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Sedbergh School (Canada)

Last modified: 2012-08-09 by rob raeside
Keywords: sedbergh school | fleur-de-lis |
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"In the late 1930s, Thomas J. Wood, Vera Wood, and Frank Duxbury decided to create a school using the outdoors as the context for student learning. They sought to establish "... an honest to goodness country school, in a region of hills, lakes and forests, where a young person could savour the benefits of country living as ancillary to the serious business of schooling."

With the help of legendary outdoorsman, Chief Jack Rabbit Johannsen, the founders located a site for the new school. An initial purchase of 500 acres of hills, forests, fields, marshes, lakes and streams has now grown to a magnificent 1,200 acres campus. The new school was called Sedbergh, a name that Frank Duxbury imported from his alma mater in England. In September of 1939, soon after war was declared, the doors of the Sedbergh opened to 12 students.

Forty-one years later in 1980, a terrible fire burned the school to the ground. In true Sedbergh spirit, the founders, staff and students established a temporary school so that their year could be finished and undeterred, they all worked together through the summer to rebuild the school. The new school building was officially opened in 1981 by Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

From its humble beginnings, Sebergh has intentionally remained small. Today, the school is a global microcosm with almost 100 students from around the world. Sedbergh, as with all schools, experiences change, the buildings and campus, the students and staff.

The rugged landscape continues to provide a meaningful context for academic learning and an outstanding backdrop for athletic activity and outdoor pursuits. The school's motto is engrained in every Sedbergh graduate Felicitas, Libertas, Virtus - Happiness is freedom, Freedom is courage." [1]

According to Jessy Laflamme, Info 07, 10 May 2007 [2], the helicopter pilots Jennifer Murray and Colin Bodin have hoisted the Sedbergh school flag on the two poles during their trip around the world. A colour photography shows the two pilots holding the flag on the ice. The flag is dark blue with the Sedbergh School's coat of arms in the middle. The coat of arms of the Sedbergh School is shown on the frontpage of the School's website [3]. The shield is dark red with a yellow oil lamp and a white serrated chief charged with two blue fleurs-de-lis.

Sources:
[1] http://www.sedbergh.com/main.php?cat=1&subcat=75
[2] http://www.info07.com/article-103073-Le-tour-du-monde-a-Sedbergh.html
[3] http://www.sedbergh.com/
Ivan Sache, 12 May 2007