Principal Report
Our school is located on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation.
Class structure for 2025
Every year, we review our existing enrolments, the needs of our community, upcoming intake and staff resourcing and plan our class structures for the following year.
For 2025, we are considering some multiage classes, which will combine two different year levels in the one setting. Many parents may remember these as ‘composite classes’ when they were at school. We are yet to confirm which grades we will combine – but this may be grade 1/2 or grade 3 /4 - and we are keen to keep you informed as our planning process progresses.
While at Boroondara Park our common practice is to have straight grade structures, we have had many multi-age classrooms over the years at different times. Often, this is to ensure optimal smaller class sizes, but we also may aim to support the specific needs of groups of students, for example a small group of boys at one level.
Some in our community may have had positive and negative experiences of and thoughts about multi-age classes. In our recent Education Subcommittee meeting we reflected upon the many well recognised benefits of multiage classrooms, including opportunities for younger children to model behaviours from older peers, encouragement of peer leadership and teaching within classrooms and development of tolerance and acceptance across different ability levels. We recognise some common concerns relate to whether children can be adequately taught to their individual needs in these settings.
At Boroondara Park, we recognise that every child learns at a different pace, in different ways and has specific needs. In any grade there will be a spread of student ability, and our staff are very confident and capable of designing lessons that meet the needs of all of the students who enter their classroom. We do not choose students to go into a multi-age class based on their academic ability, it is a multi-faceted process which includes many parts.
In any classroom, teachers do not just teach the single year level curriculum, but rather adjust the program based on student need and regularly take from the next year level curriculum to support group and individual students. Our school wide structures including Team Planning support the success of any class structure we have at BPPS. Our staff use assessment data to identify the learning needs of the individuals in their class, and can use this prior knowledge for planning the program. Our staff may group students for some activities in ability groups and for other activities they group them in mixed ability groups.
We will continue to provide you with updates about our progress as we finalise decisions. We invite you to reach out with your questions about multiage classes, if you would like to know more about our teaching and learning program and how we work with our individual students. Please do not hesitate to reach out and ask your questions.
Parent volunteer help needed!
We have a dedicated team of parents and staff working on Graduation. The tradition at BPPS has been for Year 5 and other parents volunteering to assist with preparations and on the night of Graduation. Our Year 6 parents are involved in preparation and attending the event on the night so will not be able to take on the volunteer slots at certain times. We would love more parent help to make this a memorable event for our Year 6 students.
This link will take you to the volunteer page, have a look as see if there is something you can do to assist. We thank you in anticipation for your support.
Camp
Thank you to the staff and parent volunteers who supported our school camps.
We have had our Year 6 students at Waratah Bay and our Year 3/4 students at Philip Island.
Our camping program is supported by the amazing work of our staff in organizng and running the programs and the parent volunteers who attend.
Safe bike riding
We have had a report from a concerned parent who witnessed one of our students riding very fast through the Greythorn shops without a helmet.
A reminder students must wear a helmet when riding their bikes to and from school.
Please take this opportunity to have a conversation wtih your child about safe bike riding.
Reconciliation Action Plan
A remidner about the development of our Reconciliation Action Plan.
A Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) is a formal commitment to reconciliation. It documents how our school will strengthen relationships, respect and opportunities in the classroom, around the school/service and with the community.
Reconciliation is about strengthening relationships between the wider Australian community and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for the benefit of all Australians.
Please contact me via the office if you would like to be involved in the group putting this document together for our school.
2025 plans - is your child leaving Boroondara Park PS?
For many reasons students arrive or leave Boroondara Park PS at the end of each school year. This term we have had seven new students join our community. Families often experience change for one reason or another.
If you know your child is moving to another school, or you are moving suburbs, cities or countries please fill in this form to let us know.
When students start to put together the people they work well with for class creation it assists if we know a child is leaving.
We are offering the opportunity for exit interviews before you leave, please tick this box if you would like to participate in a conversation before you leave.
Leaving Boroondara Park PS in 2025
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