COLLEGE COUNCIL REPORT
From the College Council President
Dear BSC Community,
It has been and continues to be a challenging year for all. Our year 7s have barely had a chance to settle into their BSC environment and our year 12s have missed too many of the traditional celebrations that go with their final year at school. All students have had to face changes in how they learn and interact in virtual classrooms. As parents and carers, we too have had to learn and adapt to living quite differently and in many cases sharing work and learning spaces with our children – a further lesson in patience, tolerance and understanding.
I’m taking this opportunity to acknowledge and thank everyone – students, parents, carers, teachers, staff and principals - for your patience and adaptiveness to the changes in the learning and teaching environment of our school. It is important to me and College Council that our school’s infrastructure and community has, as much as possible, remained resilient and intact through this period. This has been an opportune time to reflect on how we interact and how we can work towards better connections with our community of family, social networks, work and school.
This year Council has conducted all meetings in the virtual space and we’ve become quite adept at working effectively through our agenda items. Our priority has been to ensure we maintain good governance and that forward planning and operations continue without interruption by supporting the work of the Principal team and teachers whilst being mindful of the needs of our students and expectations of parents. Whilst we are grateful for the technology that enables our continued meetings, it in no way replaces the important connections we make when we meet together as people with a common purpose and passion for giving our young people the opportunity to experience a rich and rewarding learning environment. In these times, it is important to remember that this is what connects us as a community, the BSC community, and that we can, even with the limitations of our current situation, remain connected to each other with the mediums available to us.
It might be easy to view a school as an institution of rules and requirements, a means for providing a formal education but a school is so much more. For years we are connected to this institution, a microcosm of life. With and through our children we watch them grow, experience joy, occasionally deal with disappointments and learn about themselves and others. Along the way we make friends and learn a little more about ourselves. A school is more than an institution, it is made up of different people from different backgrounds and life experiences all coming together with the common purpose of nurturing our young people towards their future. For this very reason, we should remember that only when we work together as a united community will we harvest the outcomes we are seeking for our children. Only when individuals forming that collective community step forward to connect, engage and support each other will we continue to succeed and grow.
Staying connected has certainly been a challenge this year and I commend all the students and families who have shown their support of our College and community, participating remotely to remain involved in College life. I particularly want to acknowledge the parents who joined the rest of College Council at our very first zoom AGM recently. Our participation rate was so good that we may continue future AGMs in this way.
Over the years I have used many opportunities to promote community engagement and connection and once again I urge all of you reading this missive, to remember that you are part of this wonderful BSC community and whilst not perfect as humans seldom are, it is up to you to make a positive difference by contributing your understanding and support of all our students, all our teachers, our Principal team, each other and the structures that support the whole.
Warmest Regards,
Tania Madjaric Grierson
College Council President
