Trinity Grammar School
Trinity Grammar School, pictured in 2007
Location
Inner-western Sydney, New South Wales Australia
Coordinates	33°53′58″S 151°7′50″E / 33.89944°S 151.13056°E / -33.89944; 151.13056 (Summer Hill) 33°52′55″S 151°05′30″E / 33.881949°S 151.091671°E / -33.881949; 151.091671 (Strathfield)
Information
Type	Independent single-sex early learning, primary. and secondary day and former boarding school
Motto	Latin: Detur Gloria Soli Deo (Let Glory Be Given To God Alone[1])
Religious affiliation(s)	Diocese of Sydney
Denomination	Anglican Church[2]
Established	1913 (1913)[3]
Founder	George Chambers
Educational authority	New South Wales Education Standards Authority
Chairman	Richard Pegg
Headmaster	Timothy Bowden
Employees	~200[4]
Years	Early learning and K–12
Gender	Boys
Enrolment	c. 2,000[5] (2007)
Campuses	Summer Hill (Kindergarten to Year 12) Strathfield (Early learning to Year 6) Woollamia (Outdoor education)
Area	8 hectares (20 acres) (Summer Hill)
Colour(s)	Green and white
Affiliations	International Boys' Schools Coalition Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia The Independent Primary School Heads of Australia Junior School Heads Association of Australia Australian Boarding Schools' Association Combined Associated Schools Independent Primary School Heads of Australia
Alumni	Old Trinitarians
Website	www.trinity.nsw.edu.au

Trinity Grammar School is a multi-campus independent Anglican single-sex early learning, primary and secondary day school for boys, in inner-western Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The main campus in Summer Hill provides a comprehensive education to students from Kindergarten to Year 12; the campus in Strathfield provides a comprehensive education to early learning and primary school students, from Kindergarten to Year 6; and outdoor education facilities are located at Woollamia on the NSW South Coast.^[6][7] The school previously enrolled boarders until the end of 2019.^[8][9]

Founded in 1913 by George Chambers at Dulwich Hill, the school has a non-selective enrolment policy and currently caters for approximately 2,000 (during 2007)students.^[5] The Headmaster of Trinity Grammar School is Timothy Bowden.

Trinity is affiliated with the International Boys' Schools Coalition (IBSC),^[10] the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia (AHISA),^[11] The Independent Primary School Heads of Australia (IPSHA),^[12] which was formerly known as the Junior School Heads Association of Australia (JSHAA), the Independent Primary School Heads of Australia,^[13] the Australian Boarding Schools' Association (ABSA),^[2] and is a founding member of the Combined Associated Schools (CAS).^[14]

Governance

The School is governed by a Council (appointed by ordinance of the Diocese of Sydney), with the Archbishop of Sydney, Kanishka Raffel as the President. The council currently has seventeen members,^[15] with six lay members being elected by the Synod of the Diocese of Sydney, six clergy being elected by the Synod, and three being nominated by the Old Trinitarians Union (OTU).^[15] The final two positions are voted on by the sitting members of the council.^[15] James Mills was Chairman of the School Council for thirty-three years. Richard Pegg is the current chairman.^[16]

Trinity Grammar's "sister school" is Meriden School at Strathfield, an independent, Anglican, day school for girls. In 2018, Trinity Grammar School began integrating Meriden's cadet unit into Trinity's cadet unit.

