Recipes for Rejoicing

Sprawling across four separate campuses in Victoria’s Gippsland region, Chairo Christian School has more than 1650 students and 250 teachers, but it was a completely different story the day it opened. The independent school started in 1983 with just nineteen students.

‘There was one teacher and one classroom,’ recalls Maggie Donald, whose two daughters were among the first intake. ‘It was started by a group of about ten Christian families that wanted their children to have a Christian education. We did a lot of research, and we decided we wanted an independent school, not reliant on a church or government for funding.’