Dear College Families
We began the year well with much ‘newness’ as we launched the College new Strategic Plan and new Crest. I hope you have had the chance to read through the brochures that were mailed to you and that you were able to see the vision moving forward for Christian Schooling excellence which our Strategic Plan heralds for SCBC. The Implementation Plan which is a Staff document attachment to the Strategic Plan brochure, is quite a hefty document of specific initiatives, actions and measurements to achieve the strategies outlined in the overarching plan. This Implementation Plan document is now with our Staff Committees. Committees and Chairs have been appointed for each strategy and sub-strategy to enable the activation of the desired outcomes for our students. Our new Crest design in our strategy has also been commissioned in the wake of the need to explicitly present our organisation as a values based Christian, School of Excellence. You would be aware that what schools can and can’t do, going forward in terms of legislations that are being discussed in the political arena, will affect the future landscape. We therefore believe it is important for us to explicitly symbolise and precisely document our vision and values. Our new Crest and shield is one part of this process.
It is anticipated that it will take three years before the new Crest replaces the old Crest in all crested goods, uniforms and merchandise. We will discount items with old Crests on them which will help families who only need uniforms for the next one-two years, and by the third year of growth, the new Crest on uniforms will be available to all students. The proposed three year transition therefore will allow the process to be economical for our families.
The College Board has also commissioned a new master capital works plan and we are delighted to be partnering with the Firm Architectus to achieve a first rate and future proof value-adding plan for our College site. I am aware that there are current pressure points including parking issues on our site. In order to tackle improvement in this area we do need a planned approach which can accommodate growth, given so many families want to enrol their children in our College. We will implement the master capital works plan in stages and of course, through future budgets.
Our students already know that a new and very large College outdoor amphitheatre and garden is being constructed in the large space between M block and the library this year. This will be done through the work of our selected landscape design company (TDL). This is the first of many improvement projects that are on their way. Our stage 2B construction is also continuing well near the Gym and the two-storey construction will increase availability of classrooms and facilities for our growing school.
Thank you in particular for your patience and understanding with regard to the parking issues. Every school has parking problems and some I dare say are far worse than ours. If our community could continue to be courteous when driving, bearing in mind the safety of all community members, and if our bus transport could also be considered, which would alleviate some of the congestion from cars, this would assist towards improvement until we can construct upgrades on the site. Naturally carparks can’t be closed during school times for infrastructure improvements, so there are considerations and timelines to take into account, as we seek to improve facilities for our community. It is however on the immediate radar and we don’t want to instal reactive quick fixes which will have to be undone, so we will address this with our master planning architects, for best future proofing solutions going forward.
Announcement
In 2025 our College will hit a milestone 40th Anniversary year. It is significant to note that SCBC is one of the very first Baptist Christian Colleges in the state of Western Australia. As we are now no longer a small school and rapidly catching up on infrastructure requirements due to the sudden burst of enrolments over the past couple of years particularly in secondary school, the decision to move to a College of six Houses has been made to provide students with more personalised wellbeing care and leadership opportunities per House. In addition and to honour the history and main Founding Families of the College who invested personal finances and substantial amounts of time for the establishment of the College, we will be naming our six Houses in the 40th Year of the College, after the College Founders. We will add two more Australian animals (magpie and the willy-wagtail) to the selection of animal mascots we currently have for each House, to continue our respect for the Australian indigenous environment and people. The Houses however, will be named after the historical six Founding Families who established the College.
Students will know in the latter part of 2024 which Founding House they will be part of in preparation for the 2025 College 40th Anniversary, and students will be gifted a new House shirt from the College in a vibrant colour, designed and commissioned for their special House. On February 11th in 2025 we will launch the first ever celebration of ‘Founders’ Day’ at South Coast Baptist College. This was the historical day the College first opened its doors, in 1985. On Founder’s Day, which will become a College tradition in the future, students will enjoy House games in the morning and have the opportunity to hear from invited Alumni as well as some of the Founders we hope to invite. Many other families had also supported the College in those early pioneering years in many other ways, and we intend to have Honour Boards to acknowledge their commitment and work in our celebrations of the 40th Anniversary of the College in 2025.
The six founding families who financially gave much to the College in those very early days are recognised in the Strategic Plan brochure ‘Reach for our Purpose’ (the Strategic Plan e-brochure can also be accessed from our website). These six families and the animal mascot of each House and colour, are indicated below:
- Trimble House – Blue
(Kwilena) Dolphin
- Clow House – Gold
(Widi) Penguin
- Bassett House – Red
(Boodalang) Pelican
- Creelman House- Green
(Yaakin) Turtle
- Ridley House- Purple
(Djidi-Djidi) Willy Wagtail
- Robinson House- Silver
(Koolbardi) Magpie
We look forward to all that is coming to bless our College, as we journey together with our community in implementing our new Strategic Plan and all that it heralds in its roadmap. We are committed to providing more opportunities and a quality, supportive and excellent learning environment for our students.
In closing I wish to thank our community for the support received for the media release I wrote when the College was accused of gender pay gap disparity. This accusation in the West Australian was a total misrepresentation. SCBC is an equal opportunity employer, offering choice to both genders for fulltime, part time, casual, different roles and flexible workplace arrangements. It also runs a massive Childcare with 64 childcare workers who come under the overall College ABN. Printing accusations without checking the details about the full College context brought about journalistic inaccuracies. Thank you for your appreciated support. We also thank you for your support at our Twilight Tours and Open Evening on February 27th of this term. We had 1766 people enter through our gates to join in on all the fun and get to know our College. It was a wonderful event and I commend the students and staff of the College who presented the quality that is SCBC, a quality of which we can all be proud.
Wishing you the blessings of Easter and a happy holiday as we finish the term.
Warm regards
Dawn Clements
Principal
John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.