Welcome to Week 10 of Term 1. I hope everyone had an enjoyable Easter weekend. Thank you to families who were able to attend the K-2 hat parade and support the P&C's hot cross bun drive.

Term 1 concludes on Friday 12 April and students return on Tuesday 30 April.

Student achievements

In our last newsletter, I reported on the success of our LitQuiz team. I now take pleasure in congratulating the following students on their sporting success:

Leila Doyle - selection in the North-West Girls Basketball Team
Leon Prince - selection in the North-West Boys Basketball Team
Patrick Gordon - selection in the Armidale Zone Touch Team
Pippa McClelland - selection in the North-West Girls Hockey Team
Max Clee - selection in the North-West Boys Hockey Team

In upcoming competitions, we wish our netball team the best of luck when they play Armidale City PS next Monday. Also next week, eight Ben Venue students will compete in the Northern NSW Da Vinci Decathlon - an academic gala day in which students compete across a range of domains including science, mathematics, English, ideation, production, engineering, art and poetry, cartography, legacy and code breaking.

Good luck Ben Venue!

Ben Venue teachers leading improvement

Ben Venue teachers are proud to take leadership roles in improving educational outcomes within and beyond our school. This week, Mr Chapman will lead our early career teachers in collaborating to reaching their next level of accreditation with the NSW Education Standards Authority. Also this week, Mrs Wassman and Mrs Divall continue their leadership of the local EAL/D Connect (English and an Additional Language/Dialect) network, and our Kinder teachers will lead the newly re-established Early Stage 1 (Kindergarten) teachers network, with both of these meetings hosting teachers from a number of Armidale schools.

Each of these meetings occur after work hours and I thank our teachers for their leadership in these areas.

Student plans and support

In the last newsletter I cited the implementation of a Stage 2 and 3 literacy extension run by our Learning Support Team. In addition to extension, teachers and the Learning Support Team work hard to meet the diverse needs of students requiring additional support to meet academic, social or behavioural goals.

This is a huge task. Currently in our school, there are 98 students with individual support plans in place or currently under development. This does not include the many health care, risk management and response plans that are developed for students. I provide this information as I feel it is important to recognise the effort of teachers in our school toward supporting every student in their areas of need.

Release of 2023 Annual Report

At the end of this term, our Annual Report will be published on our school website. The Annual Report provides an evaluation of our school's progress towards the targets set out in our 2020-2025 School Improvement Plan.

BVPS Behaviour Support and Management Plan

Changes to the Department of Education's Student Behaviour Policy require schools to develop new whole school Behaviour Support and Management Plans by the end of 2024. Attached below is the draft of this document, which has been updated to reflect the new policy. At this point, we invite feedback from our community on the plan, which can be provided via the survey linked here.

Please be aware that the intention of the plan is not to provide a prescriptive list of consequences for particular behavioural infractions. While consistency is the aim of the school, the context of each behaviour needs to be taken into account when determining an appropriate response.

Screen time and 'Virtual Autism'

An interesting article recently published by the ABC cites research indicating that the effects of excessive screen time 'could be similar to some symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder ..... including poor ability to understand the thoughts or emotions of others'. The article also suggests that in addition to susceptibility to physical problems including higher rates of body fat and decreased bone mineral density, heavy internet users and gamers tend to show low empathy, more intense reactions to situations and the inability to put themselves in other people's shoes.

While the article notes that further research is needed in the field, the topic is certainly worth monitoring for educators and parents with an interest in supporting our young people to make healthy choices as their brains develop and mature.

Autumn Festival

Ben Venue students are invited to march as part of the Armidale Community of Schools ‘walking float’ in the Armidale Autumn Festival parade, on Saturday 6 April.

Dress is regular school uniform (white polo) and a school hat.

Parents/carers are asked to drop their children to the assembling schools in Central Park shortly before 12:30 pm. Please look for Mr Pryce and the Ben Venue banner.

In response to feedback from schools, students will now be the fifth float in the parade, meaning that they will have a greater opportunity to view the parade at the conclusion of their march.

Students must be collected at the conclusion of the march in Civic Park. It is not possible to determine our exact location within the park, as we will aim to find a position from which students can view the march. It is likely that we will be positioned beside Dumaresq St, but may then move further back from the road to a clear area to make collection easier.

As timing relies heavily on organisational factors outside of our control, a finish time cannot be provided; however, we ask parents/carers to please aim to be prompt in collecting children at the end of the parade.

ANZAC Day

Students are invited to attend the ANZAC commemoration service on Thursday 25 April, commencing at 11.00 am in Central Park. Should the weather be inclement the service will be conducted in the Town Hall. Any changes will be announced over local radio stations.

School Stream and School Bytes

As you will be aware, our school has transitioned to School Bytes as our primary system for permission notes and payments. We continue to increase our engagement with the system as the year progresses. This semester, academic reports will be distributed through School Bytes by email and in the parent portal.

By the end of 2024, School Bytes will have replaced School Stream as our system for sending notifications to our families. As such, I highly recommend downloading the free School Bytes parent app to your phone. In the app, you can view your child's attendance record, provide absence explanations, complete forms and provide permissions, make payments and receive push notifications. Academic reports will appear in the app this year as they are released. Paper copies can also be provided on request.

Opportunity class placement process (for Year 5 2025)

Applications for 2025 Year 5 entry to opportunity classes (current Year 4 students) open on Thursday 4 April. In Armidale, opportunity class places are offered at Armidale City PS and via Aurora College. The application link will be published on the site linked here, and further information on opportunity classes is available here. Applications close on Monday 20 May. The placement test will be held on Thursday 1 August.

School Photos

School photos will be held this week on Wednesday 3 and Friday 5 April. Families are asked to plan ahead for full school uniform, including black shoes. Class photo days are detailed in the Deputy Principal's message.

Cam Pryce

Principal

Community Notices

Pearl Perch - Friday only