Principal's Report

Dear Bundoora Families,

Welcome

Welcome back to school for 2023. We have had a fantastic start with our students settling into their new classes quickly. Welcome to our new families! We hope your children enjoyed their first week with us. I encourage our existing families to seek out a new face and extend a warm welcome to our new families. Being welcoming and supportive is something we do well at Bundoora PS.

Assembly

Friday afternoon was our first assembly for the week, and I was extremely proud of new student leaders. Each one of them was ready to speak at assembly and although there were a few nervous students, each student coped beautifully. Congratulations, Leaders!

Preps begin at Bundoora PS

Our prep students also started on Friday, and they all settled very quickly into the fun and routines of school. All looked happy and relaxed at the end of the day. Preps will now attend school every day as they completed their testing day during the first week of school.

Welcome to our new staff members.

I would like to formally welcome our new staff members for 2023. Miss Amanda Willcocks (00A), Miss Sarah Lyall (00C), Mrs Charlene Stewart (1B), Miss Hannah Wang (3B) and Mrs Rachelle Beneke (Auslan). We also welcome Mrs Jules De Angelis as an integration aide.

STEM and Auslan

It was extremely hard to staff our school in 2022, something many schools are finding. Fortunately, we finally managed to fully staff for 2023 on the second last day of school last year. As a result, we do not have a formal STEM program this year. Instead, we have STEM written into many of our Discovery units across the school and will maintain a focus for 2023, ready to recommence STEM in 2024. Oliver, our STEM captain, will be busy brainstorming new ways to keep STEM alive. We are also running robotics and coding classes outside of school, along with chess lessons and tournaments, and also a STEM club starting in the next few weeks. Mrs Amy Armstrong will also be running the ICAS testing and Australian Maths Competition again this year.

Mrs Beneke will complement the fantastic program for Auslan that Mrs Newell runs through our performing arts program. We will also refocus this year on upskilling our new staff in Auslan.

Café and Breakfast Club

Our Social Enterprise Café and breakfast club commenced this week. Hot chocolate and toasties are fantastic on those slightly colder mornings, with toast and cereal all the rage at breakfast club. 

Please see Steven Meagher or Jeremy Cass (Barista extraordinaire) if you would like to help occasionally in the café. Our student leaders work very hard, but they do need adult help as well.

Although breakfast club and the café open at 8:20, students must be supervised before 8:40 each day by parents (or another adult) as yard supervision does not commence before 8:40. 

Mobile phones and smart watches at school

We understand that some parents wish their children to have a mobile phone to make it easier to contact their students after school. Department of Education policy states that all students must hand in their mobile phones and smart watches to the office as soon as they arrive at school. No student should be on the phone in the yard, nor filming their friends and other students. If possible, please leave these items at home. 

Uniform

A reminder that school uniform should be worn at school every day, except for the house t-shirt on Fridays. Bundoora Primary School uniform consist of bottle green tracksuit pants, shorts, or skorts, and yellow polo shirts (short or long sleeves). The rugby jumper and green coat and hat are also part of the uniform. A small selection of second-hand items is available at the office. 

Black pants or jumpers, or school jumpers from other schools are not part of our uniform. We also recommend that anyone with long hair ties it back, not only to be neat and tidy, but also to avoid the headlice that inevitably haunts every primary school. 

Parent Year Level Ambassadors (YLAs)

It was my pleasure to meet with our first Year Level Ambassador volunteers last week. This program is less formal than the Parent Representative role from previous years and has a primary focus of setting social activities for students and parents. Ideas that have been floated so far are playdates at the school after school hours, parent dinners, and a friendly Dad’s basketball game on our school court after hours.

Our YLA’s so far are:

Prep – not yet filled.

Year one – Lia (Kyra’s mum) and Kelly (Ethan H’s mum)

Year two – Dayna (Jett R’s mum), Bronwyn (Evelyn’s mum), and Jess (Ryder B’s mum)

Year three – not yet filled.

