Principal's Message

Since 2024, together with our school community and stakeholders, our school vision and mission have been re-imagined and minted as:

Vision: Grateful, Gracious, and Growth-minded BDSians

Mission: As OneBDS, we believe in the potential of every BDSians, develop leaders of tomorrow, and serve with conviction.

At BDS, we believe in taking a Positive Education approach to learning. It emphasises individual strengths, talents, and personal motivation to promote learning. Fundamentally, we must believe that every BDSian has potential and can contribute and achieve. BDS aspires to provide an inspiring environment where BDSians embrace learning, discover self-directed skills, and build strong character, preparing them for their post-secondary education and life. Through this process, we aim to help our BDSians develop a strong identity and gratitude for their lives as they pursue their passion through their secondary school years.

We aspire for BDSians to grow as leaders of tomorrow who will serve with conviction, and cultivate ICARE values (Integrity, Courage, Accountability, Respect, Excellence, Care). Leadership begins with humility and the ability to demonstrate grace, care, and respect for others; therefore, every student can be a leader in their own way. At BDS, we educate all BDSians to be others-centric. It is about learning to be gracious, serving, and displaying acts of kindness to others. To this end, we envision our school to be a community filled with meaningful connections and positive teacher-student, and peer-to-peer relationships.

We live in a complex world with challenging economic conditions and geopolitical tensions. While we cannot predict the world our children will face in the future, we can help prepare them for it. To thrive in a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA), students need to develop a growth mindset and be resilient. We want BDSians to embrace challenges without fear of failure, and to bounce back with diligence and grit to achieve success. To do this, students need opportunities to apply their learning and experiment, as school is the safest place to experience productive failure.

I am proud and humbled to lead BDS, a school with a rich history of more than 40 years, blessed with a conducive environment, and most importantly, caring staff. BDS teachers are not just committed to quality learning and character development of BDSians but also to their own professional growth. At BDS, we are committed to learning, growing, and improving our teaching practices and pedagogies to better engage our students. With respectful and teachable BDSians (an endearing term we use when referring to our students), I am confident that we can foster an inviting, caring, and supportive school culture that develops character, ensures student well-being, and provides enriched learning experiences through their secondary school life.

Together with our parents and community partners, and as OneBDS, we endeavour to make the BDS experience a fulfilling one where we find joy in both work and play, just as our school song declares.

Here’s to developing every BDSian to be Grateful, Gracious, and Growth Minded.

Success through Endeavour.

Warm regards,
Mr Daryl Koh
Bedok South Secondary School