The Power family, whose father, James snr, established Campion College, Australia’s first liberal arts tertiary institution, is behind the launch of new school in Brisbane next week. Source: The Australian.
St John Henry Newman College, initially catering from Prep to Year 3, will be built at Tarragindi, on Brisbane’s southside next year, to open in 2026. One class will be added each year, with a separate campus, later, for secondary school in 2030.
Inaugural chairman and managing director of the Power group of companies, James Power, said expressions of interest from parents were strong.
The school would be geared to the classical, Western tradition, an emphasis in the early years on direct instruction, numeracy and literacy (including phonics), encouraging reading and no devices in the classroom. When history and geography were introduced the subjects would be taught factually, not laced with ideology.
Kenneth Crowther, a teacher at Toowoomba Christian College, who has been appointed principal and is completing his PhD in Shakespeare, said classical schools emphasised introducing students to the “great books’’ – from Dante to Dostoevsky.
“For the juniors, that’ll be Aesop’s fables, Beatrix Potter, Winnie the Pooh and Wind in the Willows, C.S. Lewis’s Narnia and Tolkien,’’ Mr Crowther said.
As a Catholic school, religion will be part of the curriculum, with the priests of the Brisbane Oratory to serve as chaplains.
The establishment of classical schools by communities concerned about education standards has become a major trend in the US.
St John Henry Newman College will be launched at the Brisbane Oratory on Thursday, July 11. Its patrons include businessman and Brisbane Broncos chairman Karl Morris and retired computer scientist, businessman and former Dean of Bond University business school and author Ashley Goldsworthy.
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New Brisbane school to focus on classics (By Tess Livingstone, The Australian)
