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Founder’s Day captures sense of place and time
This week, the School community recognised the spirit of Christ Church through the foundation laid by the School’s founder, Canon McClemans, and the headmasters who continued his vision. Founder’s Day was celebrated at both the Senior and Preparatory schools’ assemblies.
At the Senior School service on Thursday, School Captain Tom Cunningham presented his address on ‘A Sense of History, A Sense of Place’ and acknowledged the School’s outstanding achievements of the past year. Tom, who also spoke at a special Prep School assembly on Friday, reflected on the School’s heritage and his view on the legacy boys benefit from today.
“To me, Christ Church is a school that enables every boy to best realise his potential,” he said. “It is a school which provides the opportunity not only for the talented to succeed but also encourages all young boys to grow into extraordinary, mature, young men.”
Headmaster Garth Wynne thanked Tom for his words and reflections – noting the importance of knowing where a school has come from and hearing the student voice of the present.
In Mr Wynne’s Founder’s Day address to the Senior School, he said Christ Church had reached a balanced point after a five-year period of significant growth and transition. “In the past 18 months we have considered, with particular focus, one of our strategic themes… motivating boys to achieve at their best. The result has been the development of The Christ Church Pedagogy, a guiding and aligning approach to our work at the School – with its clear identification of insights to motivation.”
Mr Wynne touched the four strategic themes leading towards 2015 including enhancing our quality staff in pursuit of the School’s mission; guiding boys to the further development of an international perspective; understanding, enabling and celebrating diversity in the Christ Church context; and planning for a secure, flexible, financial future. He also highlighted some of the exciting physical development planned for the School and its reflection of the education programmes.
“Finally, I challenge all of us here to keep at the core of all our action our motto – Deus Dux Doctrina Lux. If all decisions are made with this simple yet compelling phrase in mind, then our school can only be enriched, as our Founder would have wished.”
The musical item, The Salley Gardens, was performed by vocal soloist Lachlan Higgins (Year 8) accompanied by a string quintet including Kieran Tan (Year 12) and James Fletcher (Year 12) on violin, Toby Ngo (Year 12) on viola, Mr Kevin Gillam on cello, and Edmund Xu (Year 11) on double bass.