school life

eid stall

Our Eid stall was a wonderful event that saw community and students working together to celebrate culture and diversity. The fairy floss machine was a hit with a never-ending line; as was the range of delicious food. Together we raised over $400 profit that will go to building bird boxes in the school and saving the orangutans in Indonesia. Supporting projects both locally and globally.

We donated to The Orangutan project https://www.orangutan.org.au/donate/ to help support dedicated rescue teams and costly rehabilitation for orangutans.

A huge thank you to the wonderful staff, students and parents who helped with organising food and for being part of celebration.

capital works update

TELL ME YOUR DREAMS FOR THE FUTURE! of our school building…

When I first started as the principal I was surprised by how much learning I had to do around aggie pipes and building works. At first I thought this was a distraction from the teaching and learning work that I wanted to concentrate on, however, more and more I realise that no of the elements of school can be separated from the other and that each element works (hopefully) in harmony to create the best learning environment for your children.

There is a great deal of research that talks about the importance and influence of the surrounding environment on people’s capacity to learn, create and collaborate. The Reggio Emilia approach to education identifies spaces as ‘The Third Teacher’ after grown-ups and peers, a term which has been regaining popularity over the past few years. To provide interested families with some information I have found a brief fact sheet from ACECQA, also known as Australian Children’s Education & Care Quality Authority, who have set consideration of the Environment/Third Teacher as one of their Quality Areas. Below is also a TEDTalk from Bridgitte Alomes, discussing the importance of intention when designing spaces.

I raise these ideas in preparation for the community to complete a survey regarding our school environment and the dreams we hold for the potential of this space. As we begin the first phase of our Capital Works process, community consultation is a vital element and will begin with this survey. When community members complete this survey, I want you to consider the full educational potential of this space. The video above quotes Steve Jobs as saying “Design is not just what it looks like, design is how it works.” How does our school work? How do we want to see it working?

There are a number of questions in this survey and it may at first seem long, however, the control group of families who acted as my guinea pigs have said it is easy to complete quite quickly. You are also free to skip any questions if you do not feel you have enough knowledge or a strong enough opinion to respond to that statement.

When answering the statements, please only consider your own opinion - we will be consulting with students in a different way next week! However, for any families with ex-BNW students who have moved onto high school, we would love the opinion of students who have moved on to other schooling environments also - there is an option for BNW alumni.

In order to meet the timeline requirements of the Department, this survey will close at 5 pm next Thursday 27th June, with absolutely no opportunity for late submissions. If you have any questions about this survey or the CAPEX process, please contact the office.

NF

Please support 1/2A in the environmentally friendly resource challenge run by Bostik by voting at

bostiksmartschools.com.au/voting-gallery

(Project ID #BSS2177)

We hope our persuasive writing - why we should get the most votes - gets you to believe in our idea and take action 💚

art room request

Looking for bits and bobs

G’day helpful people. I am currently on the hunt for small toys, toy parts, timber offcuts, nails, screws, washers and any other interesting little objects. These will be upcycled into artworks to sell at the Art Auction at the Winter Magic Market.

Please bring all donations to The Art Room.

Thanks,

Andrew

maths

What an exciting week this is! We are very excited to our first maths info night, with 53 people signing up to hear what’s happening at BNWPS numeracy. We will be having more information nights in Term 3 and 4 so if you missed out this time, keep an eye out for upcoming events.

We are also excited to have our first maths afternoon (although by the time you’re reading this, both of these things will have happened!). We are passionate about continuing to strengthen the connection between home and school, especially with maths. There are so many awesome, fun things you can do at home to continue to inspire your child and to practise those key mathematical skills. We are often asked what things parents can do at home to help their child, and the best thing you can do is to make maths visible, connect it with real life and make it incidental. It is important that students see maths in action, after all, it is everywhere!

There has been an amazing resource developed that talks about numeracy at home. It covers activities you could try, the language you could use and the best way you can help your child with maths activities.

Follow this link to access this awesome resource: http://numeracyguidedet.global2.vic.edu.au/numeracy-at-home/

If you’d like to make maths more visible and include it your everyday home life but you’re not sure how to start, have a look at this website that has some short animations about every day maths.

http://fuse.education.vic.gov.au/ResourcePackage/ByPin?pin=WSC2SM

If you’d like a maths challenge, why don’t you check out http://fuse.education.vic.gov.au/ResourcePackage/ByPin?pin=WSC2SM

There are lots of different challenges that you and your family can have a go at.

Have a wonderful 10,080 minutes!