The motto of our school is ‘Equipped for Life’.  We chose this as a way of summarising our purpose statement and making sense of the elements of our graduate profile. The motto raises some questions, however. What does it mean to be equipped, and what sort of life are we seeking to equip students for?

Education is understood to have many different purposes. We may be educating to help students get a higher education or a good job. We may be educating to help them become a better person. We may be educating to enculturate them into our society. We may be educating them to be productive and skilled workers to improve our economy.

As a Christian school we take as our starting point the beliefs of the Christian faith, captured in the Bible which we understand to be God’s explanation to us of the purpose of the world, its issues and his solutions to those. So, a Christian school grounds its purpose in that story – the story of the world from its creation to its final restoration. Education is a way of ensuring students understand that story and are helped to know how they might take their place in it.

For those who embrace the Christian life, it means seeking a relationship with the Creator God who promises to renew us and give us a fresh start in life. Remember that the story of God begins very positively in the Garden of Eden, but humankind refuses to live according to God’s pattern for them, wanting to be in total control and so reject relationship with God and are cast adrift to use their own resources to survive.

Being made in His image, humans have been able to survive, spread across the earth and achieve some remarkable things. But the announcement of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a stark reminder that all is not right. Hatred and war, disease and famine, greed and selfishness have accompanied human progress. The story of God is about how God seeks out people to return to Him and begin to restore this brokenness. For Christians, education is about helping students learn this story and understand and develop the skills to live once again according to God’s template for human existence.

So, at GPCC, we seek to equip students intellectually, spiritually, socially and physically to live this life. When we do this, we discover that life can be lived to the full, that we can flourish despite the issues in the world. That there is a greater purpose for us than mere survival. That God’s promise is to renew us, to help us live a renewed life in Him and, that He will be with us through all the troubles that we still experience in this world.

We hope this is a vision that you have for your child and that together we can partner in helping them to grow as their Creator intended.