History

The first school photograph, 1913

George Chambers OBE , DD, subsequently Bishop of Central Tanganyika, founded the School in 1913 at Dulwich Hill, of which parish - the Parish of Holy Trinity - he was then Rector. At its foundation, Trinity was a small parochial school with 29 boys enrolled. This number had reached 57 at the end of that year.^[1]

Having been appointed Warden of the School, Chambers' immediate task was to find a Headmaster. Thus, K.T. Henderson was appointed as the first Headmaster of Trinity Grammar in February 1913. In November 1915, the School formulated its motto, Detur Gloria Soli Deo, which may be translated from Latin to "Let Glory be Given to God Alone". The School colours were chosen to reflect the liturgical season of Trinity, namely green.^[1]

A property known as "The Towers" was purchased by the parish and used both as a School and Rectory. Later a larger property, "Hazeldene", was to be bought, also acting as both school and Rectory. The present site at Summer Hill, set in 8 hectares (20 acres) of land, was first occupied by the School in 1926, during the Head Mastership of G. E. Weeks.^[1]

By 1942 the prospects for Trinity were grim and it was decided that it should be closed. As a last attempt to save the School, the Council appointed James Wilson Hogg as Headmaster in 1944. By the time Wilson Hogg retired in 1974, Trinity was flourishing and had become one of the leading independent schools in NSW.^[1]

Trinity Grammar School Preparatory School

Trinity Preparatory School, 1930s

Sir Philip Sydney Jones was the original owner of the site on which the Preparatory School is now located. Upon his death, the area surrounding the house (including the house itself) was split into several areas which were then put up for auction. A small group of Strathfield residents first had the idea of using a portion of the grounds as a school, which became Strathfield Grammar School.^[17][18]

In 1926 it was offered to Trinity Grammar School and bought by them, but Strathfield Grammar School and Trinity Grammar School continued to function as separate establishments until 1932, when the two became Trinity Grammar School.^[18] From 1932 until 1937, most, if not all, of the teaching was done in Strathfield, although the school still used the Summer Hill Campus for sport. However, in 1938 the Senior School returned to Summer Hill and the Strathfield Campus for the first time became the Preparatory School.^[18]

The Preparatory School grounds are actually three separate properties - "Milverton", "Llandilo" and "Somerset." Milverton House was purchased by the school in 1966 and was used for educating "Sub Primary" or infants students. The most recent extension on "Milverton" was completed in 1991 and the building is now large enough to house the entire Infants department.^[18] Somerset was designed by Bertrand James Waterhouse and built in 1923 for James and Dorothy Larcombe (1900-1990). James Larcombe died in 1943 and his widow married Sir Percy Joske in 1969. Somerset was purchased by Trinity after the death of Lady Joske in 1990 and the Joske room, located on the edge of Somerset takes her name. "Llandilo" house is the largest of all the properties of the Preparatory School. Since its initial purchase in 1932 it has been the main building of Strathfield campus,^[18] providing education for the furthest advanced boys in the Primary curriculum. In 2005, a new sports and music centre was opened opposite "Llandilo." This contains over 10 music studios, as well as several larger music rooms and an underground gym. This allowed all of the Primary School to finally be moved back into "Llandilo," which had ceased to function properly with the sharp rise in student numbers before that date. In 2010, a new library was completed underneath the staff room, which has a connection to the "Llandilo" building.^[18]

Trinity Grammar School Preparatory School has grown extensively over the years, but the overall size of the property is much less than the original holdings of Sir Philip Sydney Jones.

Headmasters

William Hilliard

The following individuals have served as Headmaster of the Trinity Grammar School:

School Captains

Campuses

The School consists of three separate but closely linked establishments:

• A Senior (Years 10 to 12) and Middle (Years 7 to 9) School for day students, as well as a Junior School (Kindergarten to Year 6), located at Summer Hill.
• Preparatory and pre kindergarten sections (Preschool to Year 6) at Strathfield.

Attempts were made in the early 2000s towards establishing a campus in Sydney's southern suburbs. Such plans have been postponed indefinitely by the School. In 2014 the school decided to close the Outdoor Education Centre at the Pine Bluff Campus, located near Bigga, New South Wales due to the cost associated with maintaining the Outdoor Education Center in a remote location. The land that was used for the Outdoor Education Center was donated previously to the school by an old boy. In 2016 Trinity Grammar School opened a new Field Studies Centre in Woollamia, New South Wales.

