Friends Together
As a Quaker school, the value of equality is expressed in many ways within our community and we often explore the ways in which our individual and collective actions can impact a world which so often sees great inequities. With our ‘throughline’ at The Friends’ School this year of Active Hope, we are considering ways in which the hopes that we have for ourselves, for each other and for the world can be realised by positive and decisive action. One way we can all take action is through the School’s annual giving program, Friends’ Together.
It is with a deep sense of purpose that I invite you to join me in supporting The Friends’ Fellowship. The scholarship enables a student whose family could otherwise not afford the fees, to join our learning community in 2026. Past recipients of The Friends’ Fellowship have shown great commitment to and perseverance with their education, often despite many obstacles. They show such gratitude for the opportunity and pay that forward through both their learning and growth at Friends’ and the pathways that they follow after they graduate.
Esther Hill, Principal
I definitely didn’t expect to receive the Fellowship. It was a huge opportunity to learn from some of the best teachers, in one of the healthiest academic environments in the state. After graduating I travelled overseas and spent a month volunteering with an Indigenous community in the Ecuadorian amazon. One of the things that gave me the confidence to get there, was that I had done something seemingly insurmountable before – attending and doing well in the IB diploma as a kid from the sticks. Now I’m studying arts and law in Sydney. But the language skills, my value of community and the idea of focussing on something I believe in and achieving it, have not left me, and probably never will.
Louis Langoulant, Class of 2022
I hope that if I can help someone else gain the kind of education I had, this will benefit the particular student but also Tasmania and the whole of humanity. The School has strong values and a deep integrity that profoundly affected me.
Joanna Baker (Ikin), Class of 1975, regular donor
The Friends' Fellowship
Scholarships, Bursaries and Prizes Fund
Access a Friends’ education
Contributing to The Friends’ Fellowship is a direct and meaningful way we can have a significant impact both on the lives of our recipients and on the diversity of our community. In the spirit of Active Hope, please consider donating to The Friends’ Fellowship this year, to support a student in gaining access to a Friends’ education.
Facilities to transform student learning
Building and Development Fund
Support student learning
Your donation will contribute to the enhancement and development of new facilities in which our students learn and grow. Contributing to these transformational buildings not only assists students with their learning today, but supports generations of stuidents for the life of the building.
Information Literacy
Library Fund
Support digital access and learning
Your donation will fund vital resources across the School Libraries that support student digital learning in an increasingly online and complex world.
“While I worked at the school, my mother ran the women's shelter across the road from Friends’. So, I would go from being at a leading independent school, I'd walk across the road and see people that were homeless. Needs based scholarships even out the playing field for people to have opportunities to have access to a really good education and all it takes is for one member of a family to be lifted up with good education to change outcomes for that entire family and generations moving forward. So I think that it's essential.”
“I consider that under the example set by the school staff, I obtained important character, career and social values that far outweighed the academic achievements. I am quite convinced that these things, learned at a very impressionable age stay with one throughout life’s journey. It is important in my opinion, that past students recognise the influence that the school has had on their lives by contributing to annual giving.”
"Donating to the school shows appreciation for the education and life skills that I and my children have received, and for the membership of a strong family community that is so actively promoted by the school and still felt by so many all these years afterwards. It would be very rewarding to think that through contributing to The Friends' Fellowship, someone, who otherwise would not have had the chance, could go on to have this sort of foundation for the start of their life story."
“I consider myself very fortunate to have spent fourteen years of my life as a student at Friends'. I would have stayed longer if I was allowed. The Friends' Motto of Nemo Sibi Nascitur has guided me through my life. It is important to support the school because it offers not only a top-class education, but as well the Quaker way gives one a clear set of values to live by.”
“I donate to The Friends’ School for my appreciation of the education I received from Friends’ teachers and my enjoyment of my school years. The philosophy of the School, the responsibility towards others and the tolerance shown towards people with differences have stayed with me throughout my life. I usually donate to the scholarship fund so that others may have the same quality of education that I did, and I know for many people paying for independent education is a struggle or impossible.”
“It’s quite an emotional experience meeting people that put so much into you as a person and really see potential and gifting you something that you never really think you can give back. But I think you can give back by just trying your best and that’s exactly what I’ve done.”
“I was determined that my children would come here because of the positive experience I’d had and at the time that my wife and I were parents at the School, the School actually helped us at a time when I was retraining at University.”
Philanthropy is a core value shared amongst our students and community. It has been part of the fabric of the School since English Quakers sent Principal Samuel Clemes, along with resources and funds, all the way to Hobart to start The Friends’ School in 1887. Since then the School and its community has embraced philanthropy as a shared value, in all its many forms and it is truly rewarding to see it in action at Friends’.
In this phase at Friends’ we remain focused on providing support for needs-based scholarships that enable children to access a Friends’ education and let their lives speak. As a community we look beyond short-term outcomes and continue our focus on the academic, cultural, physical, social, emotional and spiritual development of each person in our care, achieved with the active support of all members of our School community.
