Weekly eNews

Junior SchoolSecondary SchoolCrowther Centre

Ross Featherston

Headmaster, Brighton Grammar School

Welcome back to Term 3. With a busy semester ahead, I hope everyone has had the opportunity to recharge and is ready for a strong start.

During the break, I attended the annual IBSC International Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, in my role as Vice Chair of IBSC (Australasia).

It was a valuable opportunity to connect with educators from leading boys’ schools around the world and share the innovative work taking place at Brighton Grammar.

I was proud to be joined by three colleagues, each presenting in their area of expertise and showcasing the breadth of knowledge and leadership at BGS.

Fr Chester Lord, our Junior School Chaplain, explored the role of spirituality, wellbeing and identity in helping boys develop character, empathy, healthy relationships and a strong sense of purpose.

Vocational Major Coordinator Biddy Duckham shared how vocational learning pathways can transform engagement by building confidence, connection and meaning, while Brent Brickhill, Instructional Coach in the Junior School, presented on our student coaching program, demonstrating how coaching younger peers develops leadership, communication skills and deeper connections.

A particular highlight of the conference was signing a Memorandum of Understanding with St Paul’s School in London and St Christopher’s School in Virginia. This exciting partnership will strengthen collaboration, enabling us to share research and best practice while continuing to learn from and contribute to leading boys’ education across the globe.

Have a great start to the term.

Simon Angus

Deputy Headmaster, Head of Secondary School

I hope all our BGS families enjoyed a restful break and the chance to spend quality time together.

Over the holidays, our students and staff embraced some incredible opportunities; our talented musicians toured Europe as part of the European Strings Tour, while another group participated in the Tiwi Islands Immersion Experience, gaining invaluable cultural insights and experiences. Thank you to all the staff who generously gave their time over the holidays to make these trips possible for our students.

Looking ahead, this term is a particularly important one for our Year 12 students as they commence their final full term of school. With preparations for their final examinations underway and SACs to complete, it will be a busy and significant period in their journey. We look forward to supporting them throughout this important time.

In sport, we begin the term in a strong position, with our Firsts Rugby, Football and Soccer teams all sitting in first place on the ladder. We wish all our teams the very best for the season ahead.

Meliora Sequamur.

Happenings & Reminders

European Success

Nine concerts. Four countries. A group of boys who grew immeasurably as musicians and as young men.

The European Strings Tour took us through Bratislava, Vienna, and Prague – beginning with a Silver Band award at the International Bratislava Music Festival, and later a 2nd place finish in the Chamber Orchestra with Winds category at the Summa Cum Laude International Youth Music Festival. Along the way, we had the privilege of performing in two of the world’s most storied concert halls: the Golden Hall of Vienna’s Musikverein, and Prague’s Smetana Hall.

Four of our nine performances featured our full one-hour program. Every single performance on this tour was for a real, general audience, a different experience entirely from the school concerts our boys are used to back home, which are performed mainly for parents. That shift alone pushed them to raise their game.

But the results, as proud as we are of them, aren’t really the heart of this tour. Some of our biggest challenges were the ones audiences never saw, performing in searing summer heat that pushed instruments out of tune within minutes, and the constant, delicate work of keeping winds and strings in tune with each other under those conditions. Our boys learned to listen harder, adjust faster, and problem-solve together in real time, skills no rehearsal room can fully teach.

This tour was, in many ways, a masterclass in positive masculinity: boys supporting one another through nerves, heat, and setbacks, showing vulnerability in rehearsal, celebrating each other’s individual moments rather than competing for the spotlight, and carrying real responsibility for the group’s success. Watching them look out for one another, on stage and off, was as moving as any performance.

None of this happens without the people behind the scenes; our staff, Emily Fairweather and Wen Yan, our families, and World Projects, who supported every logistical and pastoral need across three countries. And a special thank you to Jared Furtado, Director of Music, for his countless hours of support in making this tour possible. Thank you.

Tours like this remind me why I love this job. Watching young men step outside their comfort zone, support each other, and come back changed, that’s the real reward.

Harry Tsai
Head of Strings

National Champions

Congratulations to Year 10 student Angus Dixon, who represented Victoria as a member of the Victoria Metro U16 Basketball team at the 2026 Foot Locker U16 National Championships in July.

Competing against the nation’s best young players, the Victorian team delivered a remarkable campaign, finishing the tournament undefeated to claim the national title and the prestigious Robert Young Shield.

Small Moments, Big Impact

The start of a term is a timely reminder that a positive greeting, reconnecting with peers and teachers, returning to meaningful routines, and feeling part of a community all contribute to a young person’s sense of belonging.

For boys in particular, the quality of their connections remains one of the strongest predictors of wellbeing. A brief conversation in the car, a shared meal, a walk around the block, or a few minutes of genuine curiosity about their day can have a greater impact than we often realise.

Read Crowther eNews for more parenting tips.

From the Archives

Brighton Grammar School enjoys numerous formal and informal relationships with other schools, locally, nationally and further afield. These relationships take many forms, such as the rivalry between APS teams; engaging in structured co-curricular activities with our closet neighbouring school; or raising funds to support remote indigenous schools in Australia and Papua New Guinea.

Early editions of The Grammarian include an acknowledgement of receipt of magazines from other grammar schools, including ‘Past and Present’, the magazine produced by the school that shares our name, Brighton Grammar School (now Brighton College) in the UK. And we have been known to reproduce snippets from these in our own publication, including Mots croisés, which appeared in 1925.

Community Engagement has offered a prize to the first person who completes it in French. Download here and email your completed crossword to Community Engagement.

From Reverend Waterhouse

One of the joys of school holidays, I find, is having the time to read books that aren’t necessarily related to my work at school, but perhaps concern wider subjects that I have an interest in.

A lovely senior lady from my church recently gave me a copy of an autobiography by Jacinta Price, the federal Indigenous senator. It was a remarkable story of someone who has been at the coalface of remote Australia, and it is quite a miracle that she is alive to both speak and serve, given the degree of community and domestic violence she has faced over the years.

Here is a copy of some final sentiments by her in the book and the prayer she quotes. It is a wonderful, ongoing, prayer for us all to pray in such troubled times:

“I’m not a particularly religious person, but there’s a prayer that I have said with (husband) Colin before some of the most important moments in my life. We said this prayer in a quiet moment before I gave my maiden speech, and many times in the moments before I took to the stage … It’s the prayer of St. Francis. I hope it gives you courage and peace when you need it the most too.

Lord, make me a channel of thy peace –
that where there is hatred, I may bring love –
that where there is wrong,
I may bring the spirit of forgiveness –
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony –
that where there is error, I may bring truth –
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith –
that where there is despair, I may bring hope –
that where there are shadows, I may bring light –
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.
Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted –
to understand, than to be understood –
to love, than to be loved.
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by dying that one awakens to eternal Life. Amen.

Diary Dates

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