2025 Archive

Legacy

04 April 2025

‘Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.’  Charles Spurgeon

I first wrote to the College community in February 2003 when I had been in the role of Deputy Principal Pastoral Care for three weeks. I described the joy of a classroom of girls, misty mornings, house spirit ‘to die for’ and the delight of a vibrant boarding house. It would seem that these things have stayed the same. Mist rolls in across the Great Dividing Range all year round, it would seem. Classrooms are still learning-focused, and girls exit lessons with a thank you to the teacher, unsolicited, just part of the Fairholme culture. Reach back to the spectacle of the march pasts at this year’s Interhouse Swimming carnival and ‘house spirit to die for’ is still palpable or seen so transparently in the Year 12 cohort who danced like never before at their formal, last night. Legacies.

Such reflections remind me that a principal’s season is just that – a moment in time, albeit a sixteen-year moment for me - or twenty two years if you count my time as Deputy Principal. One’s footprint is just that a footprint, one hopes, of course, that one’s legacy is more. Of course, the power of this school’s culture is that it will absorb the change to a new principal, rebound, and move forward. This is Fairholme’s strength: an enduring and robust culture of connection, learning and spirit. In 1913 the Spreydonian Report said this: A school is not made in a day, nor in many days; it does not consist of buildings, or teachers, or scholars; it is a thing indefinite and difficult to name, but – number of days forgotten – when it can be felt as a compound of loyalty, camaraderie and unity of purpose, all of which stretch back to days past and forward to days to come … then we may justly claim the name – Fairholme. A friend asked me recently. What’s your legacy? I replied, “I’d like to think my legacy is …” She cut me off mid-sentence, saying – but what is your legacy? My legacy lives within the people of Fairholme – strengths, weaknesses, flaws … but it is people who have been and are my focus, relationships are the bedrock of a good school, there is no way to circumvent this obvious truism. And it will be this aspect of Fairholme’s legacy that lives on in me. I am deeply conscious that Fairholme’s history and her future are deep and wide and the composite of so many. I am pleased to hand this legacy on to Dr Hobart who is well placed and excited to do so.

Developmental psychologist Erik Erikson once said: ‘I am what survives of me.’ The jumpnjive, march pasts, the College prayer, Year 11s singing to the Year 12s at the Valedictory Dinner, these are all things that have survived, legacies from other groups who have walked here before us in the last 108 years –embedded in the Fairholme tradition, events and rituals that live on. When my niece Kate married – our family rang a cow bell – one that accompanied my father’s ancestors from Scotland in the 1800s. It’s our tradition now, something that has survived generations … legacies. It is not the bell that is significant, nor its piercing sound, it is the people that it connects that matter: people now and people into the future. People.

When a player makes the All-Blacks’ Rugby team they are given a book – small, leather-bound and a repository of history, of the things that matter to their team. The first page shows a jersey – the 1905 Originals, – then a picture of the 1924 Invincibles, then another, and another – a visual diary layered with meaning, history, tradition. There are pages to remind the player of the values, the code of honour, and the character of their team. The rest of the pages are blank. Waiting to be filled. Beckoning. This is Fairholme’s moment now – her history is recorded, strong, a mass of footprints, her culture is dense, layered, value-laden but the possibilities of the new, glitter with promise. So, what remains when a principal exits, stage left? A lot. So much. Staff who go above and beyond, on a daily basis. Students who understand the power of finishing well in whatever they do. A culture where learning is at the heart of things. Willingness to ‘act’ – to participate. In essence – what remains is hope for the future, Fairholme’s future and all within.

As staff and students know well, I do love this story of the All- Blacks. Particularly, I am drawn to their approach to cleaning up after themselves, after a game. Kerr describes in his book ‘Legacy’ “a country watching replays of World Cup wins and feeling patriotic and schoolkids lying in bed dreaming of one day wearing the All-Blacks’ jersey, whilst the All-Blacks are tidying up after themselves: sweeping the sheds, doing it properly, so no one else has to, because no one looks after the All Blacks.” Their motto is this: “Never be too big to do the small things that need to be done. Never be too big to sweep the sheds.” To me, this is the best of Fairholme – never being too big to do the small things that need to be done. I saw it last night, after the Year 12s formal finished, as those fabulous 100%ers took their leave, staff and younger students stayed behind. They removed tablecloths, emptied glasses, stacked chairs, collapsed tables – they “swept the shed” cheerfully, humbly and together. Precious.

When the All Blacks put on their black jersey with its silver fern it has meaning, deep meaning. The Maori have a word, taonga which means treasure. The black jersey is taonga, a sacred object. They seek to leave ‘the jersey’ in a better place when their seasons are finished. It is, of course, my wish, my hope, my prayer, that by example, I leave Fairholme an even better place for all, as I go. I hope that I have modelled this philosophy – of “never being too big to do the small things that need to be done.” Of course, this is a subjective view, a wishful view of legacy. What I do know, is that for each and every Fairholme girl there is time for her to make her mark. Her contribution. Her. In her metaphoric leather-bound journal filled with history, tradition, values there are blank pages too – a tantalising future awaiting in a new and hope-filled chapter.

Thank you all for allowing me this long season of caretaking the tartan taonga (treasure) that is Fairholme. Fairholme, your legacy – so strong, so spirited, so tenacious, will live on in me forever. May it live on in you too. Legacy.

Dr Linda Evans | Principal

Lessons in accountability

28 February 2025

Becoming empathetic, responsible, relational and accountable…

Words matter. Lessons in accountability are gifts for life. They are lessons we value here at Fairholme, where one of our five core values: respect is grown through many factors, including through the philosophy of restorative practices.

