At St Margaret’s and Berwick Grammar School in Melbourne, the goal of its Senior Boys campus is ‘To grow good men’. The school proudly offers a distinctive education for boys that values the pursuit of academic achievement and excellence, while promoting the development of character as a vehicle for success as a man in the 21st century.
Established in 1926, St Margaret’s and Berwick Grammar School is an independent non-denominational school with a proud tradition of educational excellence. Its unique educational model of learning provides a co-educational ELC and Junior School with single gender senior campuses for girls and boys.
This permits the school to deliver academic and wellbeing programs in ways and environments that it believes suits single gender academic learning best. The existence of brother and sister schools also permits healthy and appropriate social and emotional development that evolves from girls and boys working together.
At the Senior Boys campus, the approach to learning is both innovative and traditional, adopting 21st century pedagogies while also appreciating that enduring values denote men of character embodying generation-courage, respect for self and others, integrity and compassion.
The purpose built and designed facilities for boys enable the freedom for physical expression and an appreciation that self-discipline provides the framework for achieving any goal. A wonderful new High Performance Athletic Centre strongly demonstrates the school’s commitment to the adage of a healthy body and healthy mind, which is integral to a holistic approach to educating each boy for the man he will one day become.
The best education for boys is one rich in nurturing the mind, but it must also seek to nurture the heart and spirit of each student. At St Margaret’s and Berwick Grammar School, this type of learning for each boy occurs as much in the outdoors, on the sporting field, as a member of a debating team or musical ensemble, as it does in the Mathematics or Geography classroom.
A dedicated team of ‘boyologists’ (teachers skilled in both teaching and reaching boys through relational learning) are focused on how we best prepare each boy who enters our gates for the successful completion of examinations, but also to lead a fulfilling and honourable life with a strong moral compass.
These boyologists not only teach boys, they also have the expertise and experience to connect with boys, meaning that we strive to form the nurturing relationship with each boy to enable him to consider the many roles he will confront beyond our gates as a father, husband, partner, employer, employee, leader and servant in the broader community.
St Margaret’s and Berwick Grammar School believes that a successful education for each boy is to be known, valued, celebrated and cared for in an environment which promotes challenge, excellence, achievement and personal growth. A successful education for the world these boys will one day enter as men is one in which they will be required to have skills as much as knowledge.
The House based wellbeing system promotes these skills by providing a smaller community for each boy within the larger school community where he is led, mentored and nurtured by peers as much as teachers.
St Margaret’s and Berwick Grammar School seeks to provide each boy with necessary skills, through its wellbeing curriculum, to think both creatively and critically to resolve conflict and solve problems but to also develop the type of interpersonal capacities which will enable them to thrive as articulate, confident and respectful men.