Principal's News 2026 Term 2 Week 9

Faithfulness in Service: Celebrating Community and Connection 

Communities celebrate through a number of events, or remember and reflect upon traditions, culture, or community events. There are three important areas at the end of this term that we remember or celebrate as a community that reflect our Anglican tradition and also our motto, Faithfulness in Service.

Refugee Week is one of these areas from June 15 to 21, and this year marks 40 years of recognising the resilience, contributions, and stories of people who have built new lives in our communities. I was surprised to read recently that Coffs Harbour and the Mid North Coast are still major regional settlement locations for newly arrived refugees to Australia.

More than 3,000 refugees call Coffs Harbour and the surrounding areas home. Since 2000, our area has welcomed people from different parts of the world, including Myanmar (Burma), Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and eight different African countries. Anglicare and our school have supported and welcomed newly arrived people into our communities. It is interesting to consider that our community heritage includes:

• At least 39 languages spoken at home
• 24 different faith backgrounds

It is our diverse family heritage that ensures BDC is an exciting community where we are drawn together through our College values of service, integrity, justice, courage, generosity of spirit, and inclusivity, and live these through the BDC Way. We hope that BDC is a community that welcomes everyone as part of our Anglican tradition. 

Secondly, Reconciliation Week has just occurred and NAIDOC Week will be celebrated next. The nationwide actions to promote and support sustained and practical action towards reconciliation, and the celebration of our First Nations people, are something we also work towards as a school and community. We look forward to the NAIDOC Assembly and celebration with our Goori students.

EYE Festival and our Foundation Day are the third community events in the last week of Term 2. EYE has a busy schedule featuring a range of performances and creative works, something that our students from K to 6 look forward to every year. Foundation Day is our traditional day of celebration as an Anglican community. We come together at the start of the day to remember and celebrate our founders, the beginnings of our school, our House Patrons, and the school we are today.

This is a formal assembly and families are invited to attend. After the formal assembly, a student-only fair is held where students are invited to change into house shirts or themes created by Year 12 at our College. Lunch is shared together as a student body across the house groups. We thank Year 12 in advance for their energy on the day as we celebrate Foundation Day.

Some of our formal history is also located on our website: https://www.bdc.nsw.edu.au/about-us/our-history

Citizenship is when we take on and live a global perspective. We see this as part of the BDC Way, especially throughout Term 2, where individually we have welcomed international students and, through our service groups, have been taking action on issues affecting our world. This has included baking and selling cupcakes for World Vision, creating art packs for a school in Ukraine, preparing Year 11 for their Cambodia immersion, writing essays, and welcoming our guests from Ukraine.

Our students often understand that we live in a global, connected world and that this perspective is important in the way we live our lives every day, and that we can make the world better. Thank you for supporting the different service and citizenship projects.

Many families, students, businesses, and staff welcomed and cared for the three educators from Ukraine during their three week visit. These heartfelt actions were well received, and many students heard stories of patron saints, life as an online student in war affected areas, language, traditions, and similarities such as money, sport, and a love of the outdoors. We hope this partnership continues and that we will welcome two more guests from Ukraine in November. 

Reflecting on Progress and Setting Goals

At the end of Term 2, students will receive their academic reports. My advice includes:

• Sit down with your child and have a calm, positive conversation. What can you celebrate? What are they proud of? Celebrate something.

• Can you see patterns? How does effort and dedication look? Is it improving, staying the same, or already excelling?

• Before the return to school, turn the feedback from the report into one or two actionable goals, such as using the iHUB one afternoon a week to complete homework, or asking a teacher how they can move effort from a 3 to a 2 in a class. Keep the goals clear and in small steps to help achieve success.

I wish our HSC students well with their Trial HSC preparation and invite them to use the iHUB during the holidays ahead to help prepare for these examinations.

Thank you for your care and interest in the College community, our students, and staff.

God bless.