School reflects on 100 years
Naylor Hillary remembers sleeping in windowless dormitories when he boarded at a barely 12-year-old St Andrew’s College in Christchurch.
But as great-grandson Henry Bissland, 6, heads into year 2 at the same school 88 years later, much more has changed than the lack of warmth in the boarding facilities.
Four years of planning came together as the school celebrated its centenary at the weekend, with thousands of former students returning to take part.
Modern learning environments and vastly different fields of study and opportunities have taken over education since the school formed in 1917. For St Andrew’s College, one of the biggest changes came as it transitioned to a co-ed school 25 years ago.
Such changes would be a contrast to the memories many of the old collegians had, school rector Christine Leighton said.
‘‘It used to be that old thing of the master was the fountain of all knowledge and there was that much more authoritarian kind of flavour to the student-teacher relationship.
‘‘There were a lot of memories of canings, authoritarian discipline and that kind of thing. Those things are just totally foreign to an education environment today.’’
More than 2000 former students returned to take part in traditional Highland games, a college fete open to all, and a cocktail party and gala dinner, Leighton said.
‘‘I understand that’s the largest sit-down dinner in Christchurch since 2009.’’
Hillary and Henry’s combined strength cut through a cake to kick things off on Friday, but not before a school still proud of its Scottish heritage properly addressed the haggis.
Jim Hudson, an 1953-alumnus, took charge of the tradition, delivering the passage coined by Scottish bard Robert Burns in front of a crowd of about 500 people.
‘‘His knife see rustic Labour dight, an cut you up wi ready slight, trenching your gushing entrails bright,’’ Hudson recited, swinging a sword over the pudding before taking a shot of whisky.
Pam Bissland, Hillary’s daughter and Henry’s grandmother, said her family had continued to pass through the school gates since Naylor started in 1929.
Despite being the school’s ‘‘oldest old collegian’’ at 101, Hillary’s family was not alone in holding such traditions, Leighton said. ‘‘We’ve got several families here who have had four consecutive generations go through the school, which is another exciting thing about turning 100, really.’’
With families returning, the school had grown from 19 boys and four teachers on day one to an overall roll of 1450 students and about 130 teaching staff in 2017.
‘‘It’s just one of those enormous