A world of experience at St Leonard’s College

Peter Clague has a deep understanding of the positive impacts of insightful educators who genuinely know the young people they teach and guide. One such person changed his life and led him to a teaching career that has spanned 34 years and taken him across the world.

“I grew up in Auckland and went to a fairly mediocre state school that I couldn’t wait to leave. Many of the teachers had no great aspirations for the students, and I was only one of two people in my year group who went on to university,” he says.

“Just before I left that school, I arrived at the career counsellor’s office with a five-page handwritten application to be an air traffic controller. My father worked at Auckland Airport, and I didn’t know anything beyond that, so thought that’s where I would work, too.

“When I presented that application to this very wise career counsellor, he read each page then tore it up, put it in the bin and slid a teacher’s college application across the desk instead. I completed teacher’s college and have never looked back. That person knew me, and that’s what I want for every child at St Leonard’s – I want this to be a school where every individual is known.”

Clague studied English and geography while also completing his teaching diploma at university. He spent the first 10 years of his career at a state school similar to the one he attended. It convinced him of the need for teachers to empower children to aspire for more.

“We don’t do young people any service if we believe near enough is good enough, and that mediocrity is OK. Our job as teachers is to light unquenchable fires in children,” he says.

Before arriving at St Leonard’s, Clague spent almost a decade leading New Zealand’s largest coeducational independent school, Kristin School.

He then spent eight years in the UK as the headmaster of Bromsgrove School. Founded in 1553, it is one of Britain’s oldest independent schools, and while there, Clague oversaw Bromsgrove’s campuses in Shenzhen, China and in Bangkok, Thailand.

He is a keen advocate of students developing an international perspective through education and so champions the IB program. He says St Leonard’s model offers a choice of two tertiary pathways – the IB or VCE – creating breadth and depth.

“I think education should be a smorgasbord. Our raison d’etre is to offer choice and to put as many options in front of young people as we can to find the thing that lights their fire. I am passionate about internationalism, breaking out of learning silos and getting young people to be inquisitive and deeply curious,” says Clague.

He is impressed by the range of academic and cocurricular options for students at St Leonard’s, particularly the college’s focus on social justice and community engagement.

“This college reflects the world into which it is sending young people – it is co-educational, multicultural and multifaceted,” says Clague.

“When they leave St Leonard’s, students will work in places and environments with a cross-section of society, and so we need to teach them how to get along with other genders, beliefs and races, and we do that very well.

“Inclusion is a word that is tossed around very easily, but this college is a genuinely inclusive place that empowers young people to leave with confidence in who they are. They are socially aware, they have quiet confidence mixed with humility, and they are optimistic about their future.”

Clague continues to embed himself within the school, but he has the greatest respect for its achievements so far.

“I’m a great believer that if something ‘ain’t broke, don’t fix it’,” he says.

“St Leonard’s is in a very good place … and I want to continue to enhance what the college already does extremely well.”

ST LEONARD’S COLLEGE \ 163 South Road, Brighton East 3187, Bunurong Country 03 9909 9300