It's the end of a 40-year era at St Patrick's School, which is waving goodbye to its long-serving principal Mrs Sandra Campbell.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Mrs Campbell has grown accustomed to goodbyes; during her four-decade career Mrs Campbell has watched children grow up, leave school, start families, and send their own children to St Patrick's.
Some of the children she taught became teachers at St Patrick's, where they went on to teach Mrs Campbell's own children.
"That's the great things about our school: we've got that connection with the community," Mrs Campbell said.
"That sort of knowledge you can't ever replace."
She got her first teaching gigs at schools around Sydney and Canberra, but homesickness soon prevailed and she returned to Griffith to start work at St Patrick's in the late 70s.
Times have changed since then, back in the good old days before mobile phones, social media, and the arrival of video games.
"I think it's one of the greatest challenges our parents face," Mrs Campbell said. "I'm glad my children grew up when they didn't have those devices, when I didn't have to cope with the policing of their use of the internet."
She fondly remembers her own internet-free childhood and the carefree days spent cycling around the neighbourhood and going swimming in the lakes and canals around Griffith.
It was a free-range rough-and-tumble childhood, which she believes is an important ingredient to raising resilient children.
READ MORE
"Children are a lot less resilient these days," Mrs Campbell said. "There are a lot of parents who want to fight their battles for them; they don't see the importance of children making mistakes and learning for themselves."
Encouraging resilience and giving children more independence has been a core teaching philosophy for Mrs Campbell, and it's an ideal she'll be passing down to her two successors when she retires at the end of term four.
Mrs Campbell says she looks back on her career with no regrets.
"Education is important, and I think that the children that pass through our hands have been put on the right path for whatever lies ahead of them," Mrs Campbell said.
"It's been a wonderful career and I wouldn't have changed anything."
***
While you're with us, did you know that you can now receive updates straight to your inbox every Monday at 6am from The Area News? To make sure you're up to date with all the Griffith and MIA news you can sign up here.
