ANZAC Traditions

It's wonderful to see our school's traditions establishing, growing and changing over time.  One of the most important traditions is our ANZAC Ceremony at school and our attendance at the Dawn Service at Coolum RSL on ANZAC Day morning.

Our Student Leaders do a fabulous job of leading the Ceremony which is usually held the day before ANZAC Day. All the classes make gorgeous wreaths and two children proudly represent their class to lay it at the base of the flag pole. In our first year we held our ceremony at the flag poles at the front of the school. Now we have 803 children meeting in the Central Covered Games Area facing the beautiful Peace Garden built by Mark, our School's Officer, and paid for by Coolum RSL.

Sometimes we have a real life trumpeter and other times we rely on technology for the Last Post and the Reveille. This year we had drummers - fantastic! And these days, we are all excellent at the Minute's Silence! This year we added the New Zealand National Anthem. After all, ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps - it's not all about us!

Early ANZAC morning we meet at Seacove Court and proudly march with our school flag to the RSL for the Dawn Service. It's often cold and always dark. And we are always very quiet and respectful. We usually take one of the class' beautiful wreaths, and two Student Leaders line up and take it to the flag pole.

ANZAC Dawn Service on Lady Elliot Island

I was unable to attend this year. University holidays don't coincide with school holidays this year so I took a few extra days and went scuba diving with my daughter. On ANZAC morning, we stood in our wet suits on the beach facing a sunrise over the water watching the Australian flag flying on a yacht's mast and I was hoping that another tradition had been upheld back at Coolum RSL - and that is the supply of muffins for hungry little tummies. (I was so happy to see later on Facebook that in fact, Mr Foxover and Mrs Cathcart had remembered, and that the tradition has evolved to cupcakes!)