Facilities

The Trinity Grammar School senior campus is located in Summer Hill, and features a mix of old and new buildings and facilities.

Some current facilities of the school include:

• A quadrangle forms the centrepiece of the grounds, with a chapel;
• The Founders Building, containing a drama theatre, film and sound editing studios, interview rooms, staff common room, English department and the Arthur Holt Library;
• A gymnasium consisting of a fitness and weights room, three basketball courts and squash court, 2 25-metre swimming pool and a brand new 50-metre swimming pool.;
• The School of Science, housing laboratories and classrooms, also has a greenhouse on the roof;
• The Design Centre, adjacent to the School of Science, housing art classrooms, design and technology rooms and computer labs;
• The Delmar Gallery, the School's official gallery, suitably situated next to the Design Centre;
• The Roderick West School of Music Building, containing a choir room, orchestra room, band room, music-composing computer labs, a recording studio and 30 music studios;
• The New School, housing the Mathematics department, Languages Department, Geography department and Economics department;
• The James Wilson Hogg Assembly Hall, capable of seating the entire Senior School and used for formal ceremonies and assemblies;
• Three sporting ovals (one containing a 300m track and 2 outdoor basketball courts, FIFA soccer field ) and an off-campus tennis centre;
• Two underground carparks
• Junior School
• Centenary Centre consisting of an Aquatic Centre (50m Swimming Pool and Official Water Polo configured pool), Basketball Courts, and room used for examinations and meetings.
• Field Studies Centre, off campus facility for outdoor education located on the NSW South Coast.
• The Renewal Project (The upgrade of existing facilities including the New Building, Assembly Hall, accessibility upgrades to carpark, landscaping, Founders Building, School of Music and a new multipurpose pavilion)

School song and prayer

Collectable Cigarette card featuring the Trinity colours and crest, c. 1920s

The school song is Detur Gloria Soli Deo, and is sung to the tune "Stuttgart" No.200 in the Australian Hymn Book

Detur Gloria Soli deo,
Let the prayer triumphant ring;
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
Trinity of thee we sing.

Trinitarians give the glory,
In a song of praise and joy;
For our School and her great story,
Glory give to God alone.

Students past and those now present,
Those the future years shall bring,
Detur Gloria Soli Deo,
This our own great anthem sing.

School Prayer

Heavenly Father, we ask your blessing
Upon all those who work in and for this School.
Grant us faith to grow spiritually, strength
To grow bodily and wisdom to grow intellectually,
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

House system

Students at the Summer Hill campus are divided into sixteen houses, named after significant facets of the school's history, the four original Houses were Archer, Henderson, Hilliard and School. The 16 houses in Trinity Grammar School are Archer, Dulwich, Founders, Henderson, Hilliard, Holwood, Kerrigan, Latham, Murphy, School, Stephenson, Taubman, Weeks, Wilson Hogg, Wynn Jones and Young house. School House was reserved for boarders, although leading up to the closure of the boarding program in 2019^[8] non-boarders were placed into this house to supplement the numbers. Boys are usually put into their family house, the same house as their father or grandfather or brother. Each House has a House Captain and a maximum of 3 House Vice-Captains, with the majority of houses also having an unlimited amount of Prefects (Students cannot be both a Prefect and House Captain).

Each year the different houses compete for the House Cup in a variety of activities such as swimming, track and field, touch football, indoor soccer, chess, debating, music, academic, cricket, fitness challenge, dodgeball, tug of war, drama performances and quad challenge. Through these activities houses are awarded points, and at the completion of the calendar year the house with the most points wins the Cup, presented at the Final Assembly. In the case of significant victories, such as winning the Swimming Carnival or Track and Field, each house gives three cheers (in quick succession, clockwise around the Quadrangle) for the victorious house, with the victorious house giving three final cheers for the School. These cheers are led by the House Officers (often aided by Prefects), who typically deliver the three cheers with as much volume as can be mustered.

