Our Marketing Department

You are our marketing department. Not because we are a school that partners with parents (which we are) – although the way we do it does sit neatly inside that paradigm of schooling.

You are our advertising campaign. Not because we believe in not spending on advertising, using cheap (or free) labour – although, in times when we need to watch our expenses, this is a good tactic.

You pass on great messages. You probably know how we record the way parents, staff and students reflect on life at DCC and use those words in advertisements on Melbourne’s Christian radio station. But ads are indiscriminate and speak to an audience that may or may not be listening when they are broadcast.

Your word of mouth is one of our greatest assets. Parent after parent, picking the moment in the context of their friend and church relationships, express why they are glad they chose DCC for their children’s education. Teachers tell colleagues at other schools how much they enjoy their work in our school’s community. Students encourage their friends to change schools.

In Term 3 every year, I have the deep privilege of going through the final enrolment phase for all the students joining the school in 18 months’ time. So, this year, I am interviewing new families and meeting new students who will enter Prep and Year 7 in 2025. You, yourself, may have been in a similar interview last year or the year before.

Every year, about 160 new students join us. The large majority of those interviews take place in Term 3; I am joined in all of these by a Board member or one of their delegates. I represent the school leadership, the Board member represents the families of the school.

We spend most of our time hearing the new family’s heart for Christian education, its place in their plan for their children’s schooling and we hear something of their personal faith testimony – the Christian heritage inherited from earlier generations of their family, conversion stories and how God has powerfully worked in their family’s life. The narratives are as varied as the families. It ensures the rich tapestry of our community’s make-up continues.

We seek unity in the three things that have always bound us together:

1. A deep, abiding and living faith in Jesus, as Saviour and Lord.
2. The Bible as God’s inspired word, revealed to us by Him – to guide and direct us in all things.
3. As a community of God’s people, gathered together in Christ’s name, we will give glory to Him in all things, our community interactions being a beacon on the hill, giving strong testimony to all that God is doing in our school, amongst the people of our community.

When we enrol a new family, we will always seek unity around these three things. We use the College’s educational creed as a prompt for our discussions; it is very common for this statement of who we are as God’s people together to generate passionate and emotional responses to what the school is offering.

And I experience, time and again, parents seeking enrolment telling me how much they have heard their friends, already at our school, talk about how we live out that educational creed, unified in the things that matter, respectful and generous with one another in the things that our different churches see differently. Unified in our diversity, as I often say.

God is good to us as a school community, continually. He continues to bring amazingly faithful servants of Him to our school, parents, staff and students alike. 

Thank you for the part you play in our marketing, our advertising and messaging. It’s powerful. As it is truthful, it brings many to our school – looking for the alignment you have sought and found. Keep it up – God still has many, many good things in store for us.

Shalom