ASC family. Whilst the global pandemic has decimated the onshore international student market over the past two years, Amanda has led our efforts to diversify ASC International, with the advent of the REAL Program (using online resources to teach international students English as well as other core subjects in Years 7 to 10), the new ASC Connect program (ATAR subjects online) and expansion into VET. I thank Amanda for her significant contribution to the ASC and wish her well at UWA.

We remain committed to our ASC International arm, and diversification into these new programs which engage students onshore and offshore through online/virtual and other means. Our ‘core business’ with international student education remains welcoming students to Australia to study in Years 7 to 12 (and primary years) on our school campuses. This will continue to be our focus as the world ‘re-connects’.

HOLY WEEK AND EASTER Finally, in this edition of ASC NEWS each year, we are blessed to have thoughtful reflections from the bishops of the three dioceses in which our schools are located – the Archbishop of Perth, the Bishop of Bunbury and the Bishop of Wangaratta. They remind us that, at the heart of our mission as Anglican schools, lies a fullness of life found in the grace and love of the crucified and risen Christ.

Even though we are on school holidays for Holy Week this year, our schools are in a privileged position to share throughout the year the Easter story of hope for all people. The Gospel story is one of welcome and inclusion. We are all at our best when we live the generous Easter love story all year round... at school, at home, or wherever we may be. As we come to the end of the challenging first school term of 2022, I take this opportunity to wish you and all in your school community a very special Holy Week and Easter this April. For Christians, it is the most important and sacred time of the year. Enjoy the holy-days and may you be safe and well. Easter Blessings…

All staff are expected to support the Anglican ethos and core values of our schools. Sexual orientation and gender are not considerations in the employment of teachers or support staff, nor the enrolment of students in ASC schools. Our schools must be safe places for children and young people as they grow as individuals and in community, as well as safe and happy workplaces for staff. One of our other Core Values is ‘Respect’. We desire that our schools are communities which promote respect of self, others and our world. It seems to me that ‘respect’ must be at the heart of our schools. Respect by all, for all. ASC schools are places where all who value such respect are welcome.