Ten Years of the Sathya Sai School
In year 1997, the Sathya Sai School was opened, with the blessing of Sathya Sai Baba, the founder of Education in Human Values. The school opened in premises in Mt Warning. The original Sai School shared premises with the Sai Temple at Mt Warning, 20 minutes drive out of Murwillumbah. It was set up by a dynamic team: Anne Evans, Wendy and Robert Cameron and Francis Parry, with the help of Mr T Sri Ramanathan. On 7th March 1997 the official opening was held with 10 students.
First Day at Mt Warning
There were 10 students at the school on the first day. Right from inception, the school began to expand in numbers, as this picture below, taken in 1998 at the Mt. Warning premises shows.
In the picture, the first teacher, Ms Anne Evans stands behind the students (far left), along with Moiya and Dorothy O'Brien, more popularly known as the "Pink Twins".
Sathya Sai School at Condong St, 1999
Over the next 2 years the student numbers and school needs expanded and outgrew the Mt Warning Temple. In January 1999, the school suffered growing pains. The school was relocated into Condong St, Murwillumbah in leased premises. A new head-teacher, Jane Blacklock was appointed.
Students at the Condong St premises
Move to Nullum St
2 years later the school had grown out of the Condong St building and in January 2001 the school moved into the current building at 9 Nullum Street (around the corner from the Condong St School). The hall in Nullum St was in its previous guise as a Dance Hall. Previously, it had been the Anglican Church hall. The Sathya Sai organisation then began to purchase the building. Above is the appearance of the building prior to the School moving in, during January 2001.
Previously, the School building was a Dance Hall
School moving day saw the worst flood in a decade, and the truck was loaded and unloaded with everyone drenched to the bone. At 2PM the move was complete with wet soggy boxes all inside.
Nullum Street flooded on the first day of School, 2001
Ten Years Celebration
The Sathya Sai School started at Mt Warning opening on March 7th,1997 involving 10 students with a goal of producing a Kindergarten to Year 6 school by the year 2000. The school was pleased to invite Robert and Wendy Cameron to participate in the Anniversary celebration.
Robert and Wendy Cameron, co-founders of the School
and Guests of Honour at the Ten Years Anniversary
of the Sathya Sai Primary School
The Sathya Sai Primary School has experienced ten successful years, during which our model school of Human Values has gone from strength to strength nurtured by strong and understanding parents and community, determined and devoted teachers, staff, voluntary helpers, supporters of the philosophy who have sacrificed their own desires and needs to provide for their fortunate children and embraced our model school in human values education.
The Sathya Sai Primary School is well recognised in the local community as a caring and serving place producing children of education and character.
Silent Sitting at Assembly
Be still and know thyself
Personal peace is found by living from our own conscience. Calmness is found inside each of us and is the starting point for world peace.
The EHV philosophy shows that we must seek the truth and practise right conduct, filtered through a calm mind. Calmness comes from living truthfully from our own conscience, not through habits directed by our senses. This often means having our mind wrestling with paradox (apparent contradictions). The Chinese sage Lao-Tzu advised, 'Seek not happiness too greedily, and be not fearful of unhappiness'. In his book Well and Good, Richard Eckersley (Director of Australia 21, a public interest research company and co-author of the Australian Unity Well-being Index) states that: "What we need to do to improve well-being, socially and personally, now and into the future, boils down to this: nourish your heart, mind and soul, not just your body. Cherish intimacy, participate socially, engage politically and believe spiritually. Apply the grandchildren test: how will the choices you make shape the world they inherit? Consume modestly and regard flaunted wealth and extravagant consumption as poor taste. Obey the golden rule of treating others as you would have them treat you. Beware of simple solutions. Think for yourself. Giving others greater opportunity to improve their well-being (that is to increase population happiness) means changing society, not just ourselves."
National Anthem, School Anniversary Assemby
The Sacred Task of a School
Drs. Pal and Tehseen Dhall, members of the School board wrote to parents and friends of the Sathya Sai Primary School. In their letter, they wrote that a Sathya Sai school is about engagement with the spirituality of the child. We are spiritual beings having a human experience, not the other way around. Empowering people is Spiritual. It brings out Love, a higher form of spirituality, a level of consciousness where you are engaged in giving your very best; where we are all divine and create an environment in which our divinity unfolds. Five human values are aspects of our spirituality and flow through the 5 domains of our personality. In the behaviour of the parent and teacher, we construct the inner world, imagination, thinking and potentialities of the child.
There can be no higher calling than this!
Presentation with Recorders, School Anniversary Assembly
Drs. Tehseen and Pal Dhall went on to write that the Sathya Sai Organisation is a world-wide spiritual service organisation that combines spirituality and education to bring out sacredness, virtuous living, God, the transcendence, that is found in every human being. Parents and then teachers and society are the primary educators responsible for constructing their child’s inner world. The big picture of Sathya Sai Education is about life, a life relating to your own conscience.
School is a sacred space where the child encounters his/her spirituality and teachers see their job as a calling, not a job. The relationship is about service and spirituality; engagement of the heart. Teachers and parents will always go that extra mile to elevate; it is about our own elevation of consciousness. The school’s WATCH program, Water Management, involvement in the community; these are all responsible for and to, the next generation. Deconstructive childhood has been woven into the culture of our society by mass communication, television, education with a focus on making a living, rather than living a life.
Students playing outside, on School Anniversary
The creation of neuro-pathways in children is an important role for the school and parents. The forebrain exposed to an environment of human values, will continue to activate them in adolescence and adult life. Exposure to human values in the primary years is of vital Importance and will be sustained in a supportive family environment. We thank the school community for its love and support as we shape this significant project together.
School Anniversary Cakes
A Beckoning Future
The Sathya Sai Primary School is a model school for Australia and its futures. Children with truthful hearts, loving skilled staff igniting learning in the minds and bodies of spiritually healthy young children. These are the foundation for the future of our culture and society.
Soon, seven thriving classrooms will come up alongside the hall which is the heart of our school in the centre of town. The school will have buildings reflecting the values of the community's culture, naturally landscaped grounds with round EHV gardens tended by loving parents and friends of the school, and a bright and auspicious future for this school and our nation is promised.Outstanding achievement is recorded through every aspect of school life, musical experience inspiring mathematics and languages, art inspires knowing breathless enthusiasm for learning flows all through such a loving environment.
Self-disciplined behaviours generate innate intellectual skill. Each beautiful child is bursting forth with genius, naturally emerging from their own heart. Right conduct is the very life-breath of our Education in Human Values school now and of the future.
We are well underway towards this after ten successful years, during which our school has gone from strength to strength nurtured by strong and understanding parents and community, determined and devoted teachers, staff, voluntary helpers, supporters of the philosophy who have sacrificed their own desires and needs to provide for their fortunate children and embraced our model school in human values education.
Our nation, this land, our culture and society will be well served by the model citizens formed in Truth, Right Conduct, Love, Peace and Non-violence. A bright future beckons for the Sathya Sai Primary School.
Sathya Sai Primary School, Murwillumbah, March 2007
| School Office Hours: Monday-Friday 8.30 am-4:15 pm Address: 9 Nullum St Murwillumbah NSW 2484 Postal Address: P.O. Box 705 Murwillumbah NSW 2484 Phone: 02 6672 8972 Fax: 02 6672 8922 |
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