Dear Community,
Happy belated 2022 to all of you! We hope that you’ve managed to traverse the rather bumpy entry to this year with good health and happiness and are looking forward to what the year ahead will bring.
The team took some time to rest and renew over the break and have hit the ground running with a clear intention to secure a property by mid-year. We are now focusing our efforts on a 2024 opening date. More below.
In this month’s newsletter:
A round-up of our event with Pasi Sahlberg last year
It’s official! We have changed our name.
Site updates
Can you help? Graphic designer needed.
Pasi Sahlberg event round-up
You last heard from us just before our first community event with Pasi Sahlberg. We are happy to say that the event was a success! We had 62 people purchase tickets for both online and in-person attendance. We were thrilled to raise $1,176 and donate booking fees worth $98 to a children's charity providing 'A better start for Indigenous Students.' The night was full of valuable conversations that explored various insights into the education system such as:
Pasi’s observations about the Australian school system
Keyways that Finnish and Australian schools differ
How focusing on student wellbeing before academics is of utmost importance
The pitfalls of standardised testing and the culture of competitiveness
The stand out schools in Australia who are doing it well and how
Pasi’s advice to Green Mountain Community School
If you missed out and would like to catch the replay we’d love to share the recording with you.
Our invitation to you is to make a donation (of any amount) to our GoFundMe fundraiser to receive access to the recording.
There are three easy steps: 1. Make a donation of any amount to our GoFundMe page.
2. Reply to this email or write to info@greenmountainschool.com.au to confirm your donation
3. We will reply to your email with access links to watch the replay.
Funds will go towards our development application for our future site.
Our name change is official
A little while ago we wrote to you about our decision to move away from a purely Steiner model of education. Well, last year the team went through the official process of changing our company and school name. As such, we are no longer Green Mountain School for Rudolf Steiner Education, instead, we are now officially known as Green Mountain Community School.
It’s been more of a name change for us though - it reflects our vision and direction for the school and our desire to create not just a school, but a community as well. It’s nice to start the new year with a new name and renewed energy to bring our school to life.
Speaking of which….
Site updates
Collectively, the team has decided to put all of our efforts and focus into finding a site for our school. Our goal is to have a DA lodged for a site by mid-2022.
We have hit the ground running! We started the year with 6 potential sites which, with the help of representatives within Council and our town planning consultant, have now been narrowed down to 3, with one that is particularly promising. We have also discovered that we no longer need to submit a DA through the state government, but through the local council instead, so this is a huge relief that will hopefully make the process less complicated and buy us some time. Fingers crossed!
We’ve also welcomed an experienced, semi-retired, Town Planner into our wisdom council, who has offered to help guide us through the process of securing a site. This has been hugely helpful for us and we are thrilled to have access to his experience and expertise.
More updates will be provided as we work towards our goal. But we are off to a very good start!
As always, please get in touch if you have any leads for us to follow up or if you know any private landowners that might be willing to lease 2 or more acres.
Can you help with graphic design?
We are seeking a Graphic Designer willing to donate their time and skills to help us with some social media template designs. As part of our efforts to create a community around our school, we will be stepping up our social media presence this year and want to make sure we step out looking our best. We have some branding and colours to work from, but are wanting to expand on this with a few different designs for templates to adapt in Canva.
Please get in touch if you’re willing to offer your design skills and we’ll respond with a more detailed brief. Thank you!
Well, that’s it for this month! We are so looking forward to what’s ahead for Green Mountain Community School in 2022!
We love hearing from you, so please get in touch with any comments or questions.
Warm Regards,
The GMCS core team.
