The Illawarra Grammar School

TIGS now has an enrolment of over 1000 students, Preparatory to Year 12, housed in a modern educational setting with a well-established and acknowledged reputation for delivering programs of excellence.
The School Crest.

From the day it opened its doors on 3 February 1959, TIGS has had an uncompromising commitment to its students – that each child will be encouraged to be the best they can be in all they do.

The School Motto, “from strength to strength” captured the mood of 1959 and today it is expressed through the TIGS Statement of Mission and its three Core Values:

“The achievement of academic excellence in a caring environment that is founded on Christian belief and behaviour, so that students are equipped to act with wisdom, compassion and justice as faithful stewards of our world.”

These three core values – Academic, Christian and Caring – are the same values that I hold and that were shaped by my career as an educator.  These values were forged while serving as a teacher in the Lower Blue Mountains of NSW, developed while a teacher and later as Deputy Principal of an independent school in Penrith NSW, and refined as the Principal of a large secondary school (including 300 indigenous boarders) in Darwin, NT.

It is a privilege to lead a school community that shares the same desire for children to become wholly developed and fulfilled adults enabled to make a difference in our world. A school where:

• academic success is matched by success in the development of physical, spiritual, aesthetic, cultural, social and emotional attributes;
• each child is known and loved for who they are and encouraged and nurtured to be all that they can be;
• the development of a personal faith is valued and shaped by the beliefs and behaviours of the Christian faith.

The TIGS community welcomes students and families that share these values and we look forward to the achievements of our next 50 years – maintaining the traditions of the past while applying the School’s values to the opportunities and challenges of the future.