Since its first year in 1892, Haileybury has always been an aspirational school with an aspirational community. It is one of the key elements that has enabled the school to evolve and change to meet the expectations of each generation of students.
This edition of the Haileyburian highlights the bold aspirations of our students and their families, our staff, and the School itself across all of One Haileybury’s different campuses and schools.
One example is the Haileybury/Swinburne space partnership which for the sixth time has seen a group of Year 11 students put an experiment onto the International Space Station. This year it is a fungi experiment that has further developed the students’ mushrooming interest in, and engagement with, science.
Just as some of the students working on the space experiment will head off to leading international universities, so will some of our fine sports competitors. Indeed, eight students who have graduated from Haileybury’s highly successful basketball program are currently studying at US universities on scholarship programs. This is on the back of a remarkable four boys basketball premierships in a row. This is a record in the 33 years that boys basketball has been an APS premiership sport.
Girls basketball also has an outstanding record with three premierships in the last six years. The first Haileybury girls’ school captain, Dayna Schinz, was also the first girls’ basketball captain. Dayna has been teaching at Haileybury for 12 years and is a wonderful example of Haileybury’s aspirational teachers. She is now leading the way as a Digital Learning Leader, Senior School and teaching at Haileybury Pangea – a part of Haileybury’s ambition to be a leading online school catering for the many and varied needs of students today. Another of Haileybury’s Digital Learning Leaders, Dominika Kaputska, won the Education Rising Star Award at the Australian Education Awards. Dominika is hugely inspirational for her students but also set herself the goal of working at Haileybury when she moved to Australia from Canada. We are very glad she was successful in this goal!
As a school we are always focused on the opportunities for all Haileybury students and the commitment to the concept of One Haileybury – operating under a shared set of values. A fine example of One Haileybury was the school equestrian championships which were held in Townsville this year. Haileybury had six students competing, representing both Victoria and the Northern Territory and coming from Haileybury Rendall School, Darwin, Haileybury Melbourne and Haileybury Pangea. It is a lovely story about the breadth of the Haileybury community. A second example is the wonderful story of the 20 students from Haileybury Rendall School who spent time at Haileybury Tianjin. Friendships were forged, fun was had and as Louis from Haileybury Tianjin said “it felt like we were not just sharing knowledge, but also building a deeper connection across borders.”
There are many more stories in this Haileyburian including wonderful Old Haileyburians such as Oscar winner Adam Elliot (OH 1989). I hope you enjoy reading about our marvellous, aspirational, One Haileybury community.