Message from Bev and Kim 

Welcome back to all our BBPS families and special welcome to our new families joining us this term. It’s been a great start. Term 2 at BBPS, children are settled into their classes, and we look forward to a solid term of challenging and engaging learning activities.

Check out these student reflections:

Noah and Suze, Prep “I like playing with hula hoops and outside with my friends. We are practising writing letters and numbers. It is fun matching sounds to pictures. I love going to the library each week, and at lunch time.”

Harper, Tex and MacKenzie, Grade 1 “We are learning about non-fiction, which means its about real things. We have started to use our word wall to help us spell words. This term we are learning about ‘plus’ which means adding groups, and we are going to learn more about animals”.

Pia and Frankie, Grade 2 “We are learning about poetry, and love our new maths rotations where we get to play lots of games like ‘Get our of my house’, ‘Around the world’ and ‘Shake and Spill’. Getting to read 1:1 with our teacher helps us get better at reading aloud”.

Sophie and Nikita, Grade 3 “This term we have i-Day, we love our JEMM and Spelling Mastery, we are really working hard to create great Reader’s Notebooks and Hub Choice each week is a highlight – so far this term we’ve harvested olives, done some drawing, played games and had the option for construction”.

Hugo, Charli and Bella, Grade 4 “We are sharing our presentations about our own personal totem. Its been great doing Bike Ed and we can’t wait for the ride next week. We are reading non-fiction and have been investigating 2D and 3D shapes”.

Archie and Jack, Grade 5 “We love buddies, and are excited about designing our tiny homes to explore areas in Mathematics. Interschool sports starts this week and we’ve got events like Cross Country to look forward to”.

Xavi and Ayla, Grade 6 “We are learning to use graphic organisers to help our thinking. We are investigating the solar system and doing some cool design projects in Mathematics to learn about area and volume”.

It’s been lovely to have Bike Education back up and running for Grades 4-6, with some students learning to ride two-wheeler bikes for the first time and all students learning vital skills for riding on the road. 

Students will go for their bike ride to St Kilda next week – if you can help support this event, please speak to your class teacher – it is always a highlight of the program but can’t run without additional adults to ensure duty of care. Many thanks Kirsten Braun and Josh Ancrum who have overseen the organisation of this program’s return. 

To support community understanding of the use of bikes and scooters within our school (and to and from home), please see our Bikes and Scooter Policy. 

The 3/4 Hub are to be congratulated on delivering a student-led ANZAC Day assembly last week. The students presented a thought-provoking historical account which was very moving, including The Last Post, The Ode to the Fallen and the minute silence.  Thanks to the teaching team for supporting our students, and to the parents who helped a group of students represent BBPS at the Hampton RSL School Anzac Service.

Our SRC met today with Elias from The Resilience Project to analyse our Resilience Youth Survey data (stay tuned to our next newsletter where we will share the data with you). This was a fantastic experience that has supported our enthusiastic team of students to determine our whole school GEM focus for term 2 – more to come. 

This term, in further support of our commitment to gratitude, empathy and mindfulness we will be introducing the BBPS GEM Award, an award supported by local community member Sarah Korbel, to acknowledge students who are demonstrating these qualities within our community. 

Coming up this term, as part of Education Week - Theme: Active Learners - Move, Make, Motivate (week of May 15th):

• Daily Tours at 9:30am – Stay around at drop off and come on a school tour as a way to see the learning in action in our classrooms. These tours are as much for potential families as they are for current families as an opportunity to connect with our curriculum across P-6.
• Tues 16 May House Cross Country Grade 3-6 – Compass note to follow, please come and help for this half day event!
• Thursday 18 May Open Classrooms – you are invited to join your child in their classroom for an afternoon of learning.

Classrooms are open from 2pm - 3:30pm and we encourage you to come and join in the engaging learning sessions planned for the afternoon. 

From 3:30pm - 4:00pm our classrooms will remain open. With formal learning finished for the day, your child is invited to share their learning, showcase their books and ongoing projects during this time. 

Keep the afternoon free, it’s a great way to celebrate the Victorian government education system and the great things we do at BBPS!

• Friday 19 May Parent Association Meeting after the 9am bell in the Library – all welcome, even if you are not a formal member of the PA, we’d love to see you. 

Our return to school brings with it much excitement. We congratulate Kirsten Braun and her husband Ben, who are expecting their first child in September. 

And this week we farewell Kim Ancrum, whose last day is tomorrow before going on family leave. Our BBPS staff celebrated Baby Ancrum #2 earlier this week, and we wish Josh and Kim all the best.