Senior Leadership

Embracing our Past Inspiring our future

Since 1838, Hahndorf has played a significant role in the German and Lutheran story in Australia. In and around Hahndorf, there is a deep and rich heritage in many places, people and practices, which has had an enduring influence on this story. Understanding our mission as a college and continuing to tell this story is a key and underpinning strength. The 2022 National Lutheran Principals’ Conference was recently held in Hahndorf and had the theme “Embracing our Past, Inspiring our Future”. It was a wonderful opportunity to explore how our heritage provides a compass and touchstone for our current practices, how these practices embed a legacy for our future and how looking into that future can inspire and shape our leadership and schools. We were privileged to have several excellent presenters, including Michael McQueen. Michael is a thought provoking and astute thinker and analyser of current and future trends and how they translate into the actions and planning of organisations and communities. In 2019, Michael released his seventh book, Teaching for Tomorrow, which focused on the education sector and explored the key paradigm shifts that need to be considered by governments and school communities to enable them to best equip our children for tomorrow. Three overall themes he shared with Lutheran principals from across Australia were:

• Being cognisant of the future that is ahead, and the skills and dispositions required to both meet the challenges and take hold of the opportunities. One example was the fact we are entering of the age of augmented and synthetic reality. • Being focussed on capability building rather than simply content delivery. Numeracy and literacy skills and the mastery of key skills are an integral part of competency and capacity to engage and function effectively in the world. However, the capacity to innovate, collaborate, empathise, persevere and the like are just as important for the success of students and how they can contribute to their world with meaning and purpose. • Reimage the role of educator so that we have a focus on progress rather than precedent. The exploration and answering of three questions can assist in this reimaging: o What do we need to stop doing? o What do we never stop doing? o What should we start doing again? Another key and underpinning strength of Cornerstone is our boldness in engaging with contemporary and futuristic thinking and making efforts to align the future we know will come with the skills and dispositions we work to develop and sustain in our students to be expert contributors, collaborators and innovators to that future.

“If you want to know what God wants you to do, ask Him, and He will gladly tell you, for He is always ready to give a bountiful supply of wisdom to all who ask Him; He will not resent it.” - James 1:5.

Craig Fielke Principal

Congratulations Principal Craig Fielke

Principal Craig Fielke is the recent recipient of The Australian Council for Educational Leaders (ACEL) SA 2022 Educational Leadership Medal. ACEL SA honours those educational leaders who in the view of their peers have made a significant contribution to the understanding and practice of educational leadership. ACEL is the largest professional association in the education sector in Australia and the wider Asia-Pacific region, with a network of more than 7,000 members and over 45,000 educators, with branches in each state and territory.