Macquarie Anglican Grammar School is located almost right in the centre of NSW in Dubbo, well a couple of hours off but who’s counting… More commonly known as MAGS their mission statement is pretty direct ‘to develop Resilient young people ready to make a difference in the world’
After chatting with their Headmaster, Craig Mansour, I’ve no doubt that there’ll be continual world changers coming out of Dubbo.
MAGS was founded in 2002 and is an Anglican Schools Corporation school – one of 19 across NSW including Orange Anglican Grammar in regional NSW.
Craig came to Dubbo from one of the corporation’s south coast schools and as soon as he landed he in 2015 he became aware that Dubbo needed a boarding school. As he’ll tell us, it was the sporting sidelines, the quiet conversations with parents… that all led to a strategic push to start a boarding program.
MAGS opened their doors to boarding students all four of them, in 2019 and the rest, as they say, is history… Well it’s on its way to being the new history for MAGS in Dubbo.
Honestly this conversation with Craig was at times quite moving. You can really hear the emotions in his voice as he speaks incredibly candidly about the challenges, the triumphs and the creation of a culture at MAGS. A culture that rises up from the very beginnings of a boarding school community – Craig’s commitment to transition, to trying, to creating a legacy for the school and more broadly the vast region that his boarding cohort hails from.
I hope you love this chat as much as I did – and forgive both of us our croaky winter coughs and voices.