Principal's Report 

Student Leadership Team – Badge Presentation Ceremony

On Tuesday this week, Bridget Vallance MP, Member of Parliament for our local area, was the special guest at a special assembly held to present the leadership badges to our 2021 School Captains and House Captains. 

The assembly was attended by our students in Years 5 and 6, along with the parents/carers and special friends of the members of our Student Leadership Team. 

Our annual Badge Presentation Ceremony is a wonderful opportunity for us to acknowledge the contributions of our Student Leadership Team throughout their time at Bimbadeen Heights PS, and celebrate their achievement of being awarded the role of School Captain or House Captain for their final year of primary school. 

The occasion was also a chance to acknowledge the leadership abilities of all students at Bimbadeen Heights PS and how our students become leaders of our school community through their actions and the choices they make every day. We look forward to continuing to work with our Student Leadership Team throughout this year and supporting them as they strive to lead positive change for our student community throughput their final year at Bimbadeen.

School Council

Following the call for nominations for vacancies on our School Council and the election for the Parent Member category, I would like to congratulate Matt Genever, Matt Richardson, Troy Hovey and Angela Moody who have been elected as parent members on our School Council for a two year period. 

Congratulations also to Bree King and Melinda Ruscitti who have been elected to the school employee positions on our School Council. Thank you to each nominee for their enthusiasm and desire to contribute to our school through School Council membership and for their commitment to help make Bimbadeen Heights Primary School the best it can possibly be. 

The first meeting of the new School Council will be held next Wednesday 17th March, with the School Council Public Meeting including a summary of the work of council and the presentation of the Annual Report to be scheduled for later in the year. 

Thank you to every member of our school community who voted as part of the election and for supporting this process.

Pupil Free Day

While our students were enjoying a Pupil Free Day on Monday 1st March, our staff were engaged in a Curriculum Day of professional learning with staff from the 17 other schools in the Lilydale District Network. 

We spent the morning learning about best practice in the teaching of Writing. 

Pupil Free days provide our staff with the opportunity to work and learn together with a focus on improving our practice and making a positive impact on student learning outcomes. Ongoing professional learning for our staff is incredibly important to ensure we are refining our practice and using evidence based approaches in our teaching. It was a fantastic day of learning and our staff were very appreciative of the privileged time to collaborate and focus on improving student learning outcomes in Writing.

Celebrate Mooroolbark Festival

On Saturday 27th March, Bimbadeen Heights will be represented at the Celebrate Mooroolbark Festival. Our school participates at this event each year with children entering the various competitions and/or participating in the parade. Many of our students have been busily preparing for their Chinese Dragon and Fan Dancing performance, led by Mrs Sarah Cherry, our Chinese (Mandarin) teacher. 

If you are visiting the festival in a couple of weeks’ time please call past the Bimbadeen Heights stall and say hello to show your support for our school. 

Good luck to all of our students who will be performing and representing our school at the event and thank you to our community members and staff who are volunteering their time to support the event as well.

Classroom Parent Helpers Program

On Wednesday evening last week Mrs Liz Nicholson, along with Ms Emily Russell, our Literacy Learning Specialist, ran the Classroom Parent Helpers program. Over 30 parents/carers and special friends, including many grandparents, completed the program that not only gave them a range of strategies to use to support their own children with their reading and learning, they are now able to help out in the classroom and provide support to our teachers and other students. The support we receive from our parents/carers and classroom helpers is very much appreciated and goes a long way to support the learning needs of our students. Thank you to all of our parent/carer helpers and volunteers for our contributions to our school. If you are new to volunteering at Bimbadeen, please contact your child’s teacher to discuss ways you can contribute. If there is sufficient demand, further evening programs for parent/guardian helpers will be offered later in the year.

Lilydale District Primary School Athletic Sports

At the time of writing, our Year 3/4 students are excitedly participating in our annual Lilydale District Primary Schools Sports Association Athletics Carnival at the Croydon Athletics track. The Year 3/4 carnival was held on Thursday 11th March and the Year 5/6 carnival was held last week on Thursday 4th March. 

This sporting event is a considerable organisational achievement and we must recognise the work of the Physical Education teachers from the Lilydale District schools who work tirelessly to pull it all together. The impact of COVID-19 restrictions meant that the organisation behind the scenes was immense and parents/carers were unable to spectate at either event. Thank you to our staff and the parent/carer helpers who assisted on the day by marshalling groups of students at each event and provided general support to

the event. 

We are very proud of the incredible efforts of our students and the way in which they conducted themselves, demonstrating our school values and good sportsmanship behaviour throughout the carnivals.

Special Guest required for our ANZAC Service

On the last school day before ANZAC day we always hold a special whole school ANZAC ceremony. This year, the ceremony will be held at 2:00pm on Friday 23rd April, which is the first Friday of Term 2. Our ANZAC Ceremony is one of the most memorable school assemblies that we hold at Bimbadeen each year and it always makes us proud to see the children showing such respect and learning about this important part of Australia’s history. It is a formal service but one that is very age-appropriate with an educative purpose.

We strive to have a special guest speaker, preferably a returned Serviceman or woman who we usually access through the RSL. We would love to have a suitable member of our school community or a relative who would be able to come along and speak to the children at this service for no more than 5 minutes. If you know of a suitable person who would be prepared to be a part of our service could you please let us know by the end of term.

Sentral App

Sentral is our main form of communication between school and home. We expect that parents are checking Sentral regularly for upcoming dates on the calendar, newsletters, excursion notices and year and school level communications.

We have been very pleased with the number of parents who have been relying on Sentral and using this to communicate with the school and their child’s teacher this year. As with most forms of technology, there may be times where Sentral is down. During these times, please feel free to contact the school office via telephone and Emma or Shelley will assist you.

If you have any problems accessing Sentral, please don’t hesitate to speak to our Sentral co-ordinator Melinda Ruscitti. The best way to get in contact with Ms Ruscitti is to email her at ruscitti.melinda.m@edumail.vic.gov.au. Shelley and Emma are also able to provide support at the office if you are experiencing difficulties with the app. We would love every parent to have this app on their phones as it will make staying in touch with the school so much easier.

We hope you have a wonderful week everyone, feel free to pop in for a chat with either of us or any other member of our Leadership team should you wish to discuss anything. Our doors are always open!

Kind regards,

Adele Gregson and Sabrina George