St Luke’s Anglican School welcomes new principal Virginia Warner

Bundaberg’s St Luke’s Anglican School has welcomed a new principal in 2023, a year very different to the previous two years which had the threat and restrictions of Covid hanging over everyone’s head.

St Luke's new principal Virginia Warner.

Canadian expat Virginia Warner feels “privileged and honoured” to take on the roll of St Luke’s Anglican School principal for the 2023 school year and beyond.

Mrs Warner has decades of teaching and educational experience behind her, and has said she hopes to build on the “exceptional” master plan the school has in place.

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She said she always knew she wanted to be a teacher, and when the opportunity to receive the first year of university fee free came about, she leapt at the chance and moved from Canada to study at the University of Western Australia.

Over the following decades, she taught an “eclectic” range of classes from Prep to Year 12.

“I really enjoy being able to do that,” she said, “for me I always say ‘I am a teacher of young people and the subjects are just the vessel.’”

The opportunity to take on the position came late in 2022, when the Anglican School Commission approached her for the role.

Virginia Warner meets with prep students on their first day. Picture supplied by St Luke’s Anglican School.

“What has struck me the most was the incredible sense of community, a community that cares for one another,” Mrs Warner said on St Luke’s.

She and her husband left their Gold Coast home of 25 years to relocate to Bundaberg, and she began welcoming students to the school this Monday.

“I was telling some parents on Monday morning that I felt like a prep student on my first day,” she said.

Mrs Warner plans on spending her time working with the “exceptional group of educators” at St Luke’s and continuing to build on the academic achievement the school has come to be known for.

She will also work towards the completion of on-campus projects such as the ongoing construction of the Performance Center and upper primary precinct project.

St Luke’s has welcomed its largest cohort of students in 2023, and Mrs Warner said the was a “buoyant” feeling among students who no longer felt the pressure of Covid hanging over their education.

“This is the first year in a number of years schools have gone back not worried about Covid restrictions, and that ability to connect as a community is so important,” she said.