Joy

Joy is the sound of students in the classrooms and school yards again.

Thank you for your continued support and work to enable our students to keep learning this year.

Our work as students return will be with a lens on student wellbeing, particularly their mental health.

Return to onsite learning

On Wednesday November 3rd we welcome all of our students back onsite. We have many things in place to keep our students and staff safe. We have been able to test some of our processes in recent weeks and will continue to review them as all students return. As always our aim is to keep our students and staff safe.

Our students and staff will continue to operate in bubbles, having reduced contact across the school with the aim of the school staying open throughout the rest of this term.

Thank you for continuing to drop your children rather than coming onto the property, at this stage we still ask all parents to not enter the gates or the buildings.

With our return we will be planning some activities at different levels, at this stage we are planning a swimming program as this is now allowed under the newly released Operations Guide from the Department of Education and Training.

Anywhere we go must have a COVIDSafe plan provided to the school and anyone who is working with students must be vaccinated. We will take all care needed to keep our students safe if they leave the school on excursions, sport or swimming.

The attached map shows where your children need to enter the school when we all return onsite. As noted in our message on Monday via Sentral we must stick to the allocated gates to reduce congestion.

Being COVIDSafe is the responsibility of all members of our community, we ask you to drop your children and let them walk if possible to their gate or wait at your car for pick up. The fewer adults around the gates will mean we can continue to all start and finish school at the same time. At the end of next week we will review our drop off and pick up to see if the arrangements are working.

Randal's news

On Monday you will have received a message from Randal Symons our Assistant Principal letting you know that after 38 years working in the Department of Education he had decided that this will be his last term of work. What a career in 13 schools including working in other settings and countries.

I first met Randal as an Assistant Principal around 17 years ago.

We have been lucky to have him as part of the team at Boroondara Park PS for 6 years. We thank him for all he has contributed, his dedication to our students, their families and the staff is something to celebrate.

Randal is here for the rest of this year and we will work out an appropriate send off. We wish him well and know he will love time to spend on photography, music, fitness and with family and friends (including working with his brother).

Pupil Free Day

A reminder Monday November 1st is a Pupil Free Day. OSHC is open for bookings for this day.

The staff will be learning about the 6+1 Writing Traits which will be a focus of our work teaching writing in 2022. See the Curriculum News for more detail about our learning on Monday.

Marketing and Communication Team

A core focus for our school staff and community in 2022 will be marketing and communication.

We aim to develop:

a communication strategy including our use of social media and our website
a marketing strategy
our publications

Our aim is to ensure our school stands out in the neighbourhood.

Some members of our community volunteered to assist us with marketing earlier this year, we are now formally putting together a working group.

Do you have experience in communications?
Do you have experience in marketing?
Are you able to offer some time or expertise to a team of dedicated members of the school community to work in this area in 2022?

We would aim to meet this year to start developing our ideas.

We want our school to be the school of choice in the neighbourhood.

Please contact the office if you would like to add your expertise to our team.

Curriculum News

As we head towards the end of the school year our teams will be focusing on literacy and numeracy. Our students will undertake assessment tasks to support us to build learning programs to meet their needs for the rest of the school year.

Thunderstorm Asthma Season

This week we had our first warning day for the year. As noted in our last newsletter the Vic Emergency website can provide you with up to date information throughout the Thunderstorm Asthma season.

The Vic Emergency app enables you to create a ‘watch zone’ for epidemic thunderstorm asthma advice and warnings.

Classes for 2022

All students have experienced the unexpected again in 2021, spending more time away from their class mates at home rather than in the classroom. We are currently reviewing our classes for 2022.

As part of our planning process I invite parents to spend time considering their child's learning, social and emotional needs for the 2022 school year. This is the opportunity for you to consider what you have learnt about your child in the remote learning time, and enables you to share your thoughts about your child's specific needs so we can work together to provide the best possible learning environment.

As a parent you advocate for your child, you want what is best for them, you support and fight for their needs.

It is important we clarify good advocacy. Letting us know your child learns best in an active learning environment, with opportunities to negotiate their learning is good advocacy, whilst requesting a particular teacher for your child is not good advocacy. All children experience different teachers throughout their education. It is important you share information about your child's needs but not tell us which class they need to be placed into.

This is not an opportunity to select a teacher - this is not school policy and any requests for specific teachers will not be taken into consideration.

We are proud of our teaching staff and we work as a highly functional team, planning and working to provide the best learning environment possible at Boroondara Park PS.

The Google form Dear Ms Lowe should be completed by Monday November 8th

Thank you for taking the time to provide your thoughts.

Is your child leaving BPPS in 2022?

If you know that your child will be leaving BPPS at the end of 2021 please fill in the Google form to assist us with planning.

Leaving Boroondara Park at the end of 2021

Supporting local

Much of our time in the last almost two years has found many of us supporting local - making sure we support local shops, restaurants and businesses. This will be part of our lives as we work together on supporting our community.

There are lots of houses in our neighbourhood up for sale or being demolished with new residences being built.

If you have a house near you which has been recently sold or is being developed drop us a line, we will pop a flyer about our fabulous school in their letterbox.

We are always looking for those in our community to come to BPPS.

Susanne Lowe

Principal

Canteen