From the Assistant Principal

Wow, what a term! Not only was it a time of continual change of the landscape of Banyule Primary, personally it involved a huge change for me. And what a great change it has been. Since arriving in Week 5, every day I have continued to be made to feel more and more at home; by the children as I walk through the yard receiving friendly barrages of "Hi Mr Fleming!"s around every corner, from parents who continue to introduce themselves and from staff who have been wonderfully supportive and especially good at helping me find things as I open my 34th cupboard looking for something. I recently brought my wife along to the 90s trivia night and she had the opportunity to meet people and be involved in the fun. As we walked to the car afterwards Liz said, "That was amazing. It feels like you've landed in such a great place, I'm so happy for you."  She's right. 

Evacuation Practice Drill:

Our Monday morning evacuation drill was a great success. As chief warden, I was impressed with the children's calm and orderly response and the experience really highlighted the staff teamwork present here at Banyule PS as we evacuated over 700 people offsite to the safety of our offsite evacuation location in nearby Mercedes Street in minutes. As mentioned on Compass, we have a comprehensive emergency management plan that considers many scenarios a school might be faced with. While critical incidents are rare in schools, both our emergency management plan and practice drills like Monday's give us confidence that we are well equipped to respond should (touch wood) the need arise. 

From The Yard:

As Natalie mentioned, our initiatives in the yard have continued. One of these was the trial of Sportless Thursday, where the hustle and bustle of ball games temporarily gave way to 'chillaxing' and passive play. There were groups chatting, card games, hand-clap games and all things gymnastics. 

Last week we also had a mini project to tidy up a corner of our yard and reopen it for kids.  With some help from handyman Anthony and some senior school muscles we have nice little space for children to utilise.

At assembly on Monday I shared the first delivery of our of new yard games with the school community, so next time I look forward to working with our student captains to find some new homes in the yard for our newly acquired oversized jenga, connect 4 and chess board, as well as new corn hole games. 

Coming soon: 

Cyber Safety:

We've seen a bit of a pattern of incidents between children involving social media or the online world. As a person who has always felt in-touch with the all the new gadgets, apps and programs, I am fast discovering how impossible it is to keep up. Just when I think I have handle on what's cool in my own children's online world, something else shiny and new comes along and all of a sudden I'm in the dark again. That's where I find these fact sheets from https://www.carlyryanfoundation.com/ useful. They help parents understand the apps and important things like their suitability for different age groups, the risks involved to those using them and the steps to report problems or disconnect. It can also be a trap to think our children are too young for this to be relevant. I wish they were, but unfortunately I can tell you that in the past I have dealt with incidents on messaging platforms between Prep children. Over the coming newsletter pages I will share the fact sheets for some of the more popular apps children tend to use. This week's is SNAPCHAT. I hope you find it useful. 

What Went Well:

Practising gratitude is an effective positive mental health strategy and taking time to stop and look back at accomplishments is a great way to do that. As such, here's just some of what went well during term 3.

It's no wonder we're all a bit tired!!

See you all after the break for another term packed with exciting things.