Scotch College

A time to reflect - and look forward

 

By the time this issue of Great Scot goes to press, all members of the class of 2006 will have finished their final examinations, and concluded their time at School. I’d like to take this opportunity to reflect a little on the times we have spent together throughout the year.

An essential part of passing through Year 12 at School is being able to leave legacies and instill standards which will continue long after we have left the School. This can be done in a myriad of ways, through our extra-curricular activities or within the classroom.

It was fitting to see one such action take place on our last day, during the final School activity for the Year 12s: the torch ceremony. As Dr Donaldson called for retiring teachers to come forward and receive a gift from the School, each teacher in turn was greeted with a standing ovation from the boys who felt that the teacher being presented had been influential to them during their time at School – in the classroom, on the sporting field or otherwise.

I felt it made the occasion much more personal for the outgoing staff members, and I’m sure they appreciated it all the more as a result. I hope this is an innovation the class of 2006 has begun which will continue for years to come.

I also hope the results of the class of 2006 in December will set another precedent which will be something to strive for in years to come at Scotch. Ms Keiron Jones (Head of Year 12) posted a sheet of study tips outside her office towards the conclusion of term 3, giving us all ideas about how we should get the best out of ourselves over the September holidays, and during the obscenely short three-week term 4.

One of the points on the list was ‘the results you get will be the ones which you deserve’. If this is true, and I definitely believe that it is, then the members of the class of 2006 are destined to be very pleased with themselves come December.

Obviously, those results received by the members of this year’s class will influence entrance into university courses for 2007, for those who wish to take that path. Alternatively, many of the young men leaving Scotch will take other paths next year, whether they are in Melbourne, around Australia or abroad. Many will go into the workforce and some may not look to further their instructional education in the near future. However, for all of us it will definitely be a time of learning and of new experiences, and a time in our lives from which we will all emerge as richer people.

I’d like to touch briefly on an experience I was lucky enough to participate in during the September holidays, when I took part in the first Scotch trip to the Kapumfi School in northern Zambia. (See Kapumfi Update, elsewhere in this issue.) A nine-person tour party, including five present and recent students, flew from Melbourne to Johannesburg, where we spent two nights before travelling north to Zambia.

While in Lusaka (Zambia’s capital) we visited some other World Vision projects, seeing how input from Australia can have an enormous impact. This also gave us an opportunity to visit some other schools comparable with the one we had funded in Kapumfi.

We spent a frenzied two days at the school in Kapumfi after more than seven hours in the bus from Lusaka. On the first day we helped plant trees with over 300 students, and laid some concrete for the teachers’ houses in stage two of the project. The second day was the opening ceremony, where I was given the opportunity to hand over the keys of the school to the Provincial Education Officer, whose department will now run the school.

I can guarantee that each of the Australians who were there felt an enormous sense of pride and satisfaction in our efforts to date. I hope that as we tell of our first-hand experiences and share our photos and videos, the project will receive a real boost.

For me, the Kapumfi tour was just another experience at Scotch which I’m sure has opened my eyes that little bit more.

Having finished Year 12 exams, in the near future the men leaving Scotch from the class of 2006 will embark on a lifelong journey which will no doubt make them all richer people, and we wish them all the best in whatever their journey entails.

Thanks for a great year.

Andy Bubb
School Captain