It’s been the Fairholme way for more than two decades, its sited in the notion of accountability for actions, fixing problems respectfully and moving forward. It is not a quick fix because restorative practices is not something we do, it is about becoming … becoming empathetic, responsible, relational and accountable: tough lessons that take time to learn and appreciate. These lessons are bound through a worldview of ‘working with’ rather than ‘power over.’

For some it’s a big shift in how we see behaviour, how we see children and how we see ourselves. American psychologist, Ross Greene says that “we have forgotten that those skills on the more positive side of human nature have to be taught, have to be modelled, have to be practiced.”

At a previous school I found myself meeting with a mother and son regarding the misalignment between his approach in class, his capability and his results. This was a chronically underachieving highly academically capable young man, unable to meet the expectations of the classroom.

Contrastingly, he had two older sisters who had been engaged, hard-working students, high-achievers. His teachers were deeply frustrated and offended by Mark’s (not his real name) behaviour. I was told by some that this behaviour was mirrored at home.

I reminded myself that such information was third hand – second hand at best. Yet, I knew from some reliable sources (their neighbours were also on staff) that things were tricky at home. I was keen to sit with his parents and the young man and plot a way forward.

I was keen for a learning conversation around accountability, and importantly a respectful plan to move ahead in a better direction, with support. I was naively hopeful about the outcomes.

Like all ‘perfect’ conversations that we prepare in our head, it ran in a vastly different direction. Such a different direction that more than a quarter of a century later, I can still recollect aspects of the meeting and I have remonstrated myself many times over the years about what I “could have/should have” done differently, better, more effectively. Mum arrived with Mark, no dad – it would seem that education remains, too often, the province of the mother.

Things got off to an immediately bad start:

Mother: I am so surprised that you have asked us in to discuss Mark’s results and his behaviour. Quite frankly, my husband and I think that this is about Mark’s teachers, not Mark. His sisters think so too. We simply don’t believe that he is the problem – your teachers are. We don’t see any of this behaviour that’s been described, at home. He is such a good kid, a perfect kid, really.

Me: Thanks for that. Gosh, no problems at home? Then that is challenging – perfect behaviour at home and an inability to meet our expectations at school – in any of his classes. What do you think is happening? What can we do to get more of Mark’s home behaviour, here at school?

Fortunately, memory has erased the full script of the conversation as it unfolded. Needless to say, we didn’t reach the sort of agreement or understanding I was thirsting for. And what came to pass was that this young man’s poor behaviour entered the public arena, the police arena, the legal arena on a number of occasions into the future. On hearing of this, each time, I replayed our conversation and winced, I felt a degree of responsibility for my own part in an unsuccessful conversation.

I also pondered about the message Mark heard when his mother said, ‘His behaviour at home is perfect.’ Because, in that moment he had his personal accountability snatched away. And Mark learned, through those words, that in a public forum, in the face of an authority figure, his mother would lie for him.

Sometimes we do forget that “those skills on the more positive side of human nature have to be taught, have to be modelled, have to be practiced.” (Greene)

Before we get too self-righteous, Greene also reminds us that “the kids we often find most difficult are the kids who need our empathy the most.” Words matter. Lessons in accountability are gifts for life. But empathy needs to be our first step, always. 

Dr Linda Evans | Principal

References

Greene, R. (n.d.) Lives in the Balance. Accessed February 15, 2025.

Voigt, Adam (2020). Restoring teaching: How working restoratively unleashes the teacher within.

Beginnings…

23 January 2025

The hope of the new, the sadness of letting go and the relief of routine

We begin again within the preciouse hopefulness of a new school year. But, to do so, we have to let go of the bliss of holidays. I love holidays – and the sense of their endlessness from a December perspective, anyway. I equate them with a feeling of too much time: a blend of ocean swims, sunshine, cricket and tennis watching, and the joy of too many books. Even though this time, I was blessed to be in Japan for a couple of weeks, with a quantum of snow, a joy in the aesthetic beauty of the place, and my fill of tonkatsu, ramen and tempura: there was a delicious sense of distance between work and life.

Thus, unsurprisingly, the reality of January always bites a little hard and beginning again, requires its own special energy. For families, the start of a new school year holds a mixture of feelings too – the hope of the new, the sadness of letting go and the relief of routine. For us all, a new school year involves starting all over again. Beginnings matter. Beginnings imply a separation from that which has passed.

Separation is easier for some, rather than for others, but it is part of the role of parents: the constant preparation of our child for an independent life.

Thus, it is important that we do not metaphorically insert ourselves into our child’s lunchbox. Engagement in school life looks very different from overinvolvement. We cannot do their work for them, nor can we be their problem solvers and trouble shooters in every situation, lest we rob them of this vital skill for life beyond the Fairholme gates. We can be interested, supportive, present. Having said all that, I know it isn’t easy. I know we want to hold on for just a little longer. I feel for our boarder parents, always, caught, as they are, in the ultimate of letting go moments. But starting anew is also ripe with possibilities.

At the beginning of next term, you will also have a new principal – and Dr Leigh Hobart will spend time with us in March, to begin one of many introductions to the College. She and I met together in the holidays, and I have been corresponding with Dr Hobart, since her announcement – to smooth her entry. Her enthusiasm for this role, for Fairholme, along with her substantial experience in education, most recently in a Deputy role at BBC in Brisbane, gives great confidence for the changeover, and I know that she will be well supported by you. This is an exciting time for the College.

For now, I will relish every Fairholme moment. I am not counting down the days, rather looking forward to the term ahead and the intentionality of beginning well … yes, every bit as important as finishing well. I do look forward to seeing many of you at the Interhouse swimming carnivals and the Principal’s Welcome Function on Friday 21 February.

Let us begin well. With rich anticipation and also with patience: the calm acceptance that things can happen in a different order than that which we expected.

Best wishes

Dr Linda Evans | Principal