13/08/2026
Six years ago, Plumpton High School's Duke of Edinburgh program consisted of just a small handful of students. Fast forward to this year: staunchly encouraged and backed every step of the way by Principal Tim Lloyd, teachers Liam Canning and Tahlia Mackenzie have facilitated countless 'local' Bronze and Silver Adventurous Journeys (AJs). Alongside that, they have achieved what some might say is the impossible, taking over 50 students from ‘underprivileged' Western Sydney on multiple trips to the Northern Territory, and most recently, leading 36 students on the school's first-ever international trip to New Zealand. It is believed to be the first international trip of its kind from a school in this region.
That’s the highlight reel. But the real story is about what it actually takes to build something of that magnitude from the ground up.
It’s about recognising that the challenge itself is the opportunity
Over the last six years, Tim, Liam, and Tahlia have built this from a few kids doing their Silver award into one of the strongest, most resilient Duke of Ed cohorts in Australia, with Bronze, Silver, and Gold numbers growing year on year.
But here is the thing about leaning into challenges: the growth isn't just in the student numbers. When you step into a massive undertaking like this, you change, too. The friction of the process becomes the exact thing that forces you to grow personally and professionally.
Liam and Tahlia didn't just teach; they learned to lead. And learning to lead can only happen through lived experience, making mistakes, and having the sheer dedication and persistence to reflect and go again. They learned how to run a complex operation at serious scale. We’re talking about managing logbooks and paperwork for hundreds of students, organising international trips down to the absolute last detail, briefing parents, and building relationships with partners like us so we remain perfectly in the loop. They learned how to galvanise a team, inspiring other staff to willingly give up their weekends for a school trip because they bought into the vision of what was being built. Now that’s inspiring leadership!
By taking on the heavy lifting, they earned a level of trust with their students, their peers, and their executive team that most people spend an entire career chasing. That kind of grit and respect doesn't just stay within the school gates. It gets noticed. It’s exactly why Tim, Liam, and Tahlia were invited to NSW Parliament House to meet Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh, to personally talk through the program they built.
If you ask them, they’ll point straight to the kids. But from where we stand, Tim, Liam, and Tahlia have extracted just as much value out of this as any student. The hands-on leadership experience. The forged professional relationships. The deep respect of colleagues who’ve watched them run this logistical beast on top of a full teaching workload, year after year.
None of that shows up on a payslip. But that is the exact experience that makes you undeniably valuable. It’s the kind of crucible that prepares you to walk into a senior leadership role, not just at any school, but any organisation, anywhere, at any time!
It was never about a paycheck or a program allowance. The true reward was putting in the reps to watch hundreds of kids become the kind of people who can push through a 35-degree expedition in the Northern Territory, or stand on top of multiple 1500m+ summits and ridgelines in New Zealand's South Island, having achieved something no one from their school had even dreamed of before.
At Black Diamond Adventures, we’ve been incredibly proud to stand alongside Tim, Liam, and Tahlia for these six years. We want to see more teachers step into these kinds of challenging opportunities, whether that be sport, musicals, STEM, chess, debating, public speaking, or student leadership initiatives. Even when, especially when, you know it will be hard. Because the more challenging the opportunity, the more you are forced to grow, and the more valuable you ultimately become to your students, your team, and yourself. If more educators went all-in like this, programs like Plumpton’s wouldn’t be the exception. They’d be the standard.
— The Black Diamond Adventures team
