Reprinted from the February 2004 Chipping Norton News.

 

Chipping Norton School, Australia

Chipping Norton News Team member Sue McIntosh (herself from Down Under) made contact via email, with the Principal (Head teacher) of Chipping Norton Public School (PS) in Sydney, Australia. She asked him a few questions in order to write an article but his responses were so candid and enthusiastic that to change the format seemed wrong. Read for yourselves!

G’day from Chippo to Chippy! My name is Brett Warwick and I am the principal of Chipping Norton Public School, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. I am very excited to have this opportunity to be part of your newsletter. I have seen a copy and you certainly have a lovely town. I have been principal of Chipping Norton PS for the past two years. Chipping Norton itself is about 30kms south west of Sydney, near Liverpool.The school is moderate in size with 300 students ranging from 5 to 12 year olds. (Kindergarten – Year 6), which is certainly very different to my previous school of over 1000 students and 70 staff! In 2004 at Chippo PS we have 10 classes. The most staff on any one day is 20. It is the NSW government’s intention to redevelop the school sometime in the next 3 years as the facilities are desperately in need of some improvement. The planned upgrade will include a new hall, library and 8 new classrooms.

Chipping Norton is a small suburb of Western Sydney. The school is very conveniently located next to huge council playing fields and an extensive lake system which feeds into the Georges River, which flows into Botany Bay, the landing place of Captain Cook in 1770.

Today it is a lovely 32C. The warm weather has been a while coming as we have had quite a mild spring. The local shopping centre is probably quite different to that of Chippy. We have a chemist, butcher, bottle shop, newsagent and bakery. Just down the road (3km) is Liverpool. This is the larger shopping area in the district, with all the necessary businesses possible.

The students here are absolutely fantastic. They perform brilliantly in many pursuits from academic areas through to performing arts and sports. Our girls’ soccer team finished 4th in the state of NSW in a knockout competition at the end of 2003 and our school aerobics team once again made it through to the Australian titles in September, a feat they have achieved 8 of the last 9 years. Soccer (football) is the biggest weekend sport played by our students with many belonging to the Chipping Norton Soccer Club. Many of our students also play netball or swim on the weekends. Much of the land on which the school is located was vineyards as recently as the 1970s. Italian farmers were influential in this area and today the school teaches Italian as a subject. 50% of our students come from backgrounds other than English representing 32 different languages, predominant being Greek, Arabic and various Asian languages.

The words of our school song tell the story of how Chipping Norton NSW got its name and our school came into being:

There was a man called William Long
And horses were his game
He came to Chipping Norton before it had a name
He built himself a homestead of solid sandstone
He didn’t want a wife he said
He’d rather work alone

Chorus:
Chipping Norton, Chipping Norton, Chipping Norton,
We live by deeds not words

He bred the finest horses and rose himself to fame
And then he said, "I’d better give this town of mine a name."
He chose a tiny English town and christened it the same
And still today our Chipping Norton
Proudly bears the name.

Chorus

And then in 1920, a very special year
The parents came together and said’ "Now listen here,
It’s time we had a little school our children need to learn."
And so they fixed a stable up and there a school began.

Chorus

William Long was the first horse trainer in the area. This has been carried through to today with several students’ parents being in the horse training business.

I would love my school to establish some links with local Chippy schools – maybe we could call it the ‘Chippy to Chippo Project’. It would be a great way for students to study their local areas. If anyone is interested in doing this please contact me at brett.warwick@det.nsw.edu.au