Great Scot April 2019 Great Scot_156_April_2019_Online | Page 8

Chairman
The Hon. Dr David Kemp AC ('59) – School Council Chairman
The voices of Scotch
When Scotch Council meets school leaders, the boys have
valuable things to say
THE HON. DR DAVID KEMP
AC SCHOOL COUNCIL
CHAIRMAN
A Scotch education achieves many things. Parents
choose Scotch because it has a proven record of
providing one of the best school educations available
in Australia, and Scotch is always seeking ways to lift
the quality of that education still further.
Scotch recognises that in a world of rapid change,
extraordinary opportunities and many challenges
for its boys, it has a responsibility to provide an
education that best equips its students to lead and
contribute towards building a better world through
every sphere of life open to them.
A Scotch education is based on values that reflect
the School’s foundation and that are symbolised by
its traditions, especially those that come through its
Scottish heritage. Scotch was founded by the Rev.
James Forbes to provide schooling that embodied
the most liberal and forward-looking values of the
Free Presbyterian Church he led – a church based
on a deep faith in the spiritual and moral capacity
of the individual person in relation to God,
demanding freedom and independence from the
state — and Enlightenment values of human dignity,
reason and the pursuit of knowledge.
In recent years, through the leadership of
Principal Tom Batty and his senior staff, Scotch has
undertaken significant changes in its organisation
and teaching practices to ensure that the School’s
capacity is strengthened to realise these values in
all that it does. The quality of teaching practice,
and professional opportunities for teachers, are
continually being enhanced; the attention to the
needs of each boy is more and more possible through
improved pastoral care arrangements and close
monitoring of progress for each boy; expanded
opportunities are being provided for boys to learn
about the ideas that move our world; and new
courses and relationships are developing further links
between school and the world beyond.
Above all, Scotch seeks to provide an environment
that is stimulating, challenging and safe, in which
every boy feels valued and can flourish.
The Council congratulates Mr Batty and his
staff for the very significant accreditation of Scotch
as a Safe School by the Australian Childhood
Foundation, making Scotch one of the first major
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Great Scot Number 156 – April 2019
schools to be so recognised. Accreditation is the
result of several years’ work in strengthening
teaching and out-of-classroom practices. Boys are
responding with their own initiatives to build a
campus culture respectful of all. It is a time of
significant cultural change which is assisting Scotch
to achieve better than ever the values for which it has
always stood as a school.
Scotch continues to be a non-selective school,
with boys across a wide range of academic abilities.
The academic and non-academic programs of the
School offer all boys opportunities to discover their
unique interests and talents. This characteristic of
Scotch admissions provides a highly diverse school
community. The School not only has achieved
outstanding academic results in the 2018 VCE once
again, with the highest number of students of any
Victorian school gaining perfect ATAR scores, but it
has achieved outstanding, and measured, value-add
in results for boys across the whole range of academic
abilities.
Council members have the opportunity to meet
with and hear from school leaders at the start of each
year. The boys have valuable things to say to the
Council, and each year the Council gains a sense
from the boys of how education, Scotch and the
world are moving. The Council greatly values this
conversation across the generations, and it is always
thought-provoking.
The quality of the boys is a tribute to their
families and the values they have learnt from their
parents and others. The influence of the School
is also marked, particularly in the knowledge and
awareness that the boys have of the world in which
they live, their capacity to think in a reasoned way
about that world, and their understanding of the
place of the School within it.
Our world today very much needs people who
are moved by moral purpose, understanding and
reasoned thought — who will oppose prejudice
and affronts to human dignity. An education in
such values has always been Scotch’s mission, and I
believe the School has never been more effective in
this mission than it is today.