Haileybury has an extraordinary Co-curricular program providing choices for students to engage in activities that develop their skills well beyond the class and in preparation for life after school.  This edition of The Haileyburian highlights just how wide the choice is for students and what remarkable growth comes out of these opportunities. 

The Program is focused around four key themes: Sport, The Arts, Experiential Learning and the Curious Minds program. Within these themes there are hundreds of opportunities for students to engage in new activities or to follow a particular passion as they move through the School. 

In sport, for example, there are more than 40 sports and activities for students to participate in across summer, winter and spring seasons. Haileybury is pleased to be a part of the Associated Public Schools (APS) competition for boys and the APS/Associated Grammar Schools Victoria (AGSV) competition for girls.   

These competitions encompass many traditional sports and more than 21,865 students participate each weekend of the winter and summer seasons.  Haileybury is highly successful in these competitions but over many years has created a much broader set of opportunities for students. 

One of the sports highlighted in this edition of The Haileyburian is the Olympic sport of rock climbing which has been offered at Haileybury for more than a decade. Anyone who watched the top rope climbing and bouldering at the Paris Olympics will have seen what an extraordinarily challenging activity and dynamic community climbers are a part of. Haileybury has led the way by making rock climbing available in a school setting and it was exciting to see that Andrew Chen (OH 2015), former Haileybury climbing instructor, coached the Australian national rock climbing team in Paris.  As one of our Year 12 students notes in the article “..something that I enjoy about rock climbing is the community behind it. There is also something about incremental progress that still feels incredibly rewarding.”   It is no surprise that many of our graduates continue with recreational climbing when they leave school. 

Space features in our Co-curricular program with the remarkable SHINE program which every year sees Haileybury students work with Swinburne University astrophysicists to send an experiment to the International Space Station.  This is the eighth year of the program and it is no surprise that a number of the brilliant young school scientists who have participated in the program go on to study at some of the world’s leading universities. 

Haileybury’s performing arts see thousands of students participate in over 60 events each year.  This year’s Year 12 musical Mama Mia! was an extraordinarily high quality, community supported event.  Haileybury supports students to embrace their love of the performing and creative arts.  One of Haileybury’s recent graduates Ash Tomelli (OH 2022) is making her mark in the art world and is putting the finishing touches on a significant mural at our Keysborough campus designed to “encourage people to “take a deep breath, slow down and be mindful of ourselves, our surroundings and take a moment to relax in our busy world”.  This addition also further acknowledges the work of Academy Award® winner Adam Elliot whose most recent film Memoir of a Snail has been so well received and critically acclaimed.    

As I write this, more than 500 Year 9 students are out around Australia and internationally on 17 different Explore and Expeditions trips.  Each student participates in two of these in their Year 9 year.  The Program was started 20 years ago and evolves and changes every year to give students opportunities to grow and develop skills that will hold them in good stead for life after school.  It is a prime example of Haileybury seeking to provide choice for students rather than having them go into a one size fits all Experiential Learning program.   

The breadth of opportunities available to students comes about because of the commitment of a great teaching staff and the support of the Corporate Services team.  Haileybury Council’s support over many years has been integral to the breath of the Program.  For 15 years (2009-2023) the Council was led by Chairman Tom Poulton.  Tom was always keen to see that students had every opportunity to grow and develop their skills through a strong Co-curricular program and that they should be able to choose from the most extensive range of choices possible.  Sadly Tom died in January of this year — his legacy, however, lives on.  Tom insisted that Haileybury students should have the strongest Academic program and the widest range of co-curricular opportunities available in any school.  As he noted annually in his update on the School to parents:  Haileybury students “deserve nothing less.”