Grace Lutheran College
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Grace Lutheran College (Abbreviated: GLC), founded in 1978, is a private high school based in Rothwell, Queensland, Australia. There is also Grace Lutheran Primary School, located in Clontarf and there are plans to open another secondary campus at Caboolture. The current Headmaster is Fred Stolz, who has been in that position since the school's founding.. The college's enrollment as of the end of the 2006 school year stands at 1237.
GLC is a school of the Lutheran faith and wishes to promote these values to its students and the wider community.
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[edit] Academic
Grace Lutheran College currently offers Years 8-12 at the school. There are plans to introduce Year 7 into its curriculum, with years 7-9 as middle school and 10-12 as the senior school. The introduction of grade 7 is to happen in 2008.
Each year, the college pays the entry fees for every one of its students to participate in the University of New South Wales academic competitions in Mathematics, Science, and English; each year the college manages to record a high number of awards for these. Subsequently, various departments allow students to enter academic competitions voluntarily, with the school paying the entry fees for the student to do so.
The college has a well-funded Performing Arts department, with its own theatre. Each year, Performing Arts students have a variety of plays and productions, including Junior and Senior Productions. Every second year, the college hosts a musical production, which are very popular within the community, selling out very early. In 2007, there will be an adaptation of My Fair Lady. All production casts and crew are made up solely of students, with directing taken up by Performing Arts teachers, senior Performing Arts students, and ex-students.
Grace Lutheran College has a observatory consisting of a Celestron 14-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope attached to its science block. A 13 m Radio Telescope for monitoring solar activity is also at Grace's Rothwell campus.
Also, with the new 2007 cirriculum, Grace does not let it's students use WikiPedia as a source for such assesment pieces in fields as Chemistry.
[edit] Uniform
Grace Lutheran College's uniforms fall under three main catergories: Formal, Day and Sport. The day or regular uniform is the uniform worn most days if a student does not have sport or requires to go on an excursion.
The sport uniform of Grace Lutheran College is varied and to some outsiders rather confusing. The normal sport uniform consists of brown shorts and mostly yellow with other colours polo-shirt. However, the uniform can change with seniorty and sport. In year levels 9-12 students participating in interschool sport have the opportunity to purchase a diamond-patterned sport shirt to indicate that they are a part of an interschool team. Students that do not wish to participate in interschool sport or have failed to make an interschool team, play interhouse sport wherein the students participate in sport against other houses. The interhouse teams wear their house colours, either white (Pegasus), blue (Phoenix), green (Orion) or red (Antares). Senior Students (yr 12) also have the opportunity to wear their senior jerseys during their sport day. Also depending on whether it is a Wednesday or Thursday, Seniors (Years 10-12) have sport on Wednesday and Juniors (Years 8 and 9) on Thursday. Approximately half of the school will be wearing day uniform and the other Sport uniform, adding to the different uniforms already on display.
Formal Uniform, as the name suggests, is used for formal occasions were the student may be required to present their best image to the community. The formal uniform conisists of, for boys, chocolate brown trousers, white formal shirt, school tie, formal hat (akubra style, brown) and brown leather shoes. Girls are required to wear the chocolate brown skirt, white formal shirt, tie, formal hat and brown leather shoes.
[edit] Outdoor Education (Googa)
At Grace Lutheran College students participate in an Christian Outdoor Education camp lasting four weeks. At Googa Outdoor Education Centre (Generally shortened to "Googa") , students are to live without electricity (with few exceptions) and without technology.. To achieve this aim, students are not allowed to have any electronic devices at the camp, such as mobile phones, Ipods/Mp3 players, and other such devices.
Due to the camp only being capable of holding 48 students at any one time students attend the camp in their house groups or join one of two combined groups, one of which attends in the last month of year 9, and the other during the Easter school holidays. Googa was originally a forestry camp before being purchased by the school. The camp consists of 4 dormitories capable of holding 12 students each, as well as one other dormitory equipped for disabled students and other scenarios. It also has two composting toilet blocks and housing for staff that live on the camp. Googa has recently purchased an adjacent avocado farm giving the total area of the camp to be more than 150 acres. On this new farm itis planned for another campus to be built, almost identical to the current one, allowing for twice as many classes per year. The only electronic devices used at the camp are lights and refrigerators.
Cooking and cleaning are done by the students, with cooking done on wood fires. During the camp, students go on hikes and pioneering exercises. During pioneering students must build a shelter, toilet, chapel and other things required to live comfortably in the bush, out of only rope and wooden poles. The pioneering experience lasts for three to four days and the hike is typically three days long. Early in the last week of the camp, the students experience a 24-hour solo, where they spend a day and night on their own, reflecting on their time at the camp.
Various activities are also observed, such as a daily run through one of two running tracks, various team building exercises, orienteering, tree climbing, and a high ropes course.
Many students claim, that out of their time at Grace Lutheran College, Googa was one of their most enjoyed experiences.
The school believes strongly in donating money to various local, national and global charities. They always prove the importance of donating by the Grace of God. There are various charities including Make Poverty History, which is trying to half world poverty by 2015, African Vision and much more, including a new selection every term. There is a money tin at the end of the tuckshop line to encourage children to insert their loose change. In fact, the college believes so strongly about it, that they recently spent nearly $4 million ($4,000,000) on building a chapel.
[edit] Current Developments
Grace Lutheran College is almost continually being expanded in order to accommodate the rising number of students. Currently a large chapel is under construction, and is due to be completed in May 2007. The chapel has been a long-term goal of the college since its opening, and began construction in October 2006 after a number of years of delays.
The school believes strongly in donating money to various local, national and global charities. They always prove the importance of donating by the Grace of God. There are various charities including Make Poverty History, which is trying to half world poverty by 2015, African Vision and much more, including a new selection every term. There is a money tin at the end of the tuckshop line to encourage children to insert their loose change. In fact, the college believes so strongly about it, that they recently spent nearly $4 million ($4,000,000) on building a chapel.
