Principal's Report

Hello BRPS community,

Welcome to the latest edition of our Newsletter. Just as we have completed our Science and Book Week celebrations, the week ahead is all about the CONCERT!

Our Year Level feature page this week is Year 3.

2019 Concert - Level Up

With ONLY ONE WEEK to go until our students hit the stage for our 2019 concert, "Level Up", the school continues to be alive with practice, bright costumes, filming, editing and singing. The bi-annual  concert is a major highlight on our event calendar with both nights almost completely sold out. We are encouraging students to wear their concert t-shirts in the lead up to maintain the sense of  community spirit as they prepare for the big night.

A notice detailing the timeline for next week and the   organisational requirements has been sent home via Compass News Feed. Please take the time to read the information carefully and return the attached slip to your child’s teacher if you require alternative pick up arrangements on either/both nights.

National Cross Country Championships

Congratulations to Year 4 students Grace P. and Mia G. who recently qualified for the National Cross Country Championships held at Wollongong, NSW, last weekend.

Grace was thrilled to finish 10th overall in her age group and also took home two silver medals from the championships - one as part of the Victorian team for the teams event, and another for the overall points category. I asked Grace what she loves about running ("I love the excitement and nervousness at the start of the race") and what she attributes her success to ("hard work, keeping up with training and the motivation and support of running alongside and against Mia") - what a wonderful reflection!

Unfortunately Mia was unable to compete due to illness, however her significant athletic talent means she is looking forward to competing in the 200m event at the National Athletics Championships in September. Good luck Mia!

Sandringham Writers' Guild Finalist

Commissioned by our local MP Brad Rowswell, the inaugural 2019 Sandringham Writers' Guild competition invited local students to write a story about our environment or our community.

Zali C. from Year 6 was one of 3 Junior Finalists and the only State School represented in the final group. Although she was not the overall winner it was a fantastic achievement by Zali, and she was able to enjoy an incredible tour of Parliament House with her parents, visiting some areas that would not normally be available for public viewing, including the incredible library! They also had a lovely lunch with Brad Rowswell in the Parliament Dining Room.

Casual Day TOMORROW

Reminder to all families that tomorrow (Friday 30th August) is a casual day. Students are permitted to wear casual dress clothes and bring along a gold coin donation to support children's schooling in India via the East-West Overseas Aid Foundation.

Of course we encourage everyone to wear their concert t-shirts with the concert coming up so soon!

Kiss & Go

Parents and carers are reminded that the Kiss & Go zone at the front of the school is strictly for pick-up and drop-off only at the designated times.

A number of parents have reported being frustrated in recent weeks at other parents parking in the zone for over 10 minutes. 

When using the Kiss & Go zone parents should remain with their car and move off as quickly as possible to ensure a smooth flow of traffic through the area. 

BRPS Graduate Teachers

Entering the classroom for the first time is both an exciting and challenging experience for beginning teachers. We're very proud of the way our five first-year teachers have commenced their careers at BRPS this year, all quickly developing as highly-valued members of our community. Recently they jumped at the opportunity to be involved in professional learning together and here is their report: 

On Friday the 16th of August Tori Lancaster (FL), Sophie Moir (1M), Jo Hayes (3H), Georgia Treu (4T) and Sarah Powell (5P) attended the annual graduate teacher conference. The conference was targeted towards first year graduate teachers from Bayside and the Mornington Peninsula regions. It was a day filled with: sharing experiences, learning from experts in the field and networking with other graduates.

We began the day by learning how to build professional practise, starting with literacy as the foundation. We were involved in professional discussions about literacy and exposed to resources available for the teaching and learning of literacy. It was valuable to hear from other teachers who use similar literacy programs to Black Rock Primary School. Many schools shared their feedback on the benefits of programs we are already implementing such as, Reading Eggspress, Readers Theatre and Misty Adoniou's approach to word study. It was also interesting to learn about the variety of other programs being used for literacy teaching in schools, including Structured Word Inquiry. 

In the afternoon, we had an opportunity to share our early teaching experiences with teachers from other schools. We then used the ten High Impact Teaching Strategies (HITS) to offer suggestions to one another about how we could improve our classroom practise. We learnt about how valuable the HITS were to high quality teaching and learning. We explored the following HITS in greater detail, receiving advice on how they could be easily applied in the classroom; explicit teaching, worked examples, feedback and collaborative learning. Overall, we were provided with valuable resources and knowledge throughout the conference, which we are eager to utilise and put into practise in our classrooms going forward.

BRPS House Athletics

The House Athletics carnival was held on a brilliant Winter's day at Duncan McKinnon Reserve last week. The competition, team spirit and sportsmanship was outstanding. Please see the full report from Mr Fox on the sports page. 

Holiday Care Program - September Holidays

School Council is pleased to advise that Camp Australia will be running a Holiday Program here at Black Rock for the upcoming school break. To book in for the program, you need to have an account with Camp Australia first. It is free to register and you can do so online at: https://pp.campaustralia.com.au/account/register-contacts

For more information about the program, please see the attached letter.

NOW OPEN - 2020 Enrolments

New enrolments across all year levels for the 2020 school year are now being taken.  Enrolment numbers are increasing quickly. Please submit your enrolment, or encourage others to do so as soon as possible to assist with our planning.

Sibling enrolments are now open, please collect an enrolment form from the office.

Transition Program 

Our renowned transition and orientation program commenced on Tuesday 23 July and continues through until Wednesday 4 December. 

The next transition activity is the 'Sports Day' on Thursday 19th September, 2.15-3.15pm. All new and prospective Foundation students are invited to come along. 

Have a fantastic fortnight everyone!

Sam Tyndall

PRINCIPAL