Grace Lutheran College
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Grace Lutheran College, founded in 1978, is a private high school based in Rothwell in Queensland, Australia. Grace Lutheran Primary School is located in Clontarf, and the planned second secondary campus at Caboolture will be open by 2008. The current Headmaster is Fred Stolz ,who has been sleeping resident since the school's founding. The college's enrolment as of the start of the 2007 school year stands at approximately 1500.
Grace Lutheran College is a school of the Lutheran faith and wishes to promote these values to its students and the wider community.
Contents |
[edit] Academic
Grace Lutheran College currently enrols students in Years 7–12. Previous of 2008, the school only enrolled from year 8-12, however year 7s were incorporated in 2008. This leaves years 7–9 as the middle school and 10–12 as the senior school. 2008 saw the completion of the caboolture campus of Grace Lutheran College, currently enrolling year 7 and 8 students and was officially opened on the 23rd May 2008.
Each year, the college pays the entry fees for every one of its students to participate in the University of New South Wales academic competitions in Mathematics, Science, and English; each year the college manages to record a high number of awards for these. Subsequently, various departments allow students to enter academic competitions voluntarily, with the school paying the entry fees for the student to do so.
The college has a well-funded Performing Arts department, with its own theater. Each year, Performing Arts students have a variety of plays and productions, including junior and senior productions. Every second year, the college also hosts a musical production, which is very popular within the community, selling out very early. In May 2007, there was an adaptation of My Fair Lady starring Tait Halliday as Professor Higgins and Caitlin von Berky as Eliza Doolittle. All production casts and crew are made up solely of students, with directing taken up by Performing Arts teachers, senior Performing Arts students, and ex-students.
Grace Lutheran College has an observatory consisting of a Celestron 14-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope attached to its science block. A 13 m radio telescope for monitoring solar activity is also at the Rothwell campus.
[edit] Uniform
Grace Lutheran College's uniforms fall under three main categories: formal, day and sports. The day or regular uniform is the uniform worn most days if a student does not have sport or requires to go on an excursion.
The sports uniform of Grace Lutheran College is varied and to some outsiders rather confusing. The normal sports uniform consists of brown shorts and a polo shirt that is mostly yellow with other colours. However, the uniform can change with seniorty and sport. In Years 9–12, students participating in interschool sport have the opportunity to purchase a diamond-patterned sport shirt to indicate that they are a part of an interschool team. Students that do not wish to participate in interschool sport or have failed to make an interschool team play interhouse sport. The interhouse teams wear their house colours, either white (Pegasus), blue (Phoenix), green (Orion) or red (Antares). Year 12 students also have the opportunity to wear their senior jerseys during their sport day.
Seniors (Years 10-12) have sport on Wednesday and Juniors (Years 8 and 9) on Thursday. Also, Year 7s have their sport on Friday, in order to play interschool sport with primary schools in the area. Approximately half of the school will be wearing day uniform and the other half will be wearing sports uniform, adding to the different uniforms already on display.
The formal uniform, as the name suggests, is used for formal occasions were the student may be required to present their best image to the community. The formal uniform conisists of, for boys, chocolate-brown trousers, white formal shirt, school tie, brown akubra hat and brown leather shoes. Girls are required to wear the chocolate brown skirt, white formal shirt, tie, formal hat and brown leather shoes.
[edit] Outdoor education (Googa)
At Grace Lutheran College, students participate in a Christian Outdoor camp lasting four weeks. At Googa Outdoor Education Centre (Generally shortened to "Googa"), students are to live without electricity (with few exceptions) and without technology. To achieve this aim, students are not allowed to have any electronic devices at the camp, such as mobile phones, I-Pods/Mp3 players, and other such devices.
Due to the camp only being capable of holding 48 students at any one time, students attend the camp in their house groups or join one of two combined groups, one of which attends in the last month of Year 9, and the other during the Easter school holidays. Googa was originally a forestry camp before being purchased by the school. The camp consists of four dormitories capable of holding 12 students each, as well as one other dormitory equipped for disabled students and other scenarios. It also has two composting toilet blocks and housing for staff that live on the camp. Googa has recently purchased an adjacent avocado farm, increasing the total area of the camp to more than 150 acres (0.6 km²). On this new farm it is planned for another campus to be built, almost identical to the current one, allowing for twice as many classes per year. The only electronic devices used at the camp are lights and refrigerators.
Cooking and cleaning are done by the students, with cooking done on wood fires. During the camp, students go on hikes and pioneering exercises. During pioneering students must build a shelter, toilet, chapel and other things required to live comfortably in the bush, out of only rope and wooden poles. The pioneering experience lasts for three to four days and the hike is typically three days long. Early in the last week of the camp, the students experience a 24-hour solo, where they spend a day and night on their own, reflecting on their time at the camp.
Various activities are also observed, such as a daily run through one of three running tracks, various team building exercises, orienteering, tree climbing, and a high ropes course.
Many students claim, that out of their time at Grace Lutheran College, Googa was one of their most enjoyable experiences. Of course the students that didn't survive the month at Googa had negative comments.
[edit] Current developments
Grace Lutheran College is almost continually being expanded in order to accommodate the rising number of students. A large chapel has recently been completed, with the school spending nearly $4 million. The building features a large worship hall, cafe, fully functional media room. The chapel has been a long-term goal of the college since its opening, and began construction in October 2006 after a number of years of delays.
The school believes strongly in donating money to various local, national and global charities. They always prove the importance of donating by the grace of God. Donations are made to different charities each term, including Make Poverty History, which is trying to half world poverty by 2015, African Vision and much more. There is a money tin at the end of the tuckshop line to encourage children to insert their loose change.
Points System
FISH (Focus In Sharing Hope) has also been a new initiative of Christian students in Redcliffe, some of whom felt that more connection and fellowship between students were needed. The first two FISH conferences were held at the Grace Lutheran College chapel towards the end of the school year. Students were encouraged to grow in their Christian faith and be challenged to spread the gospel within their schools. Grace Lutheran College has been helpful in bringing this vision to a reality, thanks to its chapel facilities and devoted staff.
