For some time now, the Board of GPCC and the Executive Team have been considering ways to try to future proof the school. Independent schools like GPCC face an increasingly uncertain future with rising costs making them less affordable for families, increasing bureaucratic and legislative demands taking attention away from education, and growing threats from various quarters about on-going Government funding.

Even the governance structure of a school like ours is under pressure as legal responsibilities and liabilities grow, making volunteers less interested in becoming Directors. Remember that as a not-for-profit, our Directors receive no remuneration for sitting on the Board but have significant responsibility if anything goes wrong. The strength of a school depends very much on a strong and wise Board and capable leadership.

There is a growing trend in the Christian schooling sector, for schools to group together with others, not in terms of an Association, which we already have, but to support each other through high quality governance and leadership. Our Board Chair, Dr Kevin Sproats has sought to push us in this direction and for GPCC to take the initiative on setting up such a group. My own experience in New Zealand and Indonesia has been to work in such settings, so the time seemed right to explore this option.

We have therefore formed a new not-for-profit company called the Melos Foundation which will be the umbrella for a group of schools who will commit to work together sharing governance, school leadership and business management expertise. The Melos Foundation will invite other schools to join with GPCC to help each other grow stronger and ensure their long-term survival. We also see this as an opportunity, through shared expertise, to grow new Christian schools.

The GPCC Board and company members are now working through the process for GPCC Ltd to become a participating school and we are in conversation with other Christian schools who have expressed interest in joining us. We hope to have this process finalised by the end of this year.

The implications for GPCC are that we will be able to draw on expertise in education, financial management, leadership etc from other schools in the group, as well as offering our own support to them. Once we become operational, I will share more details of how this will involve GPCC.

Be assured that this is not going to detract from the efforts we are making as a school to grow stronger and become more effective, in fact, the principle of strength in numbers will help us in our own journey forward. Each participating school remains an independent school and its finances may only be expended within each school. This means we will have a pay for service system amongst the group but there will be no sharing of income which is not permitted by law.

Next week I will share more of what this means for us and for another venture we are also involved in for the future.

Phillip Nash

Principal