From the Principal
Community Support, STEAM and Science
As a self-confessed science enthusiast (or perhaps nerd!), I am very excited to bring two pieces of science news to the Tintern Grammar community. As many of you will recall, the focus of our 2017 Annual Appeal was supporting the creation of the Tintern Grammar STEAM Centre. Designed to be a place where students could turn their big ideas into a tangible reality through CAAD design software, laser cutting and 3D printing, coding and programming and our terrific robotics program, the donations from our community clearly expressed the priority that we all place on student opportunity in this area.
It may not be quite finished, but The STEAM Centre is already functioning (just try to keep the students and Mrs Healey out of there!), and watching our students work in teams reinforces what they gain from the collaboration, the critical thinking and the opportunities to innovate, that this facility puts in the hands of every student. It is exciting and rewarding to see, and is also very much the result of your generosity as a community, the generosity of every donation made last year, no matter how big or small. We could not have done it without you, and on behalf of all the students that do and will use it, I thank you for your generosity and commitment to our School.
My second piece of (definitely) science news concerns the re-imagining and re-creation of the current Science buildings, which will commence later this year. Originally built in 1991, they were state-of-the-art when opened and have served the School with distinction for nearly 30 years in a curriculum area that has seen dramatic and (particularly recently) rapid change. By Term 1 2019, the skeleton of the building will be the only thing carried over from the current Science buildings, and it will be a breathtaking facility, enabling students to experience the curiosity, wonder and challenge of science, both in the classroom and in learning spaces outside it, in this most scientific of centuries!
This re-imagining of science at Tintern will be our largest building project for some time and I am confident that families will want to commit to joining with the School as partners in the transformation of The Speagle Science Centre, which will touch the lives, learning and experiences of every student at Tintern. I hope you will make a donation and every contribution, small or large that you feel you can afford will be received with our gratitude. In a century where it will be science that society looks to in order to address challenges around population, global warming, food scarcity and energy, we owe it to our young men and women to give them every opportunity to develop in this field if it is their pathway!
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by Bradley Fry, Principal