Principal's News

This week, I met with locally based artist, Travis Price, to discuss commissioning some of his work for Ballarat High School. If you are not aware of Travis’ work, you can see it around Ballarat as part of the street art that celebrates our city. Travis comes from the small town of Dimboola and his mission is to celebrate all the good things about regional and rural towns, their people and communities. His artwork manages to simultaneously value the past as well as being very much about the now and looking forward to the future. For those reasons, and many others, he seems a perfect fit for our school.

We spoke about what we want to capture about what makes BHS unique- what we want to celebrate within our community.

Where do you begin? 

We went to an obvious starting point- our sporting programs. With a ‘Hall of Fame’ that has consecutive Australian Olympians stretching back to 2004 and with so many alumni with a raft of achievements and many giving back to the community at a grass roots level through coaching, an artwork that speaks of our sporting prowess seems fitting. But do we celebrate our stars of track and field, our footy players, rowers, chess champions, swimmers, golfers and team members of so many competitive sports as the only state school represented at full BAS level?   There’s our Spec Sport program which aims to provide pathways from Year 7 onwards to committed students who want to lead and support. 

And that is only one element of what we do…

What of the Arts?

And are we talking Performing or Design & Tech?

It’s difficult to choose because we produce superstars in both. If you take a wander into the Sedgwick Centre, it feels like you have been transported to an edgy art gallery in the city. Once the bell goes, creativity dominates, supported and encouraged by our talented staff. Our students are encouraged to express themselves in every medium from graphic to product design, in clay and on canvas and through photography and multimedia. Our students win awards, design footwear for our Para Olympians and learn to express themselves within their own visual language.

And we know all about our Performing Arts students!

I don’t think a newsletter goes by without a mention of their performances. Their originality and level of musician ship and acting is borne from hours and hours of dedication, practise, hoarse throats and calloused fingertips. Like so much of what we celebrate, they encapsulate our school values. Last Wednesday’s Movie Night was another fine example of what we do best. Performing should be full of joy and we don’t do stuffy recitals! We produce note perfect performances, mixing drama, comedy and compositions with our students’ personalities visible to see. 

We then considered the commitment and industry of our students and their academic growth and achievements. Few schools offer the wide range of subjects from Year 7-12 that we do, or the range of pathways that we offer. We have intervention programs for all ranges of abilities and needs; we are constantly examining our curriculum and how we teach to get better at impacting student learning. The richness of our programs speak of our vision of what a state education should offer and the multitude of apprenticeships, diplomas, university courses and careers that our students access reflect our commitment to backing them in pursuing their dreams- wherever that may lead them. Ours is a school of academic excellence and high expectations and we value the commitment that our students show every day.

And when we are thinking about significant strengths at our school that we want the world to know about, we should look no further than our VM program and the applied learning space. The empathy, maturity and connection with community that the team develop in our students through a wide range of excellent learning experiences is something that must be caught somewhere in this artwork. All roads lead to a career and our VM students know that their pathway will involve lifelong learning, but in the way that they prefer to learn. Each week, these students make a difference: thank you to you all for backing our Father’s/Carer’s Day stall that they organised, ran and made the gifts and sold and the food and drink that you bought. Everything they do is for a moral purpose, and they are intent on making a difference by raising awareness and funds for charities and causes that are dear to their hearts.

We also need to promote our school as a caring and inclusive place where everyone gets to belong. Our students are taught to be kind and understanding; tolerant and open. The increased cultural diversity of our family’s needs to be celebrated and we need to find new ways to promote this in all aspects of our school. It is significant that our partnership with the committee behind the Ganesh Festival that will take place this weekend chose to return to BHS for a second successful year. Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags fly with pride at the entrance of our school and we are a school that is grateful to the Wadawurrung people for their stewardship and protection of the lands on which we are lucky to learn and grow together. We also need to signal that BHS is a school of inclusion and a place where all LGBTQIA+ staff and students have a voice, a place and advocates.

In many respects, commissioning artwork that represents the best of Ballarat High School may be challenging, but it is also a lesson in what we have to be grateful for.  Who wouldn’t want to be part of a school that has so much good to offer.

Stephan Fields

Principal