For those at Xavier College in Kew, the past two years have also provided opportunities for support in a caring environment, strengthened bonds amongst students and staff and real excitement for the future.
The college’s recent master plan outlines a broad vision for the school to coincide with its 150th anniversary in 2028.
It incorporates new facilities alongside the core heritage buildings and includes a building that will accommodate Years seven and eight.
Other aspects of the plan include an underground car park to ensure greater pedestrian safety, and environmental measures including water recycling, photovoltaic cells generating energy, and maximising green space.
The whole campus will be surrounded by a rich biodiversity track, further enhancing a spacious segment of Melbourne inner east.
Jesuit concepts, including cura personalis (care for the whole person) underpin the Xavier experience, and this is doubtless one of the reasons most of the boarders opted to remain at the school during the extended lockdowns.
Access to study supervision, consistency of routine and mutual support are among the many reasons Xavier’s head of boarding Alexander ‘Alex’ Smith nominates as the reasons the majority of boarders decided to remain on campus rather than return to their families during COVID-19.
“Backed up by the staff, the students have supported each other through these tough times,” Mr Smith said.
“They were still doing online learning and even though we were maintaining distance from the majority of the teaching staff, the boarding house was a large family bubble caring for each other through the lockdown.”
The boarding house went to great lengths to provide extra care for the students, including arranging click-and-collect deliveries and lots of on-campus recreational activities.
“We were mindful of keeping the boys healthy physically as well as mentally,” Mr Smith said.
“We had a strength and conditioning coach come in to monitor everyone’s wellbeing and we organised a lot of activities to keep everyone occupied.”
The school also went the extra mile when it came to facilitating any opportunities that did exist for students to return home during the holidays.
One staff member accompanied students from Darwin to support them through two weeks of quarantine at Howard Springs before the holidays and the school also arranged private bus transfers to the NSW/Victoria border so students could travel home for the longer breaks without their parents having to cross the border.
For this year’s captain of boarding Nick Honeyman, who comes from Canberra, and his Year 12 colleague Ed Plunkett from central Victoria, the decision to remain at school was almost a no-brainer.
“We have such a strong culture that the boarding house almost feels like home,” Nick explains.
“The school encourages the students to be themselves and feel comfortable with who they are, and while we live in our year groups, there is lots of interaction with the younger students so we feel like family.
“No-one escaped tough times during lockdown.
“But the boarding community really rallied to look after each other. We call each other brothers because that’s how we feel.
“And it probably explains why numbers are growing and this year we have 72 boarders, our biggest cohort for a long time.”
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