Lengthening the Cords; Strengthening the Stakes

Mr Cyril Hill was principal for four years, 1981-84. Upon his arrival at the primary school he was somewhat daunted at the need to administer a growing bus program. The school was using twenty-one seater buses and some of these were making two trips morning and evening. He was greatly relieved when the responsibility for timetabling the buses, listing the users, finding drivers and establishing driver rosters, and organising the servicing of the buses was assumed by a volunteer couple, Mr Joe and Mrs Thelma Chapman. The Chapmans had retired from business and gained much pleasure in devoting their lives to volunteer service.

During 1981 the value of having the bus program handled by someone other than the principal became evident to the School Board. When the Chapmans moved on it was decided that their replacements, Mr John and Mrs Rita Vickery, would receive some remuneration for their work. Empathising with the students who experienced a very long school day due to the two-trip regime for some buses, John Vickery proposed that some twenty-one seaters be replaced by a bus with the seating capacity to handle the route with only one trip each way per day. A new bus of this size was too expensive to purchase, but reasonable quality second-hand buses were affordable. Thus the concept of a mixed fleet of both large and small buses was developed. In the process Vickery became most adept at repairing second-hand buses.

Some of our wonderful bus drivers from the early years.

The early 1980s were years of consolidation rather than expansion. A school is a stationary billboard. That is, the general appearance of the school constantly tells the general public something about the school and its ethos and values. Hill was therefore delighted when the Board agreed to fund the employment of a full-time primary school groundsman. Mr David Waddell was employed to lift both the appearance and the utility of the school grounds. While previously some effort had been made to establish shade trees, Waddell approached this need with enthusiasm. He oversaw the planting of large numbers of trees and shrubs. Furthermore, he made this an educational experience for students. Volunteer students were organised into pairs and each pair was assigned a tree. They were responsible for watering and nurturing their tree. This allocation of responsibility worked extremely well and students vied with each other to ensure their tree flourished. Concerning this Hill wrote with pride: “The results spoke for themselves!” There was also some consolidation in the physical plant. There was an area under the original school block that had become a place into which odds and ends might be dumped. Apart from its unsightliness, Hill also discovered that it made a great home for rodents and these pests proved hard to eliminate. The Conference secretary-treasurer, Mr Ron Eager, had some skill in the area of draftsmanship and he agreed to draw plans that would utilise this area more effectively. As part of this development, Eager also drafted plans to enclose the verandah facing Broadwater Road and incorporate the enclosed area into each of the classrooms. This proved a far better use of the available space. Later, stairway access on the south side of the classrooms was added. Although planned under Hill’s administration, it was completed under his successor.

When Theory Is Not Enough

One Sunday Fun Day included a billycart derby. The track went from the primary school over the bridge and up toward the high school. The billycart team that went the furthest won the derby. Mr Cyril Hill constructed ‘Lethal Weapon’ with every intention of winning. He figured that the total mass of the billycart should translate into forward speed. To this end he used two small car wheels connected to the rear axle.

On the day he persuaded Mr Phil Lomman to ride as passenger. Clad in protective clothing and appropriate helmets, the intrepid duo took their turn on the derby track. Hill’s theory proved quite sound and ‘Lethal Weapon’ plunged down the hill at frightening speed. There came a point when Lomman decided forward velocity had reached his limit and he bailed out the back as driver, Hill had no option but to stick with the monster he had created. At this point Hill realised that he had only considered part of a grand theory. While the rear end was built for speed, his front end had not received equal thought. Concurrent with this realisation, ‘Lethal Weapon’ developed an uncontrollable speed wobble.

To the cheers of the students and the gasps of the adults, Hill’s billycart began to disintegrate and finally crashed forcing him to make an unceremonious exit from the derby. Well served by his protective clothing, Hill emerged without a scratch, but a little wiser. He confessed, “when applying a theory, it is necessary to consider all its parts.” Believe it or not, even teachers learn at school!

