The Scots College's identity as a Presbyterian, non-selective, holistic educator of boys owes a great deal to the intellectual genealogy of its founder. The Reverend A. A. Aspinall's mentor was the great Presbyterian clergyman, politician and nation-builder Reverend John Dunmore Lang, who was in turn the disciple of one of Scotland's most influential 19th century churchmen, Reverend Professor Thomas Chalmers. A brilliant philosopher, political economist and preacher, Chalmers held the Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of St Andrews and the Chair of Theology at the University of Edinburgh.

​A group of staff and Senior boys had the privilege last Thursday 12 May of hearing the scholar who occupies the same Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of St Andrews. Professor John Haldane, one of the most respected moral philosophers in the world, delivered a special address on Thomas Chalmers and the Scottish tradition of moral philosophy. He explained the vital role of moral philosophy in integrating the disparate disciplines, exploring several pressing contemporary issues such as healthcare, economics and the future of the welfare state through its lens.

Along with the group of boys attending the annual St Andrews Summer School in June and July, the College is delighted to be hosting a number of guest academics and admissions representatives from the University of St Andrews across 2016, reminding us of our rich intellectual heritage and exploring opportunities for boys and staff to study at Scotland's oldest (and one of the UK's finest) universities. For more information or to discuss your interest in St Andrews please contact Dr Hugh Chilton at h.chilton@tsc.nsw.edu.au.

How do we engage boys in transformative learning experiences? That is the question every teacher at Scots asks every day as we seek to bring out the best in our boys and form them into fine young men. To help us create rigorous, reflection-rich learning designs connected to real-world practices and places, the College has been developing its own model of Experiential Education in line with our Strategic Intent 2015-2025.
 
Last week a number of teachers from across all areas of the College had the opportunity to encounter, understand and begin to apply Experiential Education (or ‘ExpEd’) practices at a special workshop conducted by the Glengarry Leadership Team and the Scots Research Centre. Staff began the day in the blackness of the basement of the Main Building, simulating the caving activity boys undertake at Glengarry. They were guided through a modified version of the Kolb Experiential Learning Cycle – framing, immersion, direct debriefing, bridge-building and assimilating – and shown how an outdoors experience such as caving can be powerfully connected to other curriculum areas, discussing Plato’s conception of the cave and listening to poetry on the nature of darkness and light in Christian formation.
 
Staff then participated in interactive sessions exploring the ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ of ExpEd at Scots, before exploring ways of embedding it in their own practice. Hearing from exemplars such as Mr Phil Atkinson’s Year 9 Mathematics Fishing Hike, Year 10 Australian Business Week and the Vanuatu Mission Trip, we had the opportunity to imagine the rich possibilities for transformative learning experiences which we could provide for our boys. A number of pilot programs are now taking shape to test and refine our model of ExpEd, while wider training and conference programs are being developed to further enrich our collective understanding of ExpEd.