Year four – Natalie (Heath’s mum)

Year five/six – Stephanie (Costa K’s mum) and Corrie (Jimmie’s mum).

We are looking for mums or dads at prep and year three to be our YLA’s and one or two more reps for years five/six.

We will be meeting again next week to go over the role and to gather suggestions.

Family movie night at school

We are excited to be finally holding our family movie night, postponed from last year due to the weather. 

Our movie night will be held on the school oval on Friday 24th February from 6.15pm. We encourage you to bring along a picnic, chairs and blankets and join us for the movie DC League of Superpets. This is not a time to come along and sit in silence while a movie plays. This is a chance to mix and mingle while the children play, then settle down to watch the movie at dusk.

The wonderful students and staff from Bundoora Secondary College will be selling coffee, cinnamon donuts, fairy floss, Dutch pancakes, popcorn and slushies on the night.

Our amazing Social Enterprise Team will be selling halal sausages, veggie burgers and soft drink.  Please help us to support our chosen charities by buying a sausage or veggie burger and a drink. 

Camps, Sports, and Excursion Fund

Parents who hold a current health care card may be eligible to apply for the camps, sports, and excursion fund. To claim, please come to the office to complete a claim form and present your healthcare or pension card.

Essential information – Student accident and Private Property Insurance reminder

The Department of Education (DE), and government school, do not provide personal accident insurance for students. Parents and guardians are generally responsible for paying the cost of medical treatment for injured students, including any transport costs (ambulance). Reasonable low-cost insurance policies are available from the commercial insurance sector. The Department of Education also does not hold insurance, not does it accept responsibility for private property brought to the school by students, staff, and visitors. 

Students are advised not to bring any unnecessary or valuable items to school and are not allowed to bring any electronic toys and games. Please ensure that you have ambulance cover, as this is not covered by the school.

Single Use Plastic Ban in Victoria from February 1st, 2023.

Single-use plastics make up a third of the litter in our environment and are difficult and costly to clean up. They pollute the environment, harming wildlife and contaminating our food and water. They are also a poor use of resources – they are often used for only a few minutes and generate significant waste that is not recyclable They can often easily be replaced with reusable products. 

Under new regulations, from 1 February 2023, Victorian businesses, and organisations (including schools) will not be able to sell, supply or provide a number of single-use plastic items. The ban applies to the following single-use plastic items made from conventional, degradable, or compostable plastics:

• Drinking straws
• Cutlery including knives, forks, spoons, chopsticks, splades, food picks and sporks.
• Plates
• Drink stirrers and sticks
• Cotton bud sticks

The ban also applies to:

• Food service items and drink containers made from expanded polystyrene. This includes expanded polystyrene plates, cups, bowls, clam shells and any cover or lid that is also made from expanded polystyrene.

Bundoora Primary School will be implementing the Victorian government’s single-use plastics ban in the items we use as a school community including at the canteen, OSHC, catering at fundraising events, classroom and staffroom activities and other school events. We will not be using any banned single-use plastic items from 1 February 2023. 

Exceptions to the ban

People who need single-use plastic drinking straws due to a disability or for a medical need will still be able to purchase and use these items. If your child needs to continue using single-use plastic drinking straws because of a disability or medical need, please let their classroom teacher know and we will ensure that there is a supply available for your child’s use at future school activities. The Victorian government has produced a useful fact sheet, reducing plastic pollution starts with us | Victorian Government (www.vic.gov.au), explaining which items are banned and which are not, including information about exemptions. 

Student lunches and snacks from home

Offences relating to the ban do not apply to private or domestic activities at home, e.g., individual families’ decisions about lunch packaging. The intention of the government’s new regulations is to remove these items from the supply chain prior to reaching the customer. 

At Bundoora Primary School we encourage students to bring nude food on at least two days a week where possible (food minus any wrappings that end up as rubbish). Our Environment Captain will soon explain about the nude food raffle at assembly. 

If you have any questions, please contact Sherrin Strathairn. 

Smile Squad

Smile Squad are returning on February 20 for a follow-up visit to complete plaque treatment for those parents who booked this for their child last year. 

