Principal's Report

GRANDPARENTS AND SPECIAL FRIENDS DAY

What a massive event this turned out to be at both campuses!  It was fantastic to see how many visitors joined us on the day and how much the occasion was enjoyed by both the students along with grandparents & special friends. Please pass on our thanks to your family members that made the effort to come along and get involved.

A big thankyou to the many parents that sent in some morning tea. As a result, we had brilliant spreads for our Grandparents and special friends to enjoy.  Thanks also to the team of parents who helped to organise and serve the morning tea and tidy up afterwards.  

A group of grade 6s did an excellent job serving as well. 

Final School Council Meeting for 2022

After 2 years of meeting largely through Webex, it has been nice to meet in person this year.  Last night was our final meeting for 2022, which was held at Scotsburn. It has become tradition to have the final meeting at Scotsburn, proving our parent members of School Council with the opportunity to see what we have in place at our smaller campus. 

Topics discussed last night included:

Class Structure for Next Year

We shared the class structure for 2023, which is very similar to 2022, the key differences being a reduction of classes at the Buninyong Campus from 27 to 26.

It’s worth noting that in 2023 we will see the introduction of a fortnightly STEM specialist session for all classes.  These sessions will have a focus on Science, which we know the students will enjoy. Other specialist classes will remain unchanged. 

Budgets for 2023 – Last week our Finance Committee met for a half day to take a good look at our cash budgets for 2023.  These were presented to School Council for approval last night.  As per usual, we struggle to make ends meet with our cash budgets and have limited control over our big ticket items, those being cleaning, utilities, casual relief teachers and maintenance.  We are very pleased that numbers are building back up at Base 1270, as this program is certainly playing an important role in enabling us to make ends meet.  

We looked at parent contributions for 2023 and hope that the vast majority of parents will elect to pay those.  This will enable us to continue to run existing programs.

Major Events - The decision was taken to run with a fete in March of next year.  This is exciting after 3 years of not being able to run such events and few opportunities for the school community to pitch in and come together to have a bit of fun.  For those that have not been part of a Buninyong PS fete, the festivities run from late afternoon to the early evening we have each class run a stall or event of some sort.  We make sure there are plenty of food options and a variety of activities for children to enjoy. 

Whilst each class organises and runs a stall or event, there is a team of staff and parents that oversee everything.  Please let us know if you would like to join that team, which will swing into action from the start of next year.

OFF SITE EVACUATIONS

Every term we complete an emergency drill of some description and this time round undertook off site evacuations at both campuses.  For Scotsburn the off site evacuation location is the tennis courts adjacent to the Scotsburn Hall and for Buninyong it’s the near by soccer fields. 

Both drills went off without a hitch and hopefully we never find ourselves in a genuine emergency situation where an off site evacuation is required.  The attached photo shows students and staff from the Buninyong Campus assembling at the soccer fields this morning.