From the Principal - Edition 10 - 2022

Welcome back for Term 3 and what a great start we’ve had! Not only have we welcomed back our students and families from the mid-year break, we also celebrated the return of our annual Old Scholars’ Day, traditionally held on the last Friday in July. COVID-19 has interrupted Old Scholars’ Day for the last two years so we were grateful this year that we could invite the Classes of 1970, 1971 and 1972 to Westminster for their combined 50 Year Golden Anniversary Reunion.

And what a fantastic day it was! We started with an Old Scholars’ Day Assembly for Years 6 to 12 with Guest Speaker Hailey Brown ('16), addressing us on her success in building her highly awarded travel platform Vacayit, an online audio tour guide for vision impaired tourists. Following a morning tea in the Dragon Café, we took our Old Scholar guests on a School tour so they could be amazed by the evolution of the campus but still find enough to connect them with their time as students (as well as share a few entertaining stories on the way). Our Old Scholars enjoyed a beautiful lunch in the Thomas Pavilion while overlooking the ‘Westminster Old Scholars’ Soccer Club vs Students’ boys’ and girls’ matches on the Courtney. Meanwhile, in the Sports and Swimming Centre, there was a ‘Students vs Old Scholars’ basketball match. It was noted that every player in the Old Scholars’ team had received a College Scholarship to play basketball in the USA but the results are not important. All games were played in great spirits and were wonderful to watch. Once the games finished, all players and officials came together for a sausage sizzle outside the Forder Centre. Our campus was truly buzzing with activity.

While our students are the here-and-now life of our School, our Old Scholars, no matter their age, are our living legacy. What they do, who and where they are, how they treat others and how they lead their lives shows the world what Westminster and our community is all about. They are always associated with Westminster and their life journeys demonstrate the moral compass and values that we all strive so hard to develop through a holistic education. It is always a pleasure to have our Old Scholars come back to School and see them interacting with our current students in such a positive, heart-warming way.

The same sense of camaraderie existed last Saturday night at the Convention Centre for the ‘Green and White’, the School’s annual formal for our senior students. Again, what a superb event. Our students more than rose to the occasion, looking and being their best for this formal School event. It was wonderful to see them having the greatest of fun as they enjoyed their evening together. Next week, it will be our House spirit and camaraderie on show as we stage our rescheduled Senior School Swimming Carnivals (Years 7 to 9 on Thursday, Years 10 to 12 on Friday).

As a state, we continue to grapple with the presence of COVID-19 and the arrival of the ‘flu’ season. All of us have felt or are feeling the impact of the challenges that face us and we are all having to make small sacrifices (at least) to take care of each other. In doing so, we can still enjoy the social nature of our landmark events such Old Scholars’ Day and the ‘Green and White’. SA Health are constantly reminding us of their guidelines and I think we’re all very aware of these. I thank you again for your support as we all do our best to keep our community safe.

Simon Shepherd
Principal