community 

parent appreciation 

BNW community would like to take this opportunity to thank Erica Fisers ( Ben Pickerings Mum) for her amazing contribution to the school over the last 10 years. Erica has been immensely generous with her time volunteering both in the classroom and at all of our fundraising events. Erica organised and worked at the plant and produce market for many years every term without fail before it became a rotated event between the year levels. Erica tirelessly baked, wrapped, organised and managed the WMM cake stall for years. And who could forget Erica almost entirely on her own making dozens and dozens of hand made paper flowers and arrangements for the Winter Magic Market. Every year Erica came up with a unique way to decorate our school and create community by making the decorations accessible for all to join in. 

From all of the staff and community thank you so much, Erica! We're super grateful for all of your hard work.  

education forum

Maths - what has changed since parents were at school

30 years ago in primary school my friends and I were rote learning multiplications tables so we would be ready for the maths grid races we started everyday of grades 4, 5 and 6 with. The upside was that all these years later (not sure where the years went but it they did pass way too quickly) the times tables remain cemented in my head. I continued maths as a subject through to first year University, I loved it. Methodologies were built up, linked into Chemistry and Physics and followed a set and logical pattern. Suddenly at Uni we were required to start thinking outside the box, we were challenged with different ways of looking at maths and formulas. Learning the derivation of the simple equations we had learnt to use required looking at maths from different perspectives and it was so much harder. So I quit maths and in second year I took Biochemistry, Economics and Communications subjects instead.

One of the reasons maths lessons at BNWPS look so different today is because Jessie and Alice have been participating in a maths teaching project which has been examining ways to teach maths which is designed to build confidence in pulling numbers to pieces, not becoming stuck in a single way to solve a problem and recognising patterns and number placement.

Why doesn't the school teach times tables?

Times tables are now considered part of learning multiplication and by extension division rather than the whole shebang. Memorising the times tables is no longer the only way to think about multiplication. Different students can better understand multiplication patterns by understanding they are looking at groups, or lines or boxes of numbers. The hope is that by encouraging students to find their own preferred way of thinking about multiplication and by encouraging students to look at the many ways to solve a problem they won't become so rigid in their maths thinking. They will be more open to building on maths concepts as schooling progresses and not give up maths as a subject when more complex, less linear thinking is required later in their school years.