Lang Building Redlands - Official Opening 22 April 1988

note: The Lang Building, Architect Alex Popov, was awarded theSulman Merit Award 1992 by the RAIA - Royal Australian Institute of Architects.

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Official Opening :Lang Building Gymnasium Redlands. Remarks of John H A Lang OAM.

1992 RAIA Sulman Merit Award - SCEGS Redlands Gymnasium, Cremorne (sic)

Mr Headmaster, Archdeacon Richardson, Mr Roberts, Distinguished members of Federal, State and Local Government, Mr Popov (Architect), Members of the Council, The Staff and the Student Body, and our honoured guests.

I rise to thank you all for honouring Fay and me, and of course all members of our family, by your presence at this dedication ceremony, as we acknowledge yet another milestone in this community’s school – Redlands – The Sydney Church of England Co-educational Grammar School.

I thank you, Mr Headmaster, for the warmness of your welcome to all of us, as we share the pleasure of the evening and the blessing which has again been accorded us. Archdeacon Richardson – Brian – as always, your presence and participation in this ceremony tonight is most neighbourly and consistent with our years of friendship – the interest in each other’s families, and the sharing of our Faith as goals for this school. Mr Roberts – you have been most generous in your introduction, and Fay and I are most proud to acknowledge the honour being bestowed on our family tonight. John Roberts and I (together with Bruce Adams) have long shared a relationship at the school but it has matured into a closeness which I believe can only be best described today as family. John certainly deserves my thanks for his help in being my professional conscience – as we have been involved in our many negotiating issues. (I often refer to him as my Mr Jiminy Cricket).

Tonight we are gathered to take this school on to a new plateau, and as we are paused at the threshold, it is appropriate to remember the benefits it is bringing to the school community.

It is singularly the largest undertaking we have attempted since we purchased the school in 1976, and it will create many bonuses for us. Firstly it will free up our auditorium for its original use. Secondly it will provide us with a long overdue physical education building which the students deserve – thirdly it will eliminate the students’ subtle jibes which have been unmerciful over the past 4 years. Finally, and

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the greatest bonus for us all, will be our signal to the community at large that SCECGS Redlands will always positively pursue those issues which are essential to enhance the life of our students on this campus.

Redlands has not always been a leader in the field of private education -0 but it has made many contributions to the scholarly records of the North Sydney/Mosman areas during its first 50 plus years of life, and throughout the whole of the North Shore in the past 50 years. It is my belief, however, that Redlands has made many contributions in recent years as it turned its campus into a co-educational institution, as it appointed a Chief Executive as Headmaster whose was based on the future of education and not just on historical achievements and glories of the past – as it appointed a “full-time Chaplain” – and as it recognised the vitality and talents of the parent power.

We have a long way to go – and we still see the need for more land to be acquired around our present site to adequately house and administer some 1000 to 1100 students. We still have to develop our 7.5 acres of playing fields at Belrose which we have just purchased. We still need an appropriate arts and music centre in the school. We still need a ‘swimming complex’ for our students – just to name some of the resource items we must address in the years ahead if we are to effectively serve in the development and education of our children; and I have not touched upon the other needs such as a “country residence school” with its away-from-home opportunities for broadening the living experience of our students, or the need for a smallish complex to teach those children whose talents are restricted or their disadvantages are such that they can be taught at a school complex in which their brothers and sisters are taught, and yet do not have to live with the peer pressure of the normal school campus.

Perhaps I could say “we have only just begun” – when I say – we have picked up the ball, we have now redressed the problems of the early seventies, and now we are re-launched to take the school, as a leader of education in this country, into the twenty-first century. We still have some consolidating issues and I am sure they can be implemented in this next 12 years.

Some years ago, we purchased this school and now it is paid for. We have, however, to remain on site until 1994 to conclude the last of the purchase conditions and then

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we shall be home free of any hiccups with the Cremorne site. We are, as funds permit, purchasing properties around the campus, not because we want to be landlords, but rather because we need those properties to help us serve the students, for we cannot possibly provide all of the resources which are essential on our presently limited site. I suppose it is appropriate to say that we are no strangers to the Land and Environment Court, and we shall not try to avoid attendance at same in the future, if it is the only means of successfully achieving what must be done for the well-being of the school, and is consistent with the needs of the community.

Many of you will know I am a firm believer in usage performance of the bricks and mortar assets of the school. Presently we use our buildings for much less than the 20% of the life cycle hours of the school in a year. This is a tragic waste – when you recognise that for every child placed in our school there are almost 10 applicants. In fact we could double our enrolment over several years if we could house the students. There are two ways to achieve this, but first of all why should we even be interested in such a need?

