To be, or not to be‚
Illawarra Mercury
Tuesday March 29, 2011
An interstate move forced Soraya Cary and her husband, Stephen, to look for a new school for their sons in Sydney - never an easy task. However, the process provided them with the opportunity to reassess what they really wanted from a school for their boys. And their choice has proved to be the perfect fit.‚¯Change challenges the best of us, but when my husband announced he would be expanding his company to Sydney, I knew that the challenge here would not be for me, but for my three children who would have to leave behind schools they loved,‚¯ said Soraya.‚¯The first challenge was finding the right school. We now had the opportunity to choose again for our children, which really gave us pause for thought. Now that we had that chance, was there anything that we would do differently this time around?‚¯ In the minds of ever-hopeful parents this is the Holy Grail: finding a school that works out who your child is and then works him to the best of his ability.The first thing anyone notices about a school is its uniform.‚¯The uniform at Cranbrook seemed to be worn in a more relaxed manner than the traditional school we had come from, and this gave the boys a certain air that was hard to put your finger on,‚¯ Soraya added. ‚“It was a while later that I worked out that the boys actually looked more individual and less homogenous. In Senior School particularly, the boys had an air of being very comfortable with themselves.‚¯At Cranbrook, my sons have experienced kindness and acceptance on all levels. When boys experience these things in everyday small situations at school, the effect is magnified a hundred times and resonates in ways that we can‚„t necessarily see at the time. It all adds to the fabric of a school and, over time, this becomes its culture.‚¯Walking around the school for the first time last year, this was what was tangible in the boys. They seemed comfortable with themselves because they have been allowed to be themselves and accepted for it,‚¯ she said.This year has shown the Cary family the triumph of substance over form: Esse quam videri; this is what drives the School. It‚„s not about looking the part, it‚„s about really being it.
Ā© 2011 Illawarra Mercury
