Origin.

Decades of direct involvement in school, private tertiary and VET education services caused concern about many underlying assumptions, then consequent practices in Australian education. The evidence led to establishment of the company. The central agenda: reform.

 

Concerns

 

Higher School Certificate and equivalent final school year models by contrast to those in some advanced countries.

 

Dilution of HSC subject requirements’ participation in NSW.  In 2019 some 393 courses were available for study, some not accountable for ATAR ranking.  There were 69 Languages taught and examined. 67,915 students presented for the HSC in 2019.English is the sole compulsory subject selection. (NESA NSW March 2020)

 

Exclusion of New South Wales Government Schools from participation in the International Baccalaureate Diploma as at 1990. In the IB Diploma from some 124 courses offered each student must present in 3 Core subjects, 6 Elective courses. Candidature May 2019: 166,465 in 144 countries. Candidature November 2019: 19,102 in 117 countries. Six subject ‘areas’ are compulsory, additional to three ‘core’ studies. Language, Science and Mathematics are mandatory, chosen across a range. (IBOrganisation, March 2020)

 

Media concentration on quality of education issues in December/January each year, usually followed by silence until the following year. Media interest in unionisation of teacher cohorts, school infrastructure, special cases in schools all remain worthy of ‘copy’.

 

Media ‘analysis’ of Higher School Certificate and International Baccalaureate outcomes. Demonstrable lack of analytical clarity, sub-texts apparent.

 

School Teacher pre-service education and training, with consequences in the ‘standing’ of the profession. Rejection of teaching being a vocation, rather more an industrial supervision. Teacher turn-over and ‘churn’ in schools indicating deep disillusion.

 

Teacher financial rewards compared to other professions.

 

Politics of education across Australia, consequent impact on curricula offered and accepted by the financial support ‘authorities’.  

 

PISA, Naplan, MySchool and other metrics covey the ‘rictus’ inherent in education bureaucracy. Need for reform of education governance, equal opportunity for Australian children in line with their global peers. Individual School ‘ethos’ always needs development, refreshment. Each day at school for a child is a single opportunity; no second chances.

 

Finance, governance, accountability, in schools and colleges, famously in universities. It is vital to have an accountable financial support structure.

 

Motivation.

Established by Peter J Cornish M.A (Syd.) Dip.Ed. (Ncle), FACE after professional experience teaching since 1966, Head of Department, Deputy Headmaster, Headmaster and (Group)Executive Headmaster to 2002, General Manager educational, private tertiary Governance 2004 until 2010. Peter’s experience has been in Australia, the United Kingdom, Sweden, with studies also in the United States, professional associations with Japan, Thailand and Germany. (For detailed credentials see personal biographical commentary on this website.)

 

Developing and deploying assistance to the education sectors is AEA’s primary aim, designed according to need. AEA Pty Ltd asserts that in order to be ready for Australia’s future teachers must enrich the life of the mind through service to all students, enhance each student’s physical, spiritual and social life. Directly consequential is essential work to provide better support for teachers and administrative leaders.

 

The platform for Peter Cornish’s professional recommendations through AEA Pty Ltd was his twenty-one years as Headmaster and then (Group) Executive Headmaster centred on SCECGS Redlands, Cremorne, Sydney. This was followed by Chairmanship of the Australian College of Physical Education (ACPE) at Sydney Olympic Park until 2010.

 

His principal good fortune was to be appointed in 1981 by the Directors of SCECGS Redlands. The years that followed meant planned reconstructed of that school through a synergy of high quality education purposes with stringent business requirements. The purpose was always ‘the child’ to become the young adult, a correct beneficiary of highly developed business skills in those who had negotiated ‘against all odds’ the purchase of the school after schools’ collapse of the 1970s.

(For detailed description of and history of the reconstruction, see accompanying sections of this website.)

 

Over twenty-eight years the Directors, Peter and many exceptional teachers of independent mind took one financially destroyed SCEGGS Redlands and built a bustling, successful, ‘gold standard’ education advocate: SCECGS Redlands. Newly co-educational (1978), in the vanguard of the Australian independent co-educational ‘movement’, SCECGS Redlands overtly influenced improvement in the practice of holistic education. Each policy element drew on constructive and recognised research leading to practice. Some of the influences came internationally.  

 

Confident independence achieved by those who fought to secure continuance of SCECGS Redlands in the 1970s made all possible, required pace with accuracy. The trajectory achieved was upward, unflinchingly measured on a range of metrics. Crucially however independence required a rejection of slavishness.

 

More exact details of some innovative advances established by the school are available elsewhere on this website. These included advanced computerised administration from the early 1980s, introduction of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma second only in Australasia to Narrabundah College in the ACT, High Country Campus in the Snowy Mountains influenced in philosophy by the work of James Darling and Kurt Hahn, founding of Snowy Mountains Grammar School, Tutor Task drawing on the philosophy of the IB, early education pre-Kindergarten deliberately influenced by Montessori, advanced Games and Fitness policy, integrated tertiary Degree facilities to complete the Early Childhood to Graduate studies Redlands’ continuum.

