Well, what we had really hoped would not happen did happen – we are in for a further four weeks of lockdown. The Heads of School will be in touch about what this will look like for students and families, and feel free to feed back to us ideas or questions in relation to your current experience.

Situations like this can bring a community together or divide it and it is my hope that as we journey through this experience, it will help us to build a stronger community. This only happens when we firstly accept that we all have our own views on the situation, and they will be widely disparate. But all thinking the same thing is not necessary to being a strong community.

In our society today, people are quick to condemn those who hold a view different to theirs and this is leading to spiteful and hurtful comments and actions towards others. Social media fuels this because it takes away the natural accountability that exists in a face-to-face meeting. So, we need to accept that others will hold very different views to our own but that is okay.

The Christian approach to this is always grounded in an understanding of our common humanity. We are all made in God’s image and of equal value. Seeing the other person as being as precious to God as ourselves, helps us to moderate our response to them being different or having different beliefs or ideas to ours. We belong to the human family, so we need to love and respect each other even while disagreeing.

The great Catholic writer and novelist GK Chesterton is reported to have said that he and his younger brother argued their whole lives but never once quarrelled. To argue is to debate ideas but to quarrel is to attack the other person. As we debate the issues of COVID restrictions and vaccinations and home learning etc, let’s choose to argue but never quarrel.

A strong community seeks to preserve relationships without the need to compromise its fundamental beliefs. We are a very diverse community as a school. Our basic beliefs as an organisation are grounded in the orthodox and traditional evangelical Protestant Christian faith. We were birthed by Green Point Baptist Church as an activity of the Church and retain strong connections to it. But, we open our doors to people of other denominations and streams of Christianity as well as those from other faiths and no faith.

You could say there is much to divide us, but there is also much to unite us. We are all focused on raising children to flourish and fulfill their potential. We want them to develop good character and to be equipped to live life to the full. We are committed to quality education and if we focus on these things and allow dissent on others, we can be strong through this trying period of our history.

Phillip Nash

Principal