05 February 2026
When you chose to entrust your sons to St Peter’s College, you did more than select a school. You signalled that you already understand something important: that SPSC is not simply an educational journey for your son but an immersive community experience for your entire family. One that will shape them, and you, long after the final bell rings.
This is a place of belonging.
On the surface, we are bound by truth, respect and service. But more deeply, we are united by something rarer: a shared responsibility for a living, perpetual institution that has been shaped by generations and now places itself for a time, in our care.
I welcome you not only as parents, but as fellow custodians of our School. I write this as an old scholar, a past parent, a Governor and the current President of the Foundation. I can tell you this with absolute certainty: your SPSC experience will stay with you. It will move quickly, far faster than you expect. So enjoy it. Share it. Lean into it. Join it fully.
You will come to learn that these magnificent walls and fields that are yours to walk, to watch from and to gather on exists because of the generosity of those who came before us. I urge you to not be intimidated by this idea. Indeed, please embrace it. Our founders and benefactors were not distant figures or extraordinary outliers. They were parents just like you and me. People who wanted the very best for their sons and who understood that a great school endures only when its community steps forward.
This journey you have joined will move more quickly than you imagine. One day you will realise that the boy who arrived here with an oversized blazer and nervous excitement now stands taller, steadier and ready for the world. And you will wonder where the time went. So be present. Step forward. Say yes when you are invited. Give your time. Give your support. Give your belief in what this place stands for. Because St Peter’s College is not sustained by buildings alone. It is sustained by people who choose to care. People who understand that while their sons may pass through these gates, the School itself endures.
Years from now, when your family speaks of SPSC, it won’t just be as a school you attended. It will be as something you helped carry forward. And that is the privilege before you now: not simply to watch history but to become part of it.
Dr Richard Sawers (ATH 1966)
SPSC Foundation President
