A Message from Hannah & Keir
We would like to acknowledge and honour the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation as the traditional custodians of the land on which our school stands. We pay our respects to all First Nations elders, past present and emerging.
2023 Class Placement
Those of you who have been in our community for a while would be aware that we spend much of Term 4 thinking about and planning for the new year. As passionate believers of lifelong learning and continuous school improvement, we are always looking at how we can make our already spectacular school even better. In response to community and staff feedback, we will be bringing our class formation process forward a few weeks, to give us more time to trial and discuss options before settling on final decisions.
Our updated Class Formation Policy can be found below. This document outlines the philosophy and approach our school takes when forming classes for the following year. It also provides a timeline for families who may want to prepare their children for each step and/or have some input in the process.
The school leadership team have been working on different models over the past few weeks, but we always love to hear from our community - community models have informed many of our past structures. The table below indicates the number of students who are currently enrolled in each year level (for 2023). This is a call out to any families (or students!) who have ideas for potential class structures to share them with the school.
If you would like to share your ideas, please send them to Hannah (hannah.reid@education.vic.gov.au) and Keir (keir.jasper@education.vic.gov.au) by the beginning of Term 4.
And keep your eye out on the newsletter for more information, updates and opportunities for input over the coming weeks.
Future Camp Costs
In July the Victorian State Government settled on a new industrial agreement with the Australian Education Union, which saw planned improvements to the working conditions for teachers and education support staff. We are sure you are all happy that there are improved conditions for people working in schools, as this directly influences the experiences your children have, however there are some significant changes that need to be highlighted for our families - one of which being the cost of camps.
Prior to January 2023, teachers were not provided with additional pay or time in lieu for any work outside the hours of 8:45am - 3:45pm. This meant that for events such as evening/weekend performances and school camps, staff continued to be paid for a typical school day, volunteering the rest of their time. The new agreement sees this change - staff will now be paid for all the hours they are on duty, the cost of which must be covered by families.
Our camp program has seen a few interruptions over the past few years, but we have always had the intention to return (when able) to the extended camp program that gradually develops students’ independence and skills. With this new information, the school and school council are seeking input from the community. We want to understand how the increased costs of camps will be experienced by different members of our school community and to get a better understanding of what our community prioritises, so we can make decisions about our future camps.
Professional Practice Day this week
Please check your calendar to make sure you have noted that this Friday is our Term 3 Collective Professional Practice Day. What this means for families is that Thursday will be the last day of term for students (3.30pm finish) and we will not have school on Friday.
OSHC will be running a wonderful whole day program for any families requiring supervision - please register this directly with OSHC so they are able to arrange staffing.
Open Streets
When we conducted our Ride & Stride survey with families a few months ago, parents identified less traffic around the school gates as one of the top two things that would make it easier for their children to travel actively to school. With 83% of our families living within a 10min ride or 20min walk from school, we’ve decided to trial the Open Streets initiative as part of Ride & Stride Moreland City Council and Bicycle Network’s Ride2School program. The program is designed to make the streets around our school gates safer for children, families and residents and encourage active travel to school. Open Streets will compliment Ride & Stride initiatives like the Tag On program and Lug and Carry free e-cargo bike loans, which we have already launched over the last term to address barriers to active travel.
On Tuesday 11th October, Tuesday 17th October, and Tuesday 25th October, we will be opening Culloden Street to walking and cycling only during drop off (8.30-9.30am) and pick up (3:00-4:00pm) times to create safe and healthy space for families arriving at the school gates. There will be fun activities held on the street for children to play, ride and scoot around before and after school.
School Calendar
The BNWPS term four school calendar will be handed out in hard copy to all students this week. Term four is already looking like a busy and fun term, with Art Attak, Open Streets and 2023 Foundation transition just some of the exciting events that will be happening. Hold on to your copy of the calendar and display it somewhere at home for easy reference. As always, the dates and events in the calendar are as correct as we can get them at the time of publishing; any changes will always be communicated through the newsletter.
Student Wellbeing
As our students move through a more socially connected world, we would like to take a moment to remind and encourage all families to make sure that they contact the school if they have any concerns or questions about students’ social interactions. Often, a family’s first reaction can be to contact the families involved, when really the school is the best place to unpack friendship and peer issues as we are able to weave proactive strategies into our teaching and learning programs, as well as having the capacity to have restorative conversations with all of the students involved. Contacting your child’s teacher through Sentral is the best place to begin these conversations.
The use of Google Classroom and student Google accounts is intended for school use only. Our 5/6 team has been made aware that a number of our students are using Google Docs as a chat stream. Due to behaviour that does not align with our acceptable use policy, all of these chat stream documents have been closed down.
We understand that there are some social groups within the school who have been using these chat streams very well - outlining protocols and holding each other accountable to our school values. Unfortunately, all documents have had to be removed, as we cannot monitor them sufficiently, especially over the holidays.
Our ICT Acceptable Use policy is linked below. We thank families for their understanding on this matter and for your support in keeping our students safe online.
Stay Safe!
With no reports or transitions and no public holidays, term 3 is often considered the ‘quiet term’ in a school calendar - until we think about our Winter Magic Market, our 3/4 Camp, our Student-led Conferences and our Writing cycle in the Tutor Initiative! From F-6, our students have been deeply engaged in our new approach to Inquiry, which will continue through to Melbourne Cup weekend, next term.
As always, we have fit an extraordinary amount of learning, creating and connecting over the past 10 weeks and everyone has earned a well-deserved break. We hope you are all able to take some time out with your family, to enjoy the warmer weather and spring blooms. Stay safe, be kind and we look forward to seeing you all again in term 4.