PRINCIPAL REPORT

For my final Principal Report I want to share with you the speech I presented at our Celebration Assembly, which highlights our goal of renewal and growth at BSC.

“When I joined you in April, I asked of you two things - to be your best and seek the best in others. The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little ‘extra’, and I asked you to give that bit extra so that we could rebuild our community to be one of high expectations, pride and positivity. 

Whilst I have been the leader of our community this past eight months, we are each responsible for our part in creating the kind of culture and community that we want to be. With that in mind, I want to say thank you, to each of you. We aimed to set high expectations, and you have embraced the work that we have undertaken.  We have come back together this year, and that has been a joy to see, and now, as we end our year, it’s a great opportunity for us to reflect on all that we have achieved together. 

When you know what you should be doing -  and why - and everyone has the same high expectations, it is much easier to achieve. Success is not talent and nor is it luck - success is the sum of small actions, repeated every day, every week, every month, towards a clearly articulated goal. That is why you have heard me talk about consistency in all we do, and why we have been focused on whole school approaches that are consistent and clear for all of you.

This year we’ve put in place clear and high expectations about how we work together in our classes and across the college, and we’ve adopted a consistent approach to managing these expectations, so you and your teachers operate in the same way with the same expectations; this means a fairer, more positive  approach to working together to support your learning and your relationships. We’ve worked with your teachers to make sure that we share the same understanding, and we’ve welcomed feedback from all of you through our Teach the Teacher program, hearing from you about what makes learning fun, engaging and effective. I hope you can see that your teachers are listening to your feedback in order to support you and are working hard to build positive relationships with you.

We’ve started this work in our curriculum too, and next year you’ll start to see a consistent and clear approach to classroom instruction, making learning expectations in each lesson clear and visible. Our Teams platform - housing our lesson and unit plans - will look the same across subject areas, to make it easier for you to access what you need, and the expectations of you and your teachers clearer and easier to understand. 

We’ve improved our grounds, creating more student spaces for passive and active recreation, including our new courts off Dendy Street and our garden oasis, both of which will be ready for you to use day one next year. We’ve begun work to improve your classroom spaces, with painting, furniture and air conditioning upgrades, and this will continue into next year so you can be more comfortable in and around the college.

We’ve welcomed our community back into the college, through our BSCCC association, our coffee mornings and social events, our Friday BSW weekly,  our Monday bulletin videos and events like today, where we share our celebrations with your families. We’ve invited your families to play a bigger role in the college, so that we foster a genuine partnership of learning and surround you with support to help you reach your potential. 

We have renewed our commitment to make strong and positive relationships the foundation of our college, ensuring that we are celebrating your achievements, helping you through your challenges, and modelling what it means to be a proud and positive community of learners. You have seen that through our recent celebrations with our Year 12s, acknowledging and honouring all that they have contributed to BSC, and through the encouragement of more student-led initiatives to allow your voice and your ideas to be heard. Other initiatives include our new BSC Basketball Academy, offering the chance to learn and play basketball before school, whether as a beginner or an elite player, and Activity Week, designed to nurture positive relationships and celebrate our year in a fun way for both you, our students, and our staff. 

Finally, to ensure we keep our improvement momentum into the future we’ve also set up our improvement plans for 2025. We’ve begun the redevelopment of our Personal Excellence Program, so that this is effective, relevant and connected to the social and emotional learning that you need to develop at each stage of your learning, and in our junior years, we’ve started rethinking our SEAL curriculum and structure so that in the coming years, there will be more choice and more opportunity as you move through the college. Next year our community will also see our refreshed website, which will signpost a new era in the college’s story and reflect the way we see ourselves and also wish to be seen.

Everything that we have done this year has been to create an environment where you feel a sense of safety and belonging, where you can set ambitious goals for yourself and be supported to achieve them, and where we can all feel a sense of pride in our college.  We can look ahead to a future that is bright, exciting and positive, and you are at the heart of that future; your best interests, your goals, your ambitions, remain front of mind for all of us.

The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little ‘extra’; I am proud that everyone has given that extra this year.

Today is the last time that I will address you as your principal and so I would like to take this opportunity to say one final, enormous thank you to you all - students, staff and families. When I asked you to be your best and seek the best in others, I made that same commitment to high expectations;  as you have delivered on that expectation, I hope that you have also seen me deliver on mine. 

It has been my joy and privilege to have been a part of your community this year, and I know that the team here, led by your new principal, Mr Langham, will continue the great work we have started.”

Anne Stout,

Interim Principal