WELCOME TO RADFORD COLLEGE

Radford College is committed to outstanding educational achievement and the transformation of the whole person in community, in the service of God and all people.

NEWS BREAK
23 May 11:30 am - Chairman announces new Principal

 

Congratulations Radford College:
First Thirty Years

As Term 2 2013 opens, we recognise the 30th anniversary of the laying of the Foundation Stone that marked the formal commencement of Radford College.

It was the French writer Victor Hugo who said that when you open a school, you close a prison. At the Foundation stone ceremony on 30 April 1983, Dr Tom Millar, our inaugural Chair echoed these same sentiments when he told the gathered audience:  “It is a rare privilege to be part of the beginnings of such a venture. Education in its widest and deepest meaning is one of the ennobling activities of humanity.” 

The pioneers of Radford knew they were about to embark upon a significant endeavour – the nurturing of young lives and the nourishing of a community under God.

The school they envisaged was not to be a pale of imitation of others but to seek its own future. As the Foundation Chair said: “We did not want to build a school in the image of either Grammar school, nor did they want us to do so. This school must establish its own distinctive identity as a coeducational Anglican Christian school …and strike out on some new paths.”   Radford will carve out its own vision in a distinctive and authentic way.

The audience that cool and damp April afternoon thirty years ago heard from our Chairman about the things to which the College should dedicate its energies: to “strive for quality”; to the “development of the whole individual”; to ensure students are “cultured and compassionate human beings”; to “break down barriers between sections of the community”; and to ensure “a recognition of the worth of every individual as a child of God”. Herein lies the Charter for Radford – a place of outstanding educational achievement, a place that is unaffected by artificial divisions between sections of the Australian community, a place dedicated to nurturing the whole person and to serving the community both here and beyond.

He concluded, perhaps prophetically: “let us work, above all, to make Radford a happy place, a place for learning and reflection, a place which encourages individuality even where it is uncomfortable, a place which will sit firmly in the affections of generations of students.”

Now, after three decades of determined commitment to this foundation, Radford can construct its future. Whilst educational thought will continue to open new possibilities and bring ever-present changes and challenges, Radford has been established on the rock-solid values articulated when the Foundation Stone was laid.  These values have been faithfully pursued from the beginning of the College and will continue to act as beacons for our future.

Happy Birthday, Radford College.

Peace

PJJ Heath
BA (Hons), MA (Hons), DipEd, FACE, MACEL 
PRINCIPAL

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