Image courtesy of Gemma Morton-Jones
In a slightly obscure corner of Campion College’s beautiful campus in Toongabbie, there is a cheerful little veggie garden patch, neatly laid out and well-cared for. A friendly little group, aka the Campion gardening society, looks after it. Both the gardening patch and the gardening society were an initiative of Gemma Morton-Jones, a former Kiwi homeschooler who studied at Campion in 2024.
Gemma is the second youngest of six, and was homeschooled all her life, except for one year. While homeschooling, she completed speech and drama exams. In 2023, she took a gap year, went to World Youth Day in Lisbon, worked in a plant nursery, and attended Hearts Aflame, a young adults’ summer camp. In 2024, she completed her diploma at Campion. Her favorite subject was history. She also participated in the Campion skit night, and acted as Margaret in Much Ado about nothing.
About her time at Campion, Gemma says, “I think the pros of Campion was that I had to work to deadlines, which I never really had with Te Kura (I was with them for about 2yrs), and a con would be being away from family, but…the community at Campion was a family-like scenario.” This year, Gemma is studying history at University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.