Principal's Report

Curriculum Day Focus

The focus of our Curriculum Day on Tuesday was Literacy, a Curriculum Audit and School Review Working Parties. Classroom Teachers and Teacher Assistants participated in a Scribi Writing Professional Development focusing on the Traits of Writing and how to introduce the Traits to Students.

Our Specialist teachers focussed on OH&S, the Child Safe Standards and the use of Onenote for specialist lessons.

All Staff then completed a Curriculum audit based on all areas of the Victorian Curriculum online material. Audit results were then added to our Program of Inquiry documentation. (POI)

Year 5 and Year 6 Beach Program

Year 5 and Year 6 Beach Program is commencing Wednesday 24 and Thursday 25 March.

This program will include:

Marine Program and Rock Pool Ramble/touch tank
Life Saving drills an team building beach games
Coastal art and Beach art
Kayak circuit Adventure challenge
Snorkel Experience

I would like to thank Mrs Kirsty Hall for organising this special activity for our students. Hopefully the weather will be kind to our students as they participate in a wide variety of activities at the beach.

New Drumming Ensemble

A new, performance-oriented ensemble is starting this year, aimed at Year 4 students. It will be a Taiko (Japanese drumming) ensemble, to link in with our school’s language program.
After joining in with a workshop at school, delivered by Toshi from Waidoko Rindo, one of our Music teachers, Audrey Fine, attended classes with Toshi in order to learn how to deliver this exciting drumming style to our students.
This group will rehearse every Tuesday, at lunchtime, for interested students.
This ensemble will debut at a special assembly planned for the week beginning May 3. Our music staff together with our Japanese teachers, Koji and Showji have planned this special assembly to celebrate Japan’s Children’s Week.

Student Agency Team

On Tuesday 2 March, we had a whole school ceremony to present leadership badges to the 2021 Curriculum Captains and the Student Agency Team for Year 3, 4, 5 & 6.

The students who were presented with their badges all applied for positions of leadership as you would apply for any job. They wrote a speech explaining how they would fulfil the role of captain and presented their speeches to their peers and teachers. This process began at the end of 2020.

Year 3 SAT

Year 4 SAT

Year 5 SAT

Year 6 SAT

The Year 5 and Year 6 staff together with Mrs Duffy, Mrs Simpson and specialist teachers decided on the students who they felt would be best suited to each job.

Please see the Year 6 News for photos of the Curriculum Captains.

Student Voice in Action

The Year 6 Staff and students have allocated every Thursday from 2:30pm – 3pm as a time for student voice to ‘give back’ to the school and create a positive change.

This initiative to generate authentic ‘Student Voice’ in Year 6 encourages students to brainstorm ways in which they can demonstrate leadership at school. I would like to congratulate the students for their wonderful ideas that are being suggested.

NAPLAN 2021

The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) will recommence for Victorian school students. NAPLAN is an annual national assessment for all students in Years 3, 5, 7, and 9. All students in these year levels are expected to participate in tests in reading, writing, language conventions (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and numeracy.

NAPLAN is the measure through which governments, education authorities, schools, teachers and parents can determine whether or not young Australians have the literacy and numeracy skills that provide the critical foundation for other learning and for their productive and rewarding participation in the community.

The tests provide parents and schools with an understanding of how individual students are performing at the time of the tests. They also provide schools, states and territories with information about how education programs are working and which areas need to be prioritised for improvement. Students are able to be withdrawn from NAPLAN for a variety of reasons, and if you wish to withdraw a student please contact the school.

NAPLAN tests the skills that are essential for every child to progress through school and life, such as reading, writing, spelling, grammar and numeracy. The content of each test is informed by the Australian Curriculum. The Literacy tests are based on content in the English learning area, and the numeracy tests draw content from the mathematics learning area.

BNPS will be participating in NAPLAN Online. This means that all NAPLAN Tests are completed online, with the exception of the Year 3 writing test which is done on paper. NAPLAN Online provides better assessment, more precise results and a faster turnaround of information. The assessments can run through a real-time internet connection or onscreen without an internet connection.

NAPLAN Online is a tailored test that adapts to student responses, presenting students with questions that may be more or less difficult resulting in better assessment and more precise results.

Students from Years 3 and 5 will participate in the NAPLAN Online Coordinated Practice Test on 25th March. This test is conducted to ensure school readiness, but more importantly, allows for student familiarisation of the platform functionality. No results are recorded for this test.

Students will also have the opportunity to access the NAPLAN Public Demonstration Site in the lead-up to NAPLAN to further familiarise themselves with the platform functionality. This site can be accessed by anyone and is available at: https://www.nap.edu.au/online-assessment/public-demonstration-site.

NAPLAN Equating Study

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) has selected BNPS to take part in the NAPLAN Equating Study this year. This means that early in Term 2, one Year 3 class and one Year 5 class will complete a paper-based NAPLAN test in one of either Reading, Language Conventions, Numeracy or Writing. The purpose of the Equating Study is to enable the results for the NAPLAN tests to be reported on the same NAPLAN measurement scales from one year to the next. The results of a student’s NAPLAN Equating Study tests have no impact on a student’s overall NAPLAN results.

The test window for NAPLAN Online is nine days, compared to three days for paper-based NAPLAN. The test window this year is 11 - 21 May. More information and a specific timetable will be made available early in Term 2.