THE DRAGON

From the Principal

Tina Campbell

Welcome Back to school! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, New Year and summer holiday break. I am sure that it was a special time for family and for many a chance to travel and connect with friends and family overseas after the COVID restrictions of the last two years.

We are so excited to see the students back at school and it has been fabulous to see their smiling faces and hear their laughter in and around the city and the School as they reconnect with their friends and teachers for the 2023 academic school year. For those new to the School, a very warm St George’s welcome to you all. It was so lovely to see so many of you at our New Parents Sundowner last night and my hope is that you already feel part of the St George’s School Family and were brave enough to make some new connections and begin the process of making St George’s friendships – just as your children are doing.

2023 has commenced with a flurry of events. Our Year 12s have had their School Ball where an Enchanted Garden theme saw them look sensational and celebrate in style for this incredible event and Year 12 rite of passage held at The Ambrose Estate. Electrocity Ensemble performed for us at The Actors Hub as part of the Fringe Festival and our wonderfully successful Orientation Day Service saw over 130 new students and their families welcomed to the School at St George’s Cathedral. It has been a positive, upbeat, vibrant and spectacular start to 2023.

This week we celebrated the formal Commissioning Service for our 2023 Captains and Prefects. At this service we also importantly recognised and acknowledged the significant leadership role that the whole Class of 2023 play as the leaders of the School. As the Year 12 cohort, they are critical in shaping the culture, atmosphere, and direction that our School will take this year. I encourage them to reflect carefully on their role as leaders. Their actions, attitudes and decisions will impact the experiences of everyone connected to St George’s. I am extremely confident that the Class of 2023 under the direction of Tom Sweeney and Milla Howard as our School Captains will lead our School with kindness, thoughtfulness, compassion, and great pride. I hope that they will endeavour to inspire others in their leadership, to lead by example in all that they do and to seek to make a positive difference to the whole School community throughout their final year at St George’s. I am excited about the year ahead working with them and I offer them my full support.

Each year our School theme reflects an aspect of academic and personal excellence for us to concentrate on. It strives to become a compelling focus for the whole School as we begin the year together. This year our theme is ‘Let’s GROW Together’ and it is illustrated on the front page of our School Diaries. The 2023 School theme calls for us to be intentional in pursuing growth in our lives. Growth for us here at St George’s centres around four key themes using G.R.O.W. as an acronym.

G = Grateful, R = Resilient, O = Optimistic, W = Welcoming. Each of these characteristics are important and contribute to our lives in a positive way. G.R.O.W is our unified combined mantra for the 2023 academic school year. We look forward to seeing just where this focus might take us.

In Term One, we will be concentrating on GRATITUDE –what do we have to be grateful for in our lives? Looking around at our beautiful School, seeing the many changes that have occurred during the summer holidays thanks to our maintenance department, welcoming back both new and returning staff to commence the 2023 academic school year, seeing our largest cohort of new students across Years 7 -12 begin their St George’s journey in their perfectly pressed and extremely smart new uniforms, reconnecting established friendships and having the School come alive with so much fun and laughter there is indeed a great deal to be grateful for here at St George’s Anglican Grammar School. My hope is that as members of the School Community that you too can practice gratitude in your lives this term – what fills your heart with gratitude?

The School Calendar for 2023 is now very much active and alive. All the events are updated regularly and this year we are excited to be able to host our House Parent Sundowners for all families. These will commence with the Gandhi Parent Sundowner on Thursday 23 February. Formal invitations have been sent to all Gandhi Parents today and RSVPS are due by Friday 17 February. Mr Quan and I are looking forward to seeing a sea of red at the Gandhi Parent Sundowner.

I wish you a wonderful year ahead.

Warmest Wishes,

Mrs Tina Campbell Principal