History
The Geelong Association for Parent Controlled Christian Education (now Christian Education National).
How it all began…
It all began back in 1975, when a handful of people met together in a loungeroom to share a vision about starting a Christian school.
The first meetings were partly business and partly prayer. Initially the vision was to start a Christian High School because St John’s Lutheran School in Aberdeen Street, where a number of families sent their primary aged children, did not provide secondary education.
It was surprising how much support there was to start up a Parent Controlled Christian School. Looking back, one can see that the Lord went before us. Many meetings and a lot of fundraising bore fruit. At one of those meetings it was decided to start up a primary school, not a secondary school. One of the first fundraising activities was an orange drive. Many Saturdays were spent selling bags of oranges for one dollar, fifty cents of which was profit for the school. Many diehards sold oranges week after week and the cents started rolling in.
Even before the School was opened, fundraising was done in the form of putting a calendar together. Advertising space could be bought by people with retail businesses and the calendars were given away free of charge. The Lord blessed these and many more efforts to raise funds for the school before there was even a building.
The first building was a rented and old school house in St David Street North Geelong, which needed to be cleaned, painted, refurbished etc. The furniture was pre-loved and out of date, but with a lot of cleaning and a lick of paint, it soon all started to take shape. Supplies came from all over the place and many people gave of their time and energy free of charge.
In February 1979 Geelong Christian School (as it was then known), was officially opened.