The school grew quickly and the two founders, Miss Grace Lawrance and Miss Beatrice Rennie, took on more staff including Miss Violet Medway in 1928. The school was led by some combination of these three remarkable women for the next 57 years.
Reflecting their own diversity of faith, Queenwood was established from its inception as a non-denominational Christian school with an ethos of inclusion, rejecting the sharp sectarian divisions in Australia at the time.
The significance of the School’s motto, Per Aspera ad Astra (‘Through Struggles to the Stars’), was explained by Miss Rennie:
‘Per Aspera’ precedes ‘ad Astra’ and so it is that strength and courage are necessary, for the highest and best are not attained without struggle… There is so much that needs reforming in the world today, so many wrongs to be righted, so many poor and sick to be tended, so many weak to be protected. Are not these high adventures which call for women of strength and courage and purpose?
That sense of purpose, the willingness to engage with challenge and the desire to make a contribution remain at the heart of Queenwood’s mission.