Welcome back to the school year everyone!
The start of this school year has been characterised by a real sense of freshness and joy. It has been a great encouragement to see the excitement on the faces of our students and confidence amongst our parents, with so many smooth starts. I give thanks to God for the break that many enjoyed and the opportunities of the year ahead for our school community.
This year we welcomed over 200 new students and their families to our school. I had the pleasure to meet and talk with many new families from our large intake year groups of Kindergarten and Year 7, sharing a bit about family life and the hopes and expectations for the years ahead.
The first two weeks of term have been extremely busy as both staff and families settled into term time routines. Week 2 has included swimming carnivals for both Primary and High School and the launch of our Year 4 instrumental music program. This program holds great promise for the future as every Year 4 student participates in learning a musical instrument throughout the year. Students across our school also participated in ‘Safer Internet Day’ on Tuesday. Primary School participated in additional online safety lessons during the week. Year 7 completed a fun chatterbox activity, to start the chat about online safety, Year 8-11 focused on ‘Connect, Reflect and Protect’ and spoke about how to connect safely online, reflect before you act and protect yourselves and other by taking action. Year 12 considered the ‘digital footprint’ they have or are creating for themselves before going out into the workforce next year.
The start of a new year means a sudden speeding up for households as we shift gears and get used to daily school routines like ensuring there are enough uniform items for everyone each day, getting to school on time and responding to all the communications that help keep our activities running smoothly.
School is such a busy place. To help you stay up to date with all relevant information and calendar events, it is important to make sure you can access the WCCS App and Family Portal. The Portal provides access to school resources including Edumate, Primary and High School information, IT support, school documents, library and welfare information. The App and Edumate are important to ensure you receive current information about school activities and respond to event notices. If you need assistance accessing the App or Portal please see our IT help page:https://sites.google.com/wccs.nsw.edu.au/techhelp/parents or contact our IT staff via email: helpdesk@wccs.nsw.edu.au.
The Very First Day of School
9th February 1984
Pictured: Mrs Dawn Smith, the school’s first teacher, with some of the first students at William Carey Christian School.
The first classroom was set up in a room at the rear of the Liverpool Reformed Church and could accommodate 12 students.
Celebrating 40 Years of William Carey – where it all started
This week marks a significant milestone in the school’s history. 40 years ago, on the 9th of February 1984, William Carey Christian School conducted its first day of lessons.
The history of the school precedes this into the early 1970s when local parents began meeting and planning for a Christian school to serve the communities of Liverpool and Campbelltown.
The school was given the name William Carey with the deliberate purpose of seeking to reflect this great Christian statesman’s combined emphasis on reformation-theology, evangelistic zeal and commitment to education based on the principles of the Bible.
William Carey’s story is that of a simple shoemaker who became one of the greatest and most versatile missionaries of modern times. He joined the Baptist Church at the age of 18 and was a village pastor and cobbler. He developed an early interest in missionary work, writing a book on the subject and being involved in the formation of the Baptist Missionary Society. He subsequently became its first missionary.
He sailed to India in 1793 and founded a number of churches and Bible colleges, despite many challenges. His preaching, Bible distribution, planting of churches, printing of Bibles and teaching kept him very busy. William Carey adopted a slogan to challenge the bold and put courage into the fainthearted. We have adopted this as our school motto:
“Expect great things from God; Attempt great things for God.”
Class photo 1984
William Carey’s first swimming carnival at Cabramatta Pool
The school finally opened for lessons on 9th February 1984, with only four students enrolled. The first location for the school was at the Reformed Church in Kennedy Street, Liverpool. For the first 5 years, lessons were held at a series of different church properties to meet the growing needs of the school. However, finding a suitable site for the school became a race against time as each year saw additional classes being added and church halls were no longer a suitable solution.
The search for suitable land had been underway since the school vision was first conceived. Once the current Prestons site was found and purchased, the first buildings commenced construction in 1988. Teachers and students commenced classes at the present site on the 10th of October 1988. Previously, the site was a chicken farm and a feature of these early days was the smell with lots of flies, even though the chickens were no longer present.
The establishment of the school at a permanent site, which the school owned, and the significant increase in student numbers, laid the foundation for further growth and the establishment of the High School in 1990. In 1994 the school celebrated the graduation of the first Year 12 cohort.
Over the past 40 years, our school has undergone immense change, as has the community it serves. While the school was originally surrounded by farmland and bush, now, housing dominates the skyline. From 4 students, our student population has grown to over 1300 students from our youngest learners in the Prep School through to school leavers in Year 12.
I am thankful to God and to the students, families and staff who, over the last 40 years, have created a school community where lives are transformed in response to hearing the gospel of Jesus proclaimed, and through the delivery of an excellent Christian education. I look forward to how the school will continue to develop in the years to come as we ‘Expect great things from God and attempt great things for God.’
Mr Keith McMullen
Principal