Introduction

It’s a pleasure to present this Annual Report for Canberra Grammar School in 2021.

On the surface, it was another year of stress and loss dominated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our campus stood dormant for months, its locker rooms empty, its classrooms dark, and its gardens beautiful but silent. For many in our community, another year of hardship has been real, educationally, emotionally and financially. There is no minimising that or its impact on our collective culture.

Yet, it is also possible to see a year of hope, dedication and extraordinary achievement. Our grounds may have been deserted, but our School was humming; alive with learning, online and in a thousand different kinds of personal growth spread across the city and beyond. We remained a community vitally connected in the care of online tutor groups, house meetings, chapel services, assemblies and daily check-ins; a school networked for video lessons, self-study modules, research projects, online exams and oral assessments. All were virtually unimaginable as recently as 2019, and all are a triumph of dedication and ingenuity, for which everyone should be proud.

With the practice of 2020 behind us, the transition to remote learning this year was remarkable. Courses were ready and systems were tested. Students, staff and parents knew what to do, and made it good. Content was covered, but more important was the sudden impetus to inquiry, organised study schedules, self-motivation, resilience and independent learning: the Holy Grail of education in normal times.

Too easily we look for the deficit; the supposed lost progress that remote learning must entail for a society determined to measure education only in NAPLAN numbers; but not all education is what’s on the curriculum, nor what’s examinable. In every household there was learning in the kitchen, in the garden, around the table, in playing games, in conversation and music and in the quiet occupation of reading, drawing and thinking.

We don’t for an instant dismiss the potential impact of lockdown on the crucial Kindergarten stage of early reading just as in the final months of preparation for Year 12 exams; but, if lifelong learning is more than a slogan, then we should keep the lockdown months in perspective and look for what we gained from them.

If we seek for learning, there was plenty in 2021, both in lockdown and before it. In fact, the first half of the year was bursting with it; proof of just how rapidly and vibrantly our School bounced back from the gruelling year before it, as we will again. This report, like the 2021 edition of CGS Outlook, is testament to remarkable accomplishments in academic Olympiads across the sciences, linguistics and humanities; to the power of intelligent young minds in addressing national and global issues; to victories in debating and major achievements in art and service.

Year 6 Exhibitions were again powerful expressions of our Primary learning and our aspiration to educate curious, creative, confident and compassionate young citizens of the world. Likewise, whatever the enormous impact of the pandemic on our Year 12 students’ final results, their resilience and steadfast focus were their testament. The fact that more than 85% attained early offers for tertiary study, even before their exams were finished, is not only a tribute but a welcome transformation of what we may measure and value in education.

The momentum of our return to sport this year was also palpable, with superb summer season victories and our prospects in winter finals before the lockdown looking stronger in some sports than in many years. The creative and performing arts burst back onto the stage with the fun and flair of Grease and with countless concerts, soirees and recitals large and small across the Primary and Senior Schools. Outdoor Education was back, excursions were running, chess, coding and a thousand other activities were fuelling the richness of our daily lives. House Music was more spectacular than ever for the joy of its return, and as the construction of our new auditorium and music department has continued through the tribulations of the year we can only imagine what’s yet to come next year.

Like the hard year before it, 2021 has proven our resilience, the dedication of all in our community, and the strength in our diversity that will see our many passions thrive again in 2022. For that and more, we sincerely thank our students, staff, families, Alumni, supporters of the CGS Foundation, the Board and friends of our community. Our School is blessed indeed.

Dr Justin Garrick Head of School Stephen Byron Chair of the School Board