By Jamie Salter
St Paul’s Anglican Grammar School is celebrating its rich history over the past 40 years, with a special anniversary assembly marking the occasion.
The school opened in 1982 with 19 students in the Sunday School rooms of St Paul’s Anglican Church, Warragul.
Since then, the school has grown to be a leading independent, co-educational school of approximately 1600 students and 250 teachers across two campuses in Warragul and Traralgon.
Students and staff from both campuses attended the 40th anniversary event held on Wednesday 3 August at the Warragul Campus which saw the return of all of St Paul’s former principals.
The foundation principal was Des Parker from 1981 to 1992, followed by Richard Prideaux from 1993 to 2006, and Mark Robertson from 2007 to 2010. Mike Clapper was executive principal of St Paul’s from 2011 to 2012, and Lisa Moloney was principal from 2011 to 2017.
Current principal Cameron Herbert commenced in 2018 and said the anniversary event was the biggest birthday he’d attended.
“It’s amazing that we’ve been able to gather over 1500 people together in our 40th year when we haven’t been able to do these things for so long,” Mr Herbert said during the assembly.
“The most pleasing thing is to have all six principals in the 40-year history of the school here.
“We all deserve to feel very proud of our history and the good news is that we are very well placed to continue on this path towards even better days ahead.”
The school expanded from the original secondary school to include a primary school in 1998 and a kindergarten in 1999.
It established a Traralgon campus in 2002 which began with Pre-Kinder to Year 3 students but is now home to more than 450 students through to Year 10, and has committed to further expansion to include Years 11 and 12 by 2027.
St Paul’s also plans to offer Early Learning through to Year 2 at a new campus in Drouin from 2024.
School board representative Darren Jennings thanked all the people who have been involved with St Paul’s over the past 40 years.
“Without the foresight and conviction of those who came before us, we would not be celebrating this milestone today,” Mr Jennings said.
“The focus of all this planning and pursuit of opportunities is to create an environment where our students are able to be nurtured and inspired.”
