Scots College's unique spin on acknowledgements of Country
But this week, we were thrilled to learn that the boys' school at Bellevue Hill, which charges $51,000 a year per student, has entered the 21st century. You see, like dozens of corporates, sporting bodies and educational institutions around the country, Scots is doing acknowledgements of Country. Somewhere on the fringes of Brisbane, a newly funemployed Peter Dutton is reading this and seething.
According to some parents, who'd noticed the formality's conspicuous absence in the past, acknowledgements of Country started this year.
But Scots told us it had included an Acknowledgement of Country at significant events for some years.
Still, the college did put its own Presbyterian spin on things. The exact wording, according to one school community source: 'As we meet today under God, Father Son and Holy Spirit, who has declared 'All the earth is Mine', we acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and pay respects to their elders past and present.'
So the traditional owners are acknowledged, but with a reminder that this was God's country first. Which reminds us of former prime minister Scott Morrison 's similarly unique approach to acknowledgements of Country, who would recognise traditional owners, and then, in the same breath, serving members of the defence force.
While some of the more progressive Scots parents (yes, they exist: Bellevue Hill is teal now after all) were pleasantly surprised to note the Acknowledgement of Country, a few remained disgruntled over the ongoing existence of its Women's Association.
All female Scots parents and carers are automatically members of that fundraising committee, which runs the secondhand uniform shop and the canteen. Headmaster Ian Lambert 's wife Alison is a patron.
Some of the school's more feminist mothers have argued for years that the association entrenches harmful stereotypes among the impressionable boys about women being confined to caregiving roles.
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