With over 1,000 students, Bairnsdale Secondary College (BSC) is the largest provider of education in the East Gippsland network of schools. In 1912, 113 years ago, it began as Bairnsdale High School, and one of Victoria’s first public high schools.
Bairnsdale High School (BHS) opened temporarily at the Bairnsdale School of Mines before moving to new buildings in Dalmahoy Street. The famed playwright Hal Porter attended in the 1920s. A bus service started and since then many thousands of students have bussed to BHS. Unlike city students, many students’ travel times are hours a day. Travel continues to be significant as only half the school’s students are local. Lance Townsend, a 1930s student, became the first professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Melbourne. In honour of his father, a former principal, he established the Townsend award, and it continues today as the Dux prize.
Large student numbers in the 1950s and 1960s created fundraising activities, including a pine plantation at Forge Creek. The influential Enid Borschmann was the domestic arts teacher and the sports mistress. Later she was one of the first women secondary school principals. David Williamson won BHS’s Freemasons Scholarship in 1956. He developed into a brilliant writer with over 50 stage and screen plays and a television series. Memorial Jubilee gates were opened by the former student and MP Bruce Evans, in 1962. The new assembly hall was named Boucher Hall after the school council president who worked voluntarily for the school for 45 years.
The school thrived in the 1980s and students gained a wider range of subjects, sports and social activities. Deb balls were introduced. The innovative teacher John Roberts inspired the school’s music program. The first school computers were bought.
It was amalgamated with Bairnsdale Technical School in 1992. Becoming Bairnsdale Secondary College (BSC), it was instantly a large school of 1,000 students. The school’s logo is the Gippsland Water Dragon. Prospering in the 2000s created enrichment opportunities, including travelling overseas.
As a large school, BSC can provide the widest range of learning opportunities, in Technology, Humanities, Science, Arts and Sport, and it has a highly respected Instrumental Music Program. The school emphasises holistic education, encouraging critical thinking and creativity through diverse programs.
It has created the benefits of a small school with an innovative structure, especially the Year Level Learning Hubs, and small group and individual welfare programs. BSC has unique programs supported by the Smith Family and the Clontarf Foundation that focus on its indigenous students supporting their increased and sustained attendance. There is a student reengagement strategy that provides a combination of online and classroom learning.
In 2025, the school was featured in the media for turning its culture around within five years after its public image had declined. BSC is gaining students, and the Year 12 results have almost doubled for university entrance and apprenticeship positions. Tony Roberts, the popular, proud, principal is highly respected for leading the cultural change. The school’s values are Respect, Resilience, Responsibility, and they are used as guiding concepts that help to monitor its culture.
- Written by Dr Deborah Towns OAM
Dr Deborah Towns OAM is an Honorary Fellow in the Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Melbourne. A former teacher and public servant, she is a sociologist, historian and author.
At the 2022 conference ‘Free Secular Compulsory: 150th Anniversary of the Victorian Education Act 1872’, she delivered the keynote.
Deb won the 2018 Collaborative Community History Award shared with co-author Dr John Andrews for A Secondary Education for All? A History of State Secondary Schooling in Victoria (2017).
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