During the 1984 school year Hill came to realise that the pressures of administration and teaching were having an adverse effect on his health. Furthermore, he harboured thoughts of up-grading his professional qualifications. Taking direction from the precedent created by Irwin Low, he requested a return to classroom teaching and asked for support for a study program. The Conference agreed to this and Hill continued on staff while working toward a bachelors degree in education. His replacement was Mr Phillip Lomman. Lomman and his wife Kathy, also a teacher, had just completed a term working for the Seventh-day Adventists church in Papua New Guinea. Upon arrival at Mt Gravatt, Lomman discovered that he had inherited a school staff that included two previous principals and a third teacher who had been principal of four smaller primary schools before joining Mt Gravatt. This had the potential for making life hard for the new and young principal. To the credit of all three, they and the other staff gave full support to Lomman. Mrs Val Lewis, president of the Home and School Association, was also determined to fully support the new regime. Also known as the ‘Rainbow Lady’, Lewis used her vibrancy and inspirational leadership to foster an air of excitement and create a sense of eager expectancy. The school was going forward in a positive manner and, as Lomman recalls, it was a fun time. H&S meetings and functions were well-prepared and well-promoted. They were highly successful and exciting. Also, as Lomman remembers, the H&S thoroughly ‘spoilt’ the teachers through the funding of materials and equipment that made their work easier. Lomman paid tribute to the achievements of his predecessor. He noted “the near impossible load he [Hill] was carrying” and observed that “the ones who go before, smooth out the road for those who follow.” Lomman used the analogy of an athletics race, when he declared that “as in any relay, the baton is taken and race advantage to that point is used to advance.” He saw his role as building on the strengths of what had gone before. In particular, further effort was made to improve the appearance of the school and the school grounds. He also placed emphasis on school uniform as a means of creating a school spirit and pride in one’s appearance. Through it all, however, Lomman wanted staff and students to see learning and school association as a ‘fun’ thing, something to be enjoyed. Some of the fun things were enumerated by Lomman. The caricature artwork that teacher Mr Justin (Kim) Rule created on the staffroom chalk board. Each day he added a little bit more to the drawing and teachers vied to identify the additional detail. There were choir visits to the local churches and school musicals. One highlight was the arrival on the school oval of Pastor David Foster. He made his grand entry by helicopter. On one occasion the mounted police performed at the school Fair. Mr Richard and Mrs Sue Tite also contributed: Richard organised a fireworks display, and Sue painted backdrop artwork of amazing quality. And there was ‘Lethal Weapon’, a Billy cart built by Mr Cyril Hill and enjoyed by the students. Yes, there was fun in learning at Mt Gravatt. Lomman also paid tribute to Mr Ken Walker, chairman of the School Board at that time. Walker, he recalls, “worked tirelessly in support of the Staff, Administration, and Children and their Families.” As a result of the unity achieved, the school profited: morale was high, student numbers increased, and the school was very much alive. During the early mid-1980s the Seventh-day Adventist education system in the South Pacific moved into a mode of accreditation. Instead of regular inspectoral visits by senior educational administrators, each school was provided with a set of best practice criteria and asked to evaluate their performance against the criteria. Upon completion of this selfstudy, an external review panel would visit the school to determine the authenticity of this self-study and to assist the school in formulating future goals. This was new ground for Adventist schools and understandingly the principal, the teachers and the Board were somewhat apprehensive.

Lomman recalls, “many, many long hours of meetings, discussions, assessments, reports, analyses, curriculum development, policy formation and a myriad of other essential tasks kept us all well out of spare time for nigh a year.” It was hard work, but its completion proved grounds for a sense of pride and satisfaction when the results were presented to the Accreditation Committee for assessment. The assessment involved not only the documentation provided but also on-site evaluation and discussions with teachers and administration. The process had been taken seriously by Mt Gravatt and was taken equally seriously by the Accreditation Committee. That, however, did not relieve the tension of the day and particularly the time spent by the accreditors in arriving at a determination with regard to Mt Gravatt. Tension turned to joy, however, when the school was advised it was granted the maximum accreditation term of five years. There were many recommendations generated by both the school and the accreditation team, but there were five years in which to remediate weaknesses, build on strengths, and prepare for another accreditation. Lomman summed up his educational and administrative vision in these words: A school is not just a principal… or staff… or children… or parents… or church! A school must be a co-operative unit pulling together to make education meaningful, relevant and good fun. Without that blend of –Running, jumping, swimming or climbing; Researching, reading, calculating or studying; Playing, communicating, hanging out or having a sleepover; Praying, worshipping, singing or sharing; True education cannot and will not be achieved.

Regrettably, Lomman’s administration lasted only four years. At the end of 1988 he and Kathy resigned from church employment and entered the commercial world in Sydney.

Happiness Shared

Home and School President, Mrs Lewis, was known as the “Rainbow Lady.” This had nothing whatsoever to do with the colour of her dresses, the hats she donned, or the scarfs she wore. Rather, the appellation was gained because of her penchant for drawing a happy rainbow somewhere on her correspondence. Be it a letter, an invitation, a thankyou card, a memo, or short note, or even wrapping paper, somewhere there would be displayed a pretty rainbow. One admirer of this happy and vibrant person suggested: “Maybe it was her way of a ‘promise’ that she would give her best for us all!”