Dedication of The Graham Lange Centre
Dedication of The Graham Lange Centre
Friday 25 of November saw the dedication of The Middle School Building to henceforth be known as The Graham Lange Centre in recognition of the contribution to Pulteney of nineteenth Principal, Mr Graham Lange, 1998-2009. It was our pleasure at the event to welcome Mr Lange back to the School, together with his wife Fiona and son Adam, former Deputy Principal Mrs Mandy Hore, and former Chair of The Board of Governors, Mrs Jill Maxwell, amongst around 100 guests.
In the life of the School there are a few moments in time that reach out from the pages of history and demand that we pay attention. The School’s foundation in 1847; the closure of the Girls’ school in 1884 with the appointment of Rev Howard; the requisition of the original site on Pulteney St and the move to South Tce between 1919 and 1921. In more recent times, the appointment of Canon Ray in 1947 and Jock McKinnon as Ray’s successor. The moment that dominates the contemporary history of the School though is the return to our origins of co-education in 1999 and therefore the enduring contribution of Graham to this school.
Early in my time at Pulteney I discovered a document entitled ‘A New Co-educational School Project Team Report to School Council 1998’. The document was co-authored by Graham and then Head of Junior School, Mr Chris Duncan. It begins with the heading ‘Core Business of the School’ under which heading the following appears:
The School’s total energy and resources will be directed towards two things: the quality of teaching and learning; the quality of relationships between and among students, staff, parents and the school community. This will be achieved through educational processes and structures which identify and develop in students: critical intelligence, creative intelligence, and ethical intelligence.
Words hewn from the most challenging of circumstances remain as visionary, as contemporary, and fundamentally as apt for this School in 2022 as they were then. It is on this vision for the contemporary Pulteney that we stand here today and it is for this vision that we dedicate this building in honour of Mr Graham Lange.
On the occasion of the dedication, I observed to Graham that we as a School are grateful for the service he provided as principal, for the culture that he lead and nurtured, and for the legacy that he forged and that we continue to build upon today. I look forward to the decades ahead where the Graham Lange Centre will stand tall across the Quad and the generation of students that follow, my own daughters included, will remember – at least in passing – the contribution made to this fine school by Mr Graham Lange.
Cameron Bacholer
Principal