On Friday afternoon this week, I visited St Paul’s Grammar School in Penrith at the invitation of the Head of School, Mr Paul Kidson.
St Paul’s was my first headship, and I served there in that role from 1989 to 1997. During my time at the school, the school population grew from 570 to 1225 students, we opened a primary school on the campus and – much further afield – we opened an upper secondary feeder school in north-east China. We also introduced the International Baccalaureate Diploma and we completed five major building programs.
It was a heady, hectic and exhilarating time. At the time I left, St Paul’s was still a young school, just 14 years old. Although student numbers have declined a little in the intervening years, the school has added some wonderful new buildings, facilities and courses, it has attracted an outstanding teaching faculty, and it is now celebrating its 30th anniversary.
The reason for my visit was that Mr Kidson has invited me to deliver some remarks to the departing Grade 12 students at the Graduation Dinner that will be held in a few weeks from now on 21st September. I agreed to do so provided I could chat beforehand with some Grade 11 and 12 students in order to understand what today’s students thought of the school, what they valued, what they would change if they could, and what they thought they might miss after they left.
I had a great meeting with several students who graciously agreed to speak with me even though that would mean sacrificing some time from their class – they concealed their distress at missing class time extremely well with huge smiles and a thoroughly relaxed manner - no doubt simply to assuage my guilt.
That I was impressed with the young men and women with whom I spoke would be an understatement. They were a very impressive group of students – polite, articulate and well-spoken, confident without any hint of arrogance, curious, inquisitive and informative. When these students go forth from St Paul’s, they will be superb ambassadors of whom the school can rightly feel extremely proud.
SPOSMaC has done a brilliant job over the years in accomplishing its purposes, the most notable achievements being the establishment of the Light of the World School in Harbin, China, in 1996, and the subsequent recruitment of significant numbers of wonderful students from various parts of Asia (especially China) who have attended St Paul’s over the past two decades and who now provide vital links between their home countries and the school.
I had not been able to attend a meeting of SPOSMaC since 1997 due to my work commitments overseas. It was wonderful, therefore, to have the chance reminisce with members of the SPOSMaC board, and more importantly, to express my gratitude to them for honouring the vision of the organization over the past two decades. Is a measure of their faithfulness that most of the original members of the SPOSMaC board have continued to serve for all 19 years of the organization’s existence, and were present for the meeting on Friday afternoon.
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For those friends who are following the progress of Di’s and my move back to Sydney, we have now moved into our home in North Ryde. However, our shipment of furniture, books and other belongings from Houston is unlikely to be delivered for another week and a half according to the latest estimate. We are living in our largely empty house with just two items of furniture – a new bed that we have purchased, and an old sofa that one of our sons has discarded (thank you Phillip!). It is a relatively effortless way to achieve a not-so-trendy form of minimalism.
We still do not have phone or internet, but I have made arrangements for these and I am hoping they will soon be installed. Meanwhile, I am accessing e-mail each day (and uploading this blog!) by making a daily visit to Macquarie Shopping Centre, which has free wi-fi available in the food court (thank you Macquarie Centre!).
As I have said before, and as I will no doubt repeat in the future – moving internationally lost its novelty value a long while ago!