Dear College Families

How fast this Term has gone!

I hope that for you and your families it has been a Term filled with many interesting and positive developments. I hope you have felt supported by our College when you have needed us to be so for the children. I know how deeply devoted to their profession our staff are and how much they care. It is good to see our students thriving and it is especially heart warming to see their joyful faces and confident approach.

I have had the great pleasure of joining students and staff at a few assemblies including the very first ANZAC assembles which began the Term with remembrance for our heroes who, like our ADF, actively committed to maintain the safety and freedoms we enjoy in our beautiful country. We are grateful.

The Primary Award Assemblies towards the end of term were a delight with students in class 4B teaching us about how God has taught us to not react but to practice the pause and think before jumping to conclusions or getting angry unnecessarily. It was great to see the students’ performance of this concept and it was wonderful to see their joyful faces when Awards were being presented. Similarly, class 2A also brought to us a meaningful message that God has a purpose for all of us because he loves each us and has given each of us unique and significant inner gifts, for good purpose.  It was wonderful to enjoy our students’ assemblies. Congratulations to our students. Well done also for the amazing effort our primary students and staff put into Bookweek. The costumes were incredible and it was great to see the parade of students on the Thursday morning of Bookweek as they supported the importance of ‘Reading’ by dressing up as their favourite book characters. Thank you to parents for their support.

Commendations are due to our girls for the Primary SSWA State Football Championships when they defeated all opponents. In addition, our girls and boys demonstrated their excellent skills at the CPSSA Interschool Basketball Carnival securing several wins. We are proud of them!

Congratulations to Year 10 student Evie Gallacher who competed in the Australian Gymnastics Championships in Queensland this Term and was placed first as National  Champion in her age bracket. An amazing achievement! Congratulations to April Horton who will represent Western Australia in the 2023 AFL 12s Girls Championships in August and congratulations to Drew Clarke also to represent Western Australia in the 2023 AFL 15s Boys Championships during July. It is an honour for our students to be representing both the state and the country in their chosen sports. Well done to our SCBC students!

Our Playground in the primary school is taking good shape and the upgrades are tremendous. Students will certainly enjoy the playground equipment and we look forward to this feature being used well and only during school time when there is supervision for student safety, particularly when using the ‘flying fox’. I might even have a go during school hours, when there is supervision!

We hope our parents and students in Secondary School found the parent teacher evenings very helpful this Term as well as the subject information evening for the Year 11 students as they made subject choices. It is important that senior students select subjects wisely always keeping in mind their passion for learning. There are many pathways to achieve a desired outcome and I encourage our secondary students to seek good counsel from our Careers staff and Deputies to enable best way forward.

During the Term I had the pleasure of visiting some of our Secondary classrooms and I saw students carefully creating their visual representations in their art and the work was exceptional! Similarly, the Surge Concert was an amazing showcase of talent from our Vocal Academy students. Well done to our students and their teachers. What a night of high standard and talent. I hope you enjoyed being there if you attended. It was superb!

I also visited our ACC cross country teams at Perry Lakes this Term and was very proud of our students’ efforts and their behaviour as they competed against all other Independent schools within the ACC.

In my office I have recently had student artwork hung in order to showcase our students’ talents when particular visitors arrive and have meetings with me about various matters. It is a pleasure to see the students’ artwork and to marvel at the talent that exists amongst our young people. Dr Chris Massey (Executive Director of AISWA – Association of Independent Schools of WA) visited SCBC recently and it was a pleasure to show our VIP visitor our students’ artwork hung proudly in my office during our meeting and before we went on a tour of the campus. Thank you also to our hospitality and food science students who were able to showcase their skills during Mr Massey’s visit. Thank you to the classes and students who welcomed our brief interruption during the tour. Mr Massey was most impressed with SCBC and saw first-hand the evidently increasing and good reputation of our College.

SCBC is a College that provides for the varied talents of our students and the myriad of study pathways young people can now select to best suit their journey for success. We cheer our students on. May they have every opportunity and more as we plan ‘Towards 2029’ with our next Strategic Plan. Thank you to all families, students, College Board and staff for participating in the consultation survey for the next Strategic Plan. We shall discover the results next term when our external Consultant analyses all the responses and provides his report. From there we shall begin the process of design for the future. We will also be organising some culture capture workshops with students and staff with our Consultant. Parents are invited to join us for a coffee and chat morning on Wednesday 16 August at 8am with myself and our Consultant Dr Cummins, to add to our process for consultation as we determine the next strategic directions in collaboration with the College Board. More information will come in due course.

When I first started at South Coast Baptist College it was a lovely gesture of some of our Year One students to have made me a card within which they carefully placed their intricate signatures. I have that card on my shelf in my office amongst others of welcome. I have even been visited by other young primary students who have demonstrated to me their cooking skills, even offering me treats they have cooked in class with their little hands. It is such a pleasure to get to know our students in the College and to chat with them during my walks. They are delightful, some shy, some confident but all are good hearted. We will achieve much for our young people at SCBC and I am delighted to be working with our dedicated Team of exceptional staff and College Leaders to ensure our students will receive nothing but the best. Our Childcare also provides very high standards of care and tuition to our littlest ones on our College campus. It has been a delight to see the work being done through our Childcare and to even attend one of their incursions when the police came to teach them about ‘stranger danger’, have a play with the car’s siren, wear police caps, and feel assured that they are always in safe and secure hands.

I pray that the holidays for all our students, College families and staff will be a time of great refreshing. I look forward to seeing everyone back next term.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his love endures forever.”

1 Chronicles 16:34

My very best to you

Dawn Clements
Principal