Foundation Day Tree Planting Speech

This year, Head of Humanities Ms Joanne McVean addressed the College at the Foundation Day Tree Planting. Ms McVean, who commenced at Oxley in 1996, is one of our longest-serving members of staff. In her address, she reflected on her 30 years at the College, noting that while much has changed over time, the strong sense of community has remained constant. You can read Ms McVean’s full speech below.

The size of the Oxley community may have grown, much like all the trees planted on Foundation Days past, but I hope the founders are proud of what Oxley has grown to be.

Joanne McVean

“It is a privilege to speak on behalf of Oxley staff at Foundation Day, but I have to be honest and say that my first response when Mr Bevan asked me did I want to speak this year was a quite abrupt and firm ‘No’. Like many of you, I do not love public speaking but as I have turned 30 this year, I decided I should behave like a grown up, take my inspiration from Oxley students and do what I’m always encouraging them to do, have a go and do this speech anyway. Please don’t feel bad if you didn’t wish me happy birthday for this milestone occasion – it’s not my actual 30^th birthday, and all the students here and perhaps some of the teachers (but let’s not think too hard about that) can be excused for missing that as they weren’t actually born then. It is my 30^th Oxley birthday, my 30^th Foundation Day, and like all ‘O birthdays’ has prompted a bit of reflection regarding how Oxley has changed, but also stayed the same in so many ways.

When I first started here, Chris Welsh was the Headmaster, he of the largest portrait in the Library. The original Deputy Headmaster, Peter Craig, of the Peter Craig Centre fame, was keeping everyone in line (including me as I found him somewhat terrifying to begin with) and Helmut Schaefer, another founding staff member, was, amongst other things, organising his 8^th Outback trip in what was already becoming a fine Oxley tradition. Mr Marnoch ruled the DT kingdom, largely from the woodwork room in what is now Lab 5, while Mr Cunich was an enthusiastic PE teacher with a keen interest in drama. The whole school, of roughly 250 students, fitted easily into Hoskins Hall for Assembly, with teachers in full academic gowns on the stage every week. There was no Junior School or Pre-K, not even a plan for one, there was no indoor sports centre nor Cornerstone lessons. There was no Durack and no Oodgeroo House. There were no walls on the Pavilion and there were no Clocktower Rooms, Study Centre, Art Studios, Music Centre and Bray Fields. There were no soccer teams or touch football teams. The Library, sports change rooms and canteen were brand new and pretty much any building that could be turned into a classroom had been. Oxley was 13 years old then, and much like many teenagers, still trying to feel comfortable in its own skin and work out who it was.

My first Foundation Day was quite different to this – to begin with, it was a Saturday, with all of the speeches and tree planting in the morning and the athletics Carnival in the afternoon, with what seemed like an entire squadron of parents keeping the BBQ going and everyone fed and happy. Foundation Day in those years generally focused on the stories of Oxley’s beginnings. The vision of Oxley’s founders, families who sought a different kind of education for their children that would allow them to flourish as human beings well beyond the classroom, is central to Foundation Day. The bravery of that handful of families of those first 24 students, in entrusting their children’s education to a brand new school with absolutely no track record shouldn’t be underestimated. But their commitment was great. They held working bees to renovate classrooms and grounds, spent countless hours in meetings navigating legal processes and educational bureaucracy and had already agonised over decisions about their founding head and teaching staff. It cannot have been easy, but I’m very glad they persisted. Patience and fortitude certainly prove an apt motto given the hard work of these pioneers in whose footprints we stride.

The size of the Oxley community may have grown, much like all the trees planted on Foundation Days past, but I hope the founders are proud of what Oxley has grown to be. It is delightful to welcome second generation Oxleyans, even if it does feel a little odd to be teaching the children of people I taught as children, and the number of ex-Oxleyans who have returned to work here gives great depth to Oxley’s spirit. Combining all those layers with the number of ‘Oxley offspring’, as Mrs Cupitt calls all the teacher kids, deepens the sense of community we feel here. It really is true that it takes a village to raise a child, and Oxley is a great village with so many connections being woven between us here.

Of course, there have been many changes, but many things (not just some of us old timers) remain the same. The Oxley spirit remains strong – so often seen in our sporting teams performing incredibly well against much bigger schools, but also in the way students conduct themselves with dignity in both victory and defeat. Performing Arts has very much moved onto centre stage with the small, and often chaotic, House Drama Competition stepping aside to make space for multiple productions at all sorts of levels and I am looking forward to hearing all the musical performances this evening – they are such a highlight of Foundation Day as we do it now and are so very impressive – but the commitment to being brave enough to step up and perform and the joy, support and encouragement of all involved, performers and audience alike, have always been part of the lives of Oxley students. Oxley students continue to strive to, as Mr Case often says, make themselves better today than they were yesterday and I love hearing from ex-Oxleyans who always seem to have such interesting stories to tell of their life adventures and of their particular joys and passions, but always return to their memories of Oxley, sharing stories of laughter, challenges and friendships. Even though Oxley has grown, the opportunity to try so many things, from debating to fencing to choir, as well as some actual learning in the classroom, remains the same.

And this brings me to one last story from my first year at Oxley. At some formal occasion that I can’t quite remember, which could have been Foundation Day but might have been Speech Night, the School Captain told a story about the actor Anthony Hopkins who, as a small child would be thrown into the air by his father and was always trying to touch the ceiling. He spoke later about how this desire to always touch the ceiling changed as he grew up to become him pushing himself to try new things and perform at his very best. Amber said that all you needed to do was choose your ceiling and someone here at Oxley would help you touch it. And that is something that I hope never changes.”