Karen Starkiss Parent Literacy sessions

Karen Starkiss, our literacy consultant, is returning this year to talk to parents about our new literacy program and tips for helping your child at home. Karen is an experienced educator and school leader, and collaborates with many schools in Victoria. I urge to come to one of our sessions with Karen if you can. 

We are holding two sessions on the twentieth of February at 9:15 am and 5:30 pm. Both sessions run for approximately two hours.

Buy a brick before February 17

If you have not already purchased a fundraising brick, please consider doing so before February 17th. Flyers can be found around the boundaries of the school or come in and see Mrs McLean at the office.

Project Rockit- Step up.

This incursion is for year five and six students and will be held on the 22nd of February. Project Rockit is committed to supporting young people’s wellbeing. STEP UP launches' students into a mindset of social leadership and strength, exploring their individual capabilities to take positive action on causes and issues that are important to them. The idea is that they can have an impact on the world today by using their strengths to take action on what they care about. This program is endorsed by the ESafety Commission.

Kiss and drop zone.

Please remember that the kiss and drop zone is a two-minute zone for delivering your children to school. It is not an area to park and walk away from your car, as you may be fined by the city council. You should drive to the front of the zone before dropping your child off, then drive on. Other cars will be waiting to pull into the safe zone, so please move off quickly and safely. 

The opposite side of the road is not for parking during school drop off and pick up times and this area forces students to cross the road in an unsafe manner in the thick of traffic. It also causes issues for the childcare centre who share our space.

U-turns in this area are strictly prohibited and we ask that you refrain from parking in the staff carpark. Please do not use the staff carpark driveway or bin collection driveway as turning points as we have had several near misses for our children and the day care children when this has occured. 

We ask all members of the community to work with us to keep our children safe.

Student record updates.

The student record update form is sent out via compass in terms one and three each year. It is important that our student records are up-to-date, and this form gives you the opportunity to correct or update the student and family information we have on file. If there any changes to be made, you may return this form to the office or email to bundoora.ps@education.vic.gov.au

If you did not receive the form in January, please contact the office for a copy. If you move house, change employment or contact numbers, or emergency contacts, please email or drop into office as soon as you can.

All of this information helps us to contact you in the event of an emergency.

School photos. 

School photos will be held on March 9th. Please view the article entitled Photo Day in this issue of our newsletter.

Annual Privacy Reminder for 2023

Our school collects, uses, discloses, and stores student and parent personal information for standard school functions or, where permitted by law, as stated in the School’s Privacy Policy found at 

BPS-Privacy-Policy-2018.pdf (bundooraps.vic.edu.au)

Please take time to remind yourself of our school’s collection notice, found on our website. For more information about privacy, refer to Schools’ Privacy Policy information for parents.

http://www.education.vic.gov.au/Pages/schoolsprivacypolicy.aspx.

Annual Communication of Child-Safe Standards

COMMUNICATING THE NEW CHILDSAFE STANDARDS

New Ministerial Order No. 1359 sets out the specific actions that schools need to take to meet the child safe standards. The new Standards set out minimum requirements and outline the actions organizations must take to keep children and young people safe. They provide more clarity for organizations and are more consistent with Standards in the rest of Australia. The standards will promote cultures where protecting children from abuse is part of everyday thinking and practice in organisations. 

The Child Safe Standards set out to create safe places for children to fully and actively participate in the life of the community, benefiting everyone. Bundoora Primary School will ensure that the children in its care are protected to the best of its ability and in line with their duty of care and the compulsory child safe standards.

The school will continually review child safety policies, procedures, and practices to comply with the new Standard and ensure that families, carers, and the community are informed about the school’s operations and governance.

Bundoora Primary School is committed to Child Safety – this a reminder to our existing community members and for the benefit of our new families to our school this year. As a community we want children to be safe, happy, and empowered. We support and respect all children, as well as our staff and volunteers.  We are committed to the safety, participation, and empowerment of all children. There is zero tolerance of child abuse, and all allegations and safety concerns will be treated very seriously and consistently with our robust policies and procedures. We meet our legal and moral obligations to contact authorities when we are worried about a child’s safety, which we follow rigorously. 

