From the Headmaster

Headmaster Adam Heath addressing the Grammar community at Founders' Day 2019

FROM THE HEADMASTER

Mr Adam Heath

The request came via email from Old Grammarian Charlie Rose (1999) and was a little out of the blue. He and his brother Hamish (2005) had been trekking in Nepal. On the walking route between Lukla and Everest Base Camp, they had visited a small village, Buksa, that had been devastated by the April 2015 earthquakes. Whilst some of the village had been rebuilt, the local school remained in ruins. Charlie was contacting Ballarat Grammar to see if we might provide funding and partner with the Himalayan Trust to rebuild the school. The Junior School, using $10,000 of its Bina Day funds, committed to build four stone classrooms for the village.

Hamish, a qualified builder, decided to return to the village for the rebuild, to assist with the project commencing in May 2017. Over the ensuing three month period, a small village school building materialised. Buksa returned to having a fully functioning school by the middle of that year, following an additional supply of learning materials, also purchased with money raised from Bina Day.

Upon his return, Hamish commented that there was still much rehabilitation work needed in the village and more school buildings would be required. By coincidence, we had been looking for an alternative to the traditional ‘Schoolies’ Week’ for Year 12 leavers. In partnership with World Expeditions, who visited Buksa and met with the local villagers to establish their priorities, a trip to Nepal has been organised for November of this year for seventeen of our School leavers. It is hoped that this trip will become an annual event for our School.

It all started with the innate humanity of two of our former students; they saw a situation of disadvantage that they were unwilling to accept. This quality of doing ‘good’ in the world reminded me of frequent conversations that I have with parents about their aspirations for their children.

Every parent I have met has, as their highest priority, their child’s happiness. We all understand that teenage years are sometimes filled with ups and downs, but parents want their children to feel generally good about their lot in life and optimistic about the future. More than simply seeking happiness, we need to teach our students how to proactively maintain their physical and mental health: we need to equip them with the skills to deal with and rebound from inevitable periods of difficulty in their lives.

All parents want their child to be healthy. More than just to be free of illness, they want their child to experience sufficiently good mental and physical health to be able to take some risks to try new things and throw themselves into the many opportunities that life offers.

Parents want their children to be prepared to do ‘good’ in the world, just as Charlie and Hamish Rose have. Parents choose our School because they want their children to be immersed in a diverse range of experiences that broaden their understanding of the world, develop their character and values, helping them to become good citizens of the world. A wise former Principal once told me that the test of determining if you have done a reasonable job of this would be to ask yourself if you would be happy having any of your alumni as neighbours.

Good schools help students to find their passion; the thing that they throw themselves into without reserve. Parents want their child to try to find ‘their thing’. Our teachers are constantly encouraging students to try new opportunities until they find their inspiration. As a rowing parent, I have ‘lived the dream’ of having a daughter that has found her passion, resulting in many early morning drop-offs at the boat shed and weekends at regattas. For some students it’s chemistry, others are driven to learn the violin, pursue ceramics, play AFL, or they just love their Latin. Once students have found their thing, the snowballing success cycle begins – they realise that dedication and effort lead to more success and they start applying this winning approach to their learning and other interests.

To achieve this scenario for their students, put in its simplest terms, Schools need to build intellect and character. Intellect comes through not just teaching students how to pass an exam, important as this is, but to think critically and for themselves. They need to be able to communicate their ideas and knowledge in a way that inspires others. Our students need to value diversity of ideas, so that they see broad thinking as turbo-charging effective collaboration. They need to back themselves as innovators, constantly able to adapt to unexpected changes and opportunities.

Developing character is similarly complex, and begins with adults that explore the world with their students through questioning, rather than just ploughing through curriculum. This is where great partnerships emerge between parents and their children’s teachers, supporting one another in tag-team formation. We know that values are more absorbed than taught; our young people watch us like hawks, determining whether our purported values are corroborated by our actions. If they sense authenticity, they follow unflinchingly. Character must be tried and tested, through friendships, during social and physical challenges, such as camps, and in a trusted, encouraging community. In order for values to stick, they must be exercised through community service and other altruistic leadership activities; seeing values lived, and making a differences to lives, makes sense of them, giving them purpose and meaning.

A great school is a large team of people - teachers, students, parents and the wider community - who pull together in a common direction to develop great young people, in the knowledge that they are the future. We are fortunate to be one of those schools, one of those communities that nurtures intellect and character and produces outstanding, compassionate young people.