Taubman House is the current House Championship Holder (2021), the current Swimming Champions are Archer House (2019) and the current Track and Field Champion is Taubman House (2019).

Curriculum

Controversies

In 1971 a Trinity student sued the school and one of its masters, claiming that he had been caned excessively. Colin Morris, 15, said that his buttocks were sore for three days, and bruised for three weeks, after receiving six strokes of the cane.^[25] The judge threw the case out, saying that the punishment had been reasonable, and added, "The salutary effect of the infliction of pain on a schoolboy, experience might show, justifies the reasonable use of this form of chastisement on healthy teenage boys."^[26]

Between 1984 and 1988 a senior school Mathematics teacher, Mr R. Doyle, was accused of sexually abusing two students who had been undertaking private tutoring with him on school grounds. Mr Doyle eventually pleaded guilty and was sentenced in 1997, long after his dismissal from the school.^[27]

In 2000, a group of Year 10 boarding students were charged with sexually assaulting two students more than 75 times, including with a collection of wooden dildos made in a woodwork class, one of which was called the "Anaconda".^[28] Witnesses testified that the assaults often took place during lunch hour, and they "often heard screaming from the dormitory".^[28] Three students were expelled by the school and convicted of various offences as minors. Compensation payments to two victims of bullying at the school are likely to have been approximately $1 million.^[29] It was alleged that the school had a culture of bullying^[30] A film loosely based on the incident, Boys Grammar, was produced in 2005.^[31] Academics now quote this case, and the school's attempts to minimise public awareness and perceived damage to it, in studies in this area.^[32]

Trinity's plan to bulldoze twelve of the seventeen houses it owns bordering the school grounds, in order to build a swimming pool, multi-purpose hall, classroom block and underground carpark, was approved by the NSW Land and Environment Court in November 2007. The single Ashfield Councillor who supported the application was an alumnus of the school, and described his fellow Councillors as "envious" and "a pathetic bunch of people".^[33]

In January 2016, the school was brought to prominence as a result of allegations of "sexualised behaviour" that occurred at the conclusion of 2015, between Year 1 students of the school. The allegations involved sexual acts being performed by students, whilst unsupervised during school hours, in the school toilets and playground. The Department of Family and Community Services was brought in to investigate the matter after the school was contacted by a concerned parent of one of the alleged victims.^[34]

In January 2017, former teacher Neil Futcher was sentenced to 18 years and 4 months' jail, with a non-parole period of 11 years, for 22 child sex offences committed against six students between 1974 and 1981.^[35][36]

Alumni

Old Trinitarians' Union Logo

Alumni of Trinity Grammar School are known as Old Trinitarians and automatically gain membership members of the school's Alumni Association, the Old Trinitarians Union.^[37] Through the Old Trinitarians Union, Old Boys regularly compete against current students in various sports such as cricket, volleyball and basketball, with the winner of the overall competition given the Jubilee Cup on Speech Day, with the President of the OTU collecting it on behalf of the old boys and the School Captain collecting it on behalf of the School.

See also

• List of Anglican schools in New South Wales
• Anglican education in Australia
• Lawrence Campbell Oratory Competition

References

Further reading

• Bonnell, Max, Trinity Grammar School Centenary Reflections (Sydney, Trinity Grammar School, 2013, OCLC 871047146)
• Harris, Jonathan C., Trinity Grammar School: A Centennial Portrait Mind, Body, Spirit (Sydney, Third Millennium, 2013, ISBN 978-0-987-31780-3)
• Heath, Philip J., Trinity. The Daring of Your Name. A History of Trinity Grammar School, Sydney (Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1990, ISBN 0-044-42224-5)
• Latham, Clarence E. & Nichols, Alan, Trinity Grammar School: A History (Sydney, Council of Trinity Grammar School, 1974, ISBN 978-0-9098-2736-6)

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Trinity Grammar School (New South Wales).

• Trinity Grammar School website