Bundoora Primary School is committed to preventing child abuse and identifying risks early and removing and reducing these risks. We have robust human resources and recruitment practices for all staff and volunteers. Our school is committed to regularly training and educating our staff and volunteers on child abuse risks. As a community we support and respect all children, as well as our staff and volunteers. We are committed to the cultural safety of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, the safety of children from culturally and/or linguistically diverse backgrounds, and to providing a safe environment for vulnerable children and children with a disability. Bundoora Primary School has specific policies, procedures and training in places that support our leadership team, staff and volunteers to achieve these commitments. 

At Bundoora Primary School:

• Everyone connected to our school can help children be safe.
• We have zero tolerance for any abuse of children.
• We already have policies and processes in place to protect the care, safety and welfare of children. These are being strengthened to ensure a zero-tolerance approach to child abuse. As policies are ratified at school council, they will be made available to your through the newsletter and on our web page.
• Our Child Safe Policy is on our website with a suite of information for families, carers and the community.
• There will be clear boundaries about how adults in our school community may interact with the children here set out in our school’s Child Safe Code of Conduct. This too is on the website.

Keeping children safe is everyone’s responsibility. Different people at our school have distinct roles and responsibilities for ensuring children’s safety. As the principal, I am the school’s Child Safety Champion. However, all staff are responsible for the safety of all children but there needs to be one key person who will undertake the roles listed below.

Key activities of the school’s Child Safety Champion

• Provide authoritative advice. 
• Act as a source of support, advice and expertise to staff on matters of child safety. 
• Liaise with other school leaders to maintain the visibility of child safety.
• Lead the development of the school’s child safety culture, including being a child safety champion and providing coordination in communicating, implementing, monitoring, enhancing and reporting on strategies to embed a culture of child safety.
• Raise awareness.
• Ensure the school’s policies are known and used appropriately.
• Ensure the school’s child safety policy is reviewed in the context of school self-evaluation undertaken as part of the school accountability framework.
• Ensure the child protection policy is available publicly and parents are aware of the fact that referrals about suspected abuse or neglect may be made and the role of the school in this.
• Be alert to the specific needs of children in need, those with special educational needs and young carers.
• Encourage among all staff a culture of listening to children and taking account of their wishes and feelings in any measures to protect them.
• Being authoritative in providing advice by: 

     (a)Keeping staff members skills up to date with appropriate training conducted every two. 

    years 

           (b)having a working knowledge of how the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing

            (DFFH) and Community Service Organisations conduct a child protection case conference to be 

able to attend and contribute to these effectively when required to do so

          (c)Be able to keep detailed, accurate, secure written records of concerns and referrals.

          (d)Ensure each member of staff has access to and understands the school’s child safety policy 

            and procedures, especially new and part time staff. 

          (e)Make sure staff are aware of training opportunities and the latest DFFH and DET policies and 

           guidance.

          If you require any information or would like to know more, please contact the school.

School Council 2023 Notice of Election and Call for Nominations

I call for nominations for School Council on 16 February and give notice that an election is to be conducted for members of the School Council of Bundoora Primary School. Nomination forms may be obtained from the school office, Monday 13 February, and must be lodged at the school office by 4.00 pm on Monday 20 February. 

The ballot, if required, will close at 4.00 pm on Monday 6 March. Following the closing of nominations, a list of the nominations received will be posted at school and sent out to families via Compass. The terms of office are two years from the day after the date of declaration of the poll in 2023, to and inclusive of the date of declaration of the poll in 2025. Membership categories and the number of positions in each membership category open for election are as follows:

Parent Membership category – 5 

Staff category – 2

If the number of nominations is less than the number of vacancies, a notice to that effect and a call for further nominations will be posted in a prominent position at the school.

The timeline below is part of the ‘Notice of Election.’ 

Current School Councillors are also able to re-nominate for these positions. 

