David Proudlove joins Sapphire Coast Anglican College as principal, and new Bega Valley resident

Before making the big move south, Mr Proudlove was the deputy principal at Bayside Christian College in Hervey Bay.

He wanted to challenge himself by moving into a principal's role and when the opportunity popped-up for the Bega school around mid-way through 2021, he decided to go for it.

As expected, the last six months were not exactly the easiest to travel freely between Queensland and NSW and so much of the interview and hiring process was carried out online.

This meant when the school year started in January 2022, Mr Proudlove had not yet had the chance to visit the Bega Valley, but with blind faith he moved his life with hoped the decision would pay off.

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His wife, who is also in a school leadership role, and three children still live in Queensland but were planning their first visit down in a couple of weeks, with a full move for the family likely to happen at a later date.

Having been born in Chester in the United Kingdom, and raised in Wales, the Bega Valley climate was not so unfamiliar to Mr Proudlove, but he had definitely felt the change from his most recent home in Hervey Bay.

"Bega is beautiful and not dissimilar to the climate I grew up in because I grew up in dairy country in different parts of the UK, so it's familiar to me and this beautiful setting was part of the appeal," he said.

His father was a dairy farmer and had 125 Friesian cows on about 140 acres of land in South West Wales, having moved from their original farm in Chester after an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in 1967.

"I'm very used to having to stop on my bike rides for cows to cross the road, that's the way I grew up, in fact I would have been the one driving the cows as a kid."

He said the welcome to the Bega Valley, school community, and to the Grace Church had been "overwhelmingly warm", to be expected from country hospitality, "famous the world over".

Unfortunately, Mr Proudlove has not been immune to the housing shortage and said he was "overwhelmed by the cost and the lack of choice", but had been getting closer to securing a house. In the meantime he had been staying with a local dignitary.

Although his family records dated back around 900 years as dairy farmers within about a 20km radius of Chester, he felt the urge to branch out in his own career.

The major factor for selecting his career as a young lad was that the job involved travel.

After studying to become a geologist, he worked in gold exploration projects from Alaska, Nevada and Washington State in the USA to Montserrat and Nevis in the West Indies.

He recalls on the job training that involved things like how to use a gun in the case of a bear attack.

When the price of gold fell and the constant travel became exhaustive, he decided to retrain as a geography and PE teacher due to his love of learning.

On completing his teacher training in 1996, he commenced his teaching career at a selective, state-funded grammar school, before commencing middle-management posts at a variety of schools in the UK.

His varied background has always brought enthusiasm to his students and he hoped his experiences and stories conveyed that love of learning and travelling.

"You hope that your stories can help spark some enthusiasm, and along the way as a teacher I have worked with students who have gone on to be mining engineers and geologists in both the oils and metals industries, and I suppose I like to help students to know there's a world of opportunity," he said.

"When I'm a teacher I want to convey that the world is your oyster and whether you want to work for your family and be the next best thing in dairy farming, or be a tradesman, or go off and do things through university in science or arts, the best way to do it is to do well while you're here."

The other aspect of Mr Proudlove's role is liaising with teaching staff and he said his philosophy of managing staff is to help guide them into their development as a teacher.

He moved roughly every five years as a teacher and said that diversity was key in his own learning and development of skills.

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"That doesn't mean that everyone has to move every five years but it does mean don't get stuck in what you're doing and let it become humdrum for you because it doesn't do the children or yourself any favours.

"I hope I come in with fresh ideas after working at a number of different schools and I hope that they share this love of life-long learning which then is easy to pass onto the children."

Mr Proudlove said the most challenging part of any principal's job working at an independent school was ensuring the bottom line was met, offering parents the best value for money, and making sure the school remained viable.

"This school has grown beautifully in the last four years despite fires and Covid and everything else. Since 2018 there's been a steady uptake in enrolments which is lovely, and I think I've come in at a time when the school is in really good health and so the challenge for me is to keep the trajectory," he said.

Another challenge unique to this area was the housing shortage and the difficulty for any new staff members in finding affordable accommodation options.

Despite these challenges there were new enrolments from student who had come elsewhere in the state mirror that new growth in the region, including children from more metropolitan areas, such as Canberra.