Milestones may have long since disappeared from the actual pathways of our world but look how often we still use them in the abstract, to mark how far we’ve come. This term, we reached a notable one for our community, with Group 100 taking up residence at Clunes.
In our extended lead feature in this edition, we celebrate reaching this 25-year milestone by going back to the start of the journey, when Wesley at Clunes was nothing more than an audacious idea, then follow the path to arrive at the Clunes we have today.
Some thoughtful reflections from Clunes alumni and staff over the years – including a particularly funny anecdote Principal Nick Evans shares from the early days – highlight the richness of the learning at Clunes for our Year 9 students, and provide a taste of the formative, and at times transformative, life experience it was for so many of them.
On the longer journey our students take through Wesley College, Service Learning – an integral part of our curriculum built into the IB learning process at all levels of our school, likewise offers special moments of self-discovery. Our ‘Agents of Action’ feature on page 12 illuminates the many ways our current students are actively making a difference to their local and broader communities, and in doing so, learning about themselves. The inherent grace underpinning Gandhi’s saying, ‘The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others,’ is manifested in big and small ways every day at Wesley, setting a pathway they can continue to follow in their lives.
Our world seems in such a difficult place right now, and while the understandable impulse might be to close in, that simple maxim reminds all of us that, as always, our real security lies in opening up to each other.
Merry Christmas to all from the Lion team.
Paul Munn, Lion Editor and Features Writer