**If the number of nominations is equal to, or less than the number of vacancies then there will be no ballot. 

School Council, Information and Responsibilities

School Council assists in the governance of the school with responsibilities to:

• Approve student camps and overnight excursions.
• Approve the annual budget.
• Develop, review and update school policies in line with Department of Education guidelines and legislation. 
• Raise funds for the school.
• Oversee the grounds and building maintenance and oversee the strategic plan development and implementation.

They:

• Assist in the efficient governance of the school.
• Ensure that its decisions affecting students of the school are made having regard, as a primary consideration, to the best interests of the students
• Enhance the educational opportunities of students at the school.
• Ensure the school and the council complies with any requirements of this Act, the regulations, a Ministerial Order, or a direction, guideline or policy issued under this Act.

I must emphasise that it is NOT the role of School Council and parent members of School Council to involve themselves in any concerns and complaints that parents may have regarding our staff, other students or parents, and the school. Please see the school Principal class leadership and/or your child’s teacher if you have a concern, question, or complaint. We are very approachable and keen to alleviate concerns and resolve problems. School Council is not involved in any school operational and management matters or day-to-day running of the school.

What is a School Council and what does it do?

All government school in Victoria have a School Council. They are legally constituted bodies that are given powers to set the key directions of a school within state-wide guidelines. In doing this, a school council can directly influence the quality of education that the school provides for its students.

 For most School Councils, there are three categories of membership:

• A mandated elected Parent category – more than one-third of the total members must be from this category. Department of Education (DE) employees can be Parent members at their child’s school as long as they are not engaged in work at the school.
• A mandated and elected DE employee category – members of this category may make up no more than one-third of total membership of School Council. The principal of the school is automatically one of these members.
• An optional Community member category – members are co-opted by a decision of the Council because of their special skills, interests, or experiences. Department employees are not eligible to be Community members.

Generally, the term of office for all members is two years. The term of office of half the members expires each year, creating vacancies for the annual school council elections. Parents on School Council provide important viewpoints and have valuable skills that can help shape the direction of the school. Those parents who become active on a school council find their involvement satisfying and may also find that their children feel a greater sense of belonging.

Do I need Special Experience to be on School Council?

Each member brings their own valuable life skills and knowledge to the role. Councillors may need to develop skills and acquire knowledge in areas that are unfamiliar to them. What you do need is an interest in your child’s school and the desire to work in partnership with others to help shape the school’s future.

How can you become involved?

The most obvious way is to vote in the elections, which are held in Term One every year. However, ballots are only held if more people nominate as candidates than there are positions vacant. In view of this, you might consider:

• Standing for election as a member of the School Council
• Encouraging another person to stand for election.
• Joining the Education sub-committee of the School Council.

What do you need to do to stand for election?

The Principal will issue a Notice of Election and Call for Nominations following the Commencement of Term one each year. All School Council elections must by completed by the end of March, unless the usual timeline has been varied by the Minister.

If you decide to  stand for elections, you can arrange for someone to nominate you as a candidate or you can nominate yourself in the Parent Category.

Department Employees whose child is enrolled in a school in which they are not engaged in work, are eligible to nominate for parent membership of the School Council at that school.

Once the nomination form is completed, return it to the Principal within the time stated on the Notice of Election. You will receive a nomination form receipt in the mail following the receipt of your completed nomination.

If there are more nominations received than there are vacancies on Council, a ballot will be conducted during the two weeks after the call for nominations has closed.

Remember

• Ask the school for help if you would like to stand for election and are not sure what to do 
• Consider standing for election to Council this year.
• Be sure to vote in the elections.

Contact the Principal for further information.

I am happy to discuss School Council with interested parents considering nomination. Please note that School Councillors are expected to commit to attending all Council meetings each year, excepting unforeseen work of family events. Meetings are held twice each term on a Wednesday evening, usually the third Wednesday in a month, from 7.00 pm. Without the required quorum at Council meetings, we cannot complete our compliance demands relating to education and financial policy and operations work at the school.