Senior School

As we draw towards the end of Term 1, I find myself grateful to have seen our students enjoying so many wonderful experiences. Quite apart from the wonderful face-to-face classroom learning that has taken place throughout the term (on which both our teachers and our students have worked immensely hard), our students have enjoyed incursions, excursions, assemblies, debates, soirees, camps, wilderness adventures, carnival and sport days. They have settled into their classes and into their sports and co-curriculars with gusto. After this past few COVID-impacted years, seeing our young people experience their first taste of the full life of BMGS has been a joy! Thank you to the many parents who have supported all these endeavours either by directly volunteering to help, or simply by endlessly encouraging (and chauffeuring) your children.  

It has also been a joy to see our students take part in the Cross Country Carnival. Were we to wait for fine weather to hold our carnival… we may wait for months in this La Nina year. In that context our students took the opportunity not only to prove to themselves their indissolubility in the rain, but also to grow their resilience! Well done to all those who ran hard in the mist and mud, and also to those who showed up and participated in order to support their Houses. Service to others and the community when it is easy is one thing. Service when it is challenging counts for more in my view. 

Finally, we speak a great deal about partnership with parents at BMGS, both as a staff team and when talking with our parent community. As a tool to strengthen and facilitate that partnership we have re-written and have now published the Student Uniform Policy. While this has always been available through the student diary, I recognise that as I ask parents to support the School in upholding our high expectations of student uniform and personal presentation, it would be useful for parents to have their own copy of our clearly stated rules. This tool is now available to parents through the Parent Portal, to students through the Student Portal, and to our staff team through our internal intranet site – Shabang. Please be aware that in re-writing our Student Uniform Policy, we have not sought at this time to make any changes. It is instead simply a clear statement of our expectations. I commend the Student Uniform Policy to you and encourage you to engage with it closely.  

Mr Owen Laffin

Deputy Head - Head of Senior School