THE first day of school is always a milestone for children, however, for the year 12 students of Orange Anglican Grammar School it represents a milestone for the school as well.
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This year will be the first when the school offers classes all the way from kindergarten to year 12, bringing to an end the establishment phase of Orange’s newest school.
Founded in 2007 the school’s first home was the Holy Trinity Memorial Hall adjacent to the church in Anson Street. From there enrolments grew and it moved to the Murphy’s Lane site where it welcomed the very first year 12 cohort yesterday.
This establishment phase has not always been easy, particularly when the Bathurst diocese of the Anglican Church ran into deep financial trouble in 2011 and was forced to sell assets to secure the future of three schools.
Unfortunately legal action by the Commonwealth Bank to recover a church debt of more than $30 million subsequently forced the diocese to sell Orange Anglican Grammar School and Macquarie Anglican Grammar School to the Sydney Anglican School Corporation.
Uncertainty leading up to the sale must have tested the resolve of parents who were investing in the educational future of their students, but enrolments held up and the sale in 2013 gave the school and its parents and senior students some certainty.
Nevertheless, the decision to progress through the senior school years and eventually reach this point, the class of 2015, must have been a difficult one for the students of year 12 and their parents.
They have had no HSC marks or ATARS on which to base a decision to undertake year 12 at the school, only the experience of the culture of the school’s recent years and an abiding confidence in its future.
Every December there is palpable excitement when HSC marks and ATARS are released in Orange. This year Orange Anglican Grammar School will deservedly share in that experience too.