PP McGuinness of the Financial Review touched base on why we should be interested, when he wrote the following at the end of his April 19th comment on “Testing the Schools”: I quote: “If the teacher-dominated State school system cannot be trusted to produce reliable assessments of student, teacher and school performance, these will have to come from outside the system. A little competition can do wonders.” (Unquote)

To add to Mr. McGuinness’ comments, we at Redlands are accountable in all we do – we teach Reading/Riting/Rithmetic and as well Respect and Responsibility, and so if we continue to follow this practice, we will have to help in the education of more students than are presently encompassed in the 28% of students in (Australian) private education system, and as well we must be prepared to add into our student body some ‘international students’ if we want to see ourselves as part of the modern global community in which we live.

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Earlier I said we at Redlands could double our enrolment and not make a dent in the list of families who are unsuccessful in their quest to educate their children privately. Let me tell you how we could house the additional potential students if we enrol them.

Earlier I said we could utilise our buildings by effectively using them over longer hours. There is a precedent established in Asian countries wherein they run two sets of students through their school buildings each day. School 1 or Shift 1 operates from 6 am until noon, and School 2 or Shift 2 from noon until 6 p.m. It is not innovative – it is plain logical when you consider their predicament of ‘children’ and their shortage of buildings – and do you know something? – it works for them. I/s sure due to your cultural thinking – we could find 10 good reasons why it would not work for us – and so I guess Option 1 has to be ignored.

Option 2 is perhaps more practical if ‘the parties’ involved could all approach the negotiations on the basis of “is it worthwhile and practical – would it help the community – could Redlands make it work?”

Nearby Redlands is an empty school, recently vacated, and which could be used for many community opportunities: e.g. housing, retirement village, shopping complex – or a school.

If Redlands cold rent that property and continue that site’s designed purpose – we could double our enrolment, we could reach out further into the community to provide another 1000 students with our style of commitment to education, and I believe in the longer term it would be less costly to the taxpayers – you and me – for the education of those 1000 students in the State system.

I like both Options 1 and 2, but in the interests of short term planning and avoidance of new directions into (for) a two-shift school, I’m sure Option 2 could be on stream by 1989 IF - and I repeat IF – we all want Option 2 to work. ‘We” being –Redlands, the State authorities, and the public.

I sometimes think that we do not approach the commencement of a new dimension within our school with open minds – well let me quote from the recent launching of our Redlands’ Sculls at Mosman. On that occasion I said, and quote, “Today witnesses the re-entry of SCECGS into its own sculling programme, but whilst this is

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a major milestone today, the greatest milestone will be when we win the ‘Head of the River.’ (Unquote)

Under today’s circumstances, winning the ‘Head of the River’ would seem ton be an illogical comment. However if we set our minds to it –“nothing is impossible” for every day we witness new changes in our community, and the inhibitions and morality of yesteryear are almost gone today, if you view many of the community stances, and I suspect the world will change even further in the years ahead as we accept more readily the deterioration of those issues which were personally dear to our hearts in the past.

In the early Sixties, I read with concern:

- The lessening of farming employment as mechanisation was introduced;

- The lessening of ‘blue collar’ employment as mechanisation was introduced;

- The lessening of commercial employment as office mechanisation occurred.

These trends are still with us – and they will continue to bite into the gainful employment numbers we need to have for our community. Unfortunately, we must recognise it as the price of progress. With it comes the need to give our children greater educational opportunities for either tertiary development, or for survival if they enter the workplace without tertiary training. It behoves us to encourage them in their work ethics. And it is on this basis, my friends, that we at Redlands continues with our plans to increase our facilities and resources so that they will keep pace with the training of our students. I have not touched upon the subject of our present interest in the International Baccalaureate programme; however I personally hope that with our goal in the pursuit of increased excellence for our students – we can embrace the Baccalaureate programme and so place our students on the international scene and not just into the Australian university scene.

Some years ago Fay and I reviewed the school options for our children and we chose Redlands and Shore. We have been thankful for the education they received, and in hindsight I’m sure our school selections were correct. In turn, Fay and I have endeavoured to use our talents and share the school with our children – both in

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good times and in bad times. It has in the latter case been a tremendous challenge – and now as we see ourselves come out of the tunnel, the light is bright and you know, we can see the stars. It has been a most fulfilling time for both of us – and so this evening we share with you the pride of seeing this new resource – and, the family – Fay and I and our children, are most honoured that you have seen fit to name the building The Lang Building. Who would have thought that the buttering of sandwiches by Fay as far back as 1962 would have led us to this great honour tonight? Fay has long been the ‘driving force’ for supporting the school in its good times – she was and has been long suffering over the past decade as many of my hours were given to the school – and now she will be long honoured as we enter the heady days we know the school will enjoy in future.

Mr Popov, Mr Waterhouse, it is with considerable pleasure that I now invite Fay to “unveil” this building and declare it open.

Thank you.