Call to Act
Alicia Flynn
Call out to all BNW families
Our town has taken a long time to recover from the pandemic. We have now been fully back to school consistently for a year and yet we are still bearing a big downturn in families helping our school thrive.
We have almost 400 students at our school, but only a handful of families help maintain the extra aspects of our school community that teachers and school staff cannot do alone.
Our children are very fortunate to have such a vast schoolyard – outdoor learning spaces more expansive and interesting than most schools in Melbourne, including the rejuvenating Indigenous bushland of Yakai Barring. But we are a public school with a budget that does not always stretch to maintain everything as well as we would like.
So, this a call out to all families to please consider helping to strengthen our school community and your children's thrive at school. [There is a strong link between family engagement in school life and children’s sense of belonging and wellbeing so helping out wherever and whenever you can, has multiple benefits.]
We totally understand if you can’t participate ongoingly. Please consider helping when there are call-outs for extra help, such as attending at least one working bee per year, helping for an hour during special events, etc.
Some of the different groups you could participate in ongoingly:
Action teams -
Core Chicken Carers: while there is now a healthy roster of families helping to feed and care for our chickens over weekends and holidays, it would be great to have a core group to keep up with the chicken needs and be backup/emergency carers.
Garden club: There is always more to do in the productive garden than we have time for in class. I would love to work with families to establish an ongoing community garden and for you to help sustain the children’s garden beds.
Yakai Barring custodians: We are so privileged to have this beautiful Indigenous bushland in our school, but it doesn’t weed itself – keeping introduced plants out of this garden is an ongoing job for many hands. We are coming up to the 10-year anniversary of Yakai Barring next year, so it would be wonderful to establish renewed attention and care for this special space.
Working bee organisers: Working bees require many hands to help, but it would be great to have a core group of parents/carers to help drum up involvement and run the day, including feeding the workers.
Building works: Having a core group of parents who have skills in building, and maintenance, would be excellent for small-level building and maintenance work.
Subcommittees -
Buildings and Grounds: This is a sub-committee that meets once per term and reports to the School Council. This group oversees the maintenance of the schoolyard and buildings, including organising the working bees, Yakai Barring care (including winning grants), and maintaining the built environment.
Please fill in your preferences on this google form