IT IS a proud tradition for Newhaven College students to speak at ANZAC Day ceremonies across Bass Coast on ANZAC Day. Newhaven College Captains Isaac Savona and Grace Howlett spoke at the Cowes RSL Dawn Service.
On the day before ANZAC Day, Newhaven College’s students and staff gathered to reflect and show appreciation to our armed forces past and present. The amphitheatre was soaked in the moving music of bagpipes played by Year 12 piper Mackenzie Cameron and the Celtic Drum played by his brother, Year 10 student James Cameron, as students and staff assembled.
Proceedings were run by School Captains Isaac Savona, Abby Papas, Gabriel Di Falco and Grace Howlett. In her speech at the College service, College Captain Grace Howlett reflected on how all the students assembled should reflect on how young the ANZAC veterans were when they went into battle. “At 17 and 18, many of us are just beginning to figure out who we are. We’re finishing school, working part time jobs and making choices about our futures. Yet at the same age, over 400,000 young men from this country were preparing to leave everything behind – their homes, their families and their dreams - to sail into the unknown, facing a war they could never imagine.
“They weren't superheroes. They were ordinary young Australians and New Zealanders. They had plans, fears, and lives just like us. And still, they showed up. They volunteered. They stepped forward into something greater than themselves.
“So today we honour ordinary teenagers who did something extraordinary. We remember their undeniable bravery through the darkness, fear and incomprehensible loss of war. Lest we forget.”
The Combined College Choir sang the poem 'In Flanders Fields' by Craig Tibbitts as well as the New Zealand and Australian National Anthems. Year 12 student Felix Fothergill and Brass Specialist James Ryan played the Last Post on trumpet. The Junior School Captains laid a wreath at the Lone Pine as Year 9 students raised the flags. All students were reflective and respectful throughout the sombre occasion.