 

Active, proactive pastoral care became a hallmark of the school, in the context of the best pastoral care always emerges from the best education and teaching practice.

 

None of the outcomes accomplished by 2002/03 – financial stability with profitability, expanded physical assets and infrastructure, future-oriented exemplary HSC and IB achievements by individuals and cohorts, individual teacher remuneration associated with chosen professional commitment, establishment by request of Snowy Mountains Grammar School Jindabyne NSW, assistance to other independent schools ‘in trouble’, would have occurred without constantly reinforced harmonious relationships between school governance and companion well qualified teaching.

 

In the intervening years many have surmised that the accomplishments were a direct product of the ‘liberalising’ era, the 1980s. It all was ‘bound to happen’.

 

On the contrary, in the same period in Australia many schools disappeared. Financial failure with recognised underlying causes was the usual reason rather than deliberate policy or change of education philosophy. Misjudgement contributed frequently. Disrespect for schools and schooling was often apparent.

 

For Redlands’ survival the actual social ‘character’ of the small group of then parents who refused to allow Redlands to disappear in 1975 to 1980 proved to be paramount. This is a key part of any analysis. Born into the war-time generation called to active service the three ‘Trustees’ charged by the then Parents and Friends Association to do all possible to keep the school open, teaching, knew how to fight, then how to win. None of the three had been to ‘private’ school; all had been on active service in World War 2; all were intensely active in business careers; they volunteered to help Redlands at which their daughters were pupils. The consequent demands on time and talent were unrelenting. Such mettle is not common; it just happened to be available when needed. Timely. In the end, measured by results: brilliant. (For biographical information, see separate section of this website.)

 

As detailed material available elsewhere also on this website describes and implies, the skills employed ensured that all the contrary forces over five and more years were rebuffed, outsmarted. Core lessons were learnt, responses demonstrated, all relevant in 2020 and later; perhaps always.

 

The history, analysis and demonstrated outcomes are instructive for all in the field of - sometimes the battlefield of - education.

 

Stepping into the role of Headmaster in 1981, Peter Cornish had to run hard to ‘keep up’. Happily teaching English, History, Divinity and occasionally Latin, coaching Rugby, Cricket and Rowing followed by education administration as Deputy Headmaster raises capacity in respectful association with adept classroom colleagues. It does not readily prepare a man or woman for the world of debt, margin calls, interest rates, capital expenditure budgets, balance sheets, AGM manoeuvring, principles of business management including payment of overdue school fees and other daily commercial realities. Close concentration together with interactive communication, readiness to consult and the self-discipline of an otherwise uncompliant attitude were all essential. Hard lessons were learnt, all to long term advantage.

 

At centre however over many years the skills of volunteer Chairman, a number of volunteer Directors, employed accounting staff, crucial secretarial staff, maintenance staff: all made systems’ successes possible, admirable, welcomed by those affected.

 

Gates remained open; enrolments increased; school-based curriculum improved as a result; results proved sturdy. Thinking improved, became elegant but remained relevant.

 

Above all: promises were kept to children and families alike.

 

Why was it all done?  Towards the end of his life one of the ‘Trustees”, John Wilmot Roberts, Company Secretary and Treasurer over years, was asked why he and his Trustee friends had eschewed comfort, had fought to ensure Redlands survived and thrived. His answer: “For our wives and daughters.” (2019)

 

Promises were indeed kept. The adults made the world work for the children. In the microcosm of SCECGS Redlands the ‘great tradition’ of Grammar School influenced education was sustained, defended, fostered, honoured.

 

Perhaps part of the momentum also towards success over decades was the synergy between Peter’s being born in Newcastle and growing up comfortably in that “hardscrabble’ city, guided by parents and grandparents about whom there was little pipe-dream and the adamantine practicality of the war-time generation of Redlands’ parents of the time. Melbourne, North Sydney, Sydney and Newcastle communicated.

 

By beneficial accident aligned with new political policies in Australia Peter went to university on scholarship, the first in his family to do so. He was not alone in his generation. It was an optimistic post-war Australia.

 

Looking back he said: “It was clear that there had to be a better way of schooling, of thinking. In Newcastle in the 1950s to early 60s very large classes allowed little by way of personalisation in education. Behaviour in class was not created by cooperation between teacher and taught, but rather by the mythology of schoolboy yarns.”

 

There are indeed better ways, better practices. There are independent ways of thinking, enriched ways of learning expansive enriched information, more independent ways of applying information guiding towards knowledge, less compliant attitudes to demands for procedural learning in tune with procedural teaching, finer social structures of parents’ links to their children’s school. The goal: to provide the student stepping into adulthood with that personal framework which makes natural his or her welcome, sturdy independence of being.

 

From the perspective of the 2020s it seems likely that the learned professional life local and international with experiential values Peter brought to Redlands intersected well with the insights, purposes and values of the Board of the then Directors at SCEGGS Redlands.

 

Singleness of purpose agreed, followed by action daily without let or hindrance brought enhanced reputation, success and effective service back to the school community, SCECGS Redlands 1973 to 2003. Those years have much to teach now.

 

Should AEA be able to assist you, please contact us by e-mail at australianeducationadvancement@gmail.com