CHAIR OF COUNCIL

CHAIR OF COUNCIL

Adventure in the making

As adults, our memories of primary school fade fast. But cast forward. Imagine today’s students heading to school full of eager anticipation of what adventures they might face: finding an insect in the vegie garden; seeing water flow through an ephemeral lake system; discovering that if they put the rainwater from the roof into a tank this will help with the world’s sustainability; or finding out that their breakfast porridge actually comes from the crop being grown outside their classroom; or that they can actually climb that seemingly towering rock wall!

Adventure Education, one of GGS’s strategic pillars, plays such a vital part in any young person’s development, and the fascination of ‘what lies around the corner’ is such an empowering thing. As young and older humans, we thrive on the anticipation of the adventures to come. What an exciting time lies ahead for GGS as it expands on and entrenches Adventure Education throughout the School.

We already have Timbertop – the creative foresight of those who’ve come before – and we continue to see the effects that that this one year can have on our students. We now have the vision to build on what our forebears set in place with our new Primary School at Corio. This is a significant, strategic project for the School – a transformational ‘Timbertop moment’ – and an exciting new chapter for our Bostock House students.

Our new Primary School will realise the School’s vision of a learning experience that embodies the strategic pillars of Adventure Education, Positive Education and Creative Education, with a particular emphasis on nature and inquiry-based learning that leverages our Timbertop experience and enlivens Adventure Education for all students at Corio. Located on the northern aspect of our 230-hectare campus, this will be an unparalleled and innovative project that connects to the natural ecosystem of paddocks, ponds, native grasslands, creek, coastal ridge and lagoon, as well as the exceptional playing fields and facilities that Corio offers – the Handbury Centre for Wellbeing, the Music School, the Chapel of All Saints and the School of Performing Arts and Creative Education (the SPACE).

The new Primary School feeds into the development of the entire Corio Campus Masterplan which, in itself, is most energising for the School. The development of the Masterplan is very much based on the strategic pillars and the imperatives that support them. Extensive stakeholder engagement has been completed across our School community to develop a shared vision for the Masterplan. The input from our community has been wonderfully pleasing to witness and has created a challenging sense of adventure for our project team of architects, landscape architects, engineers and specialist consultants. Our visual map-based CrowdSpot survey had 2,977 visits from 1,265 unique visitors, who added 256 spots and made 309 comments; adding to the interviews, questionnaires and Visioning Workshops completed in 2021. The project team undertook themed Presentation Workshops (based around living, learning and enabling) at the beginning of Term 2 to share key findings and to test preliminary concepts and ideas with staff and students. They then held a Sense-making Workshop with the School’s Executive and Leadership Team to review feedback from these workshops and, importantly, to guide the next stage of the Masterplan’s development. This all led to a presentation to the School Council’s Assets Committee in June, where I was able to grasp just how motivating all of this activity is, and will be, for the School. There will be a forthcoming presentation to the School Council’s August meeting. While it won’t be possible for all planned projects to be completed immediately, the Corio Campus Masterplan will provide the School with a clear and holistic path for integrated development of the Corio Campus. Casting far forward, it will be a valuable blueprint for the next 167 years of the School’s existence.

Adventure awaits GGS.

Paddy Handbury (M’72) Chair of Council