New Head of Lindfield Mr Ben Barrington-Higgs was officially welcomed on Friday, 24 April at a morning assembly held at Lindfield Prep. Standing among the crowd of excited Lindfield boys and staff members were a handful of men and women who had contributed to Mr Barrington-Higgs own professional journey, including a representative of the Headmaster of Trinity Grammar from Ben’s schoolboy days, and the Headmaster of Shore School in North Sydney where he spent early years in his teaching career. 

Mr Barrington-Higgs comes to Lindfield Prep having recently been the Head of Primary at Yayasan Pendidikan Jayawijaya School in Indonesia – an IB Primary Years Programme (PYP) school. Following on with the tradition of having great IB educators at Lindfield, Mr Barrington-Higgs is an accredited PYP workshop leader. Below, is the speech he gave at his Commissioning.

I would like to thank everyone for being here today, Dr Mulford, Rev Morphew, Mr Isiais, our distinguished guests, Newington staff, parents and boys. I would especially like to thank Gabe and Mrs Ashworth for their kinds words, you have made me feel very welcome. In fact, I have felt nothing but warmth from the staff, parents and of course our amazing boys here at Lindfield over the last three weeks.

Discover what’s Possible – that was the first statement I read when I looked into Newington College last October.

The phrase Discover what’s Possible is how Newington describes its approach to boys’ education.

This phrase said to me that Newington is a school that actively challenges the boundaries, actively imagines and re-imagines education to enable Newington boys to meet the complex paradigms of our time.

So what have I discovered in my short time at Newington?

Newington is a school with high expectations for its boys, staff and parents. We are a Uniting Church school and we aim to develop a dynamic, personal relationship with God which we live out through acts of justice, compassion, courage and kindness.

This resonates with me as issues of social justice and civic engagement are very important as I have lived a lot of my life in a region of the world where there was often the absence of justice, the absence of equality and the absence of societal care for the less fortunate.

What else have I discovered?

I have been going around meeting and talking with the boys and finding out what it is that is important to them and it seems we like sport. We seem to successfully train, play and enjoy Rugby, Cricket, Soccer, Basketball, Swimming, tiddly winks you name it we play it, and I have also discovered that we have a love for music, the arts, family and our close school community.

I have discovered we are an inclusive school. We accept boys from all faiths, all cultures and all backgrounds. We want to make a difference in the lives of our boys and the lives of those people Newington boys will engage with as members of this great Australian society.

I have already discovered a lot.

It is my role as Head of Lindfield to provide an exceptional education for our boys, to equip them for whatever future they envision, so they actively contribute to the creation of a better, more just society and it is my role to ensure that each and every one of you boys has the confidence to ‘Discover what is Possible’, for yourselves, throughout your lives.

Thank you very much.

Mr Benjamin Barrington-Higgs
Head of Lindfield