From the Head Master
One of the more commonly used metaphors when thinking about the passage of time likens periods of one’s life to the chapters of a book. It verges on being a cliché, but the reason metaphors become clichéd is that they express an obvious truth.
Life does come to us in chapters. There is a beginning and an end. Chapters vary in length and they vary in content. Each chapter contributes to a longer narrative arc. Some chapters are more memorable and more dramatic than others, but they all form part of a bigger story.
Time at Trinity can be understood as a chapter, or perhaps a series of chapters. For each one of us, this chapter starts and will finish. This morning in the carpark, I met the incoming Junior School Kindergarten students of 2022 and their parents. Next Saturday we will farewell the graduating Year 12 students. As one group of students start a new chapter, another group comes to the end.
As it happens for students, so too it happens for staff. Trinity has more than 400 permanent staff, with many more temporary and contracted both as teachers and support staff. There is always an ebb and flow in a staff community of that size. Long service leave, maternity leave and various other forms of staff circumstances all come into play, bringing staff into the school community for chapters of varying length.
It is also the case that staff come to us for longer chapters, contributing to the life of the School in various ways and playing their role in the formation of the boys with whom they have contact. Some leave for retirement, some for promotion, some for geographic location and some just for a change. We delight in the variety and the variation of our staff community, valuing both the continuity that is brought by long-serving staff and the refreshment that is brought by new staff.
At the end of this year, we bid farewell to a number of permanent staff who have served our community with distinction. On behalf of the School I thank them for their service and wish them well as they move onto a new chapter. In particular, I want to acknowledge Janet Wonders (Maths), Carol Geddes (Maths), Bill Foran (Economics) and Mark Hatton-Ward (Science), all of whom are retiring from teaching after two decades or more at Trinity.
There is a time for starting and a time for finishing, a time for enduring and a time for renewing. We give thanks to God for the Trinity community, past, present and future. We bless those who depart, and we look forward with anticipation to those whom God will bring to us.
Detur gloria soli Deo.
Tim Bowden | Head Master
