Welcome to the start of a new school year 2025. Here we come!

We welcome all of our new students and their families. It was wonderful to see our new preps start their first day of school on Friday 31st January.

Student Leadership

We held our first student leadership meeting last week. I am very impressed with the confidence and initiative of our grade 6 leaders. The main item on the agenda was lunchtime clubs. In the next few weeks our leadership team will be running lunchtime club 2 times a week. I am looking forward to supporting the students with these engagement activities and know that the children will enjoy them immensely.

Our student leadership team and year 6 students will have further responsibilities with our upcoming school review and our open day/student led tour for families on

Prep 2025 and new students

A highlight over the past 2 weeks has been welcoming our new prep class for 2025 and our new students in grade 1 - 6. We are rapidly getting to know these children and their families and we welcoming them to our Bittern School Community.

Starting school can be challenging for our little people and the amount of support and care shown by our staff, students, in particular our senior school buddies has been impressive. Please ensure you browse the Prep/1 page of this newsletter for more pictures and highlights.

Junior School Council

This year we will be implementing a further student leadership opportunity through Junior School Council.

The purpose of a junior school council is to provide an avenue for the development of 'student voice' within the school. Raise student awareness of issues and associated support options that they can contribute to. Provides a forum for students to openly discuss concerns, issues, opportunities for improvement and to celebrate success.

1 student from each grade (prep - grade 5) will be selected from each class to be the JSC representative. This person is selected by the class teacher and students. Our JSC representatives will be presented with their leadership badges at assembly on Friday.

We will also be presenting our Yr 6. student leadership team with their badges at this assembly.

School Council

School Council Elections are currently underway. The election period is from Monday 10th February - 24th February (2 week period).

This year we have 7 parent vacancies.

3 parent vacancies (2 year term)

4 parent vacancies (1 year term)

Nomination forms can be collected from the office. Parents are able to nominate a parent from our school or they can self-nominate.

If you require any further information about the role of school council, please contact me at school.

Open afternoon/Student Led Tour

This exciting event is held next Wednesday (19th Feb) from 3.15 - 4.30pm at school. This is a wonderful opportunity for your child/children to show you around the school, visit classrooms, chat to teachers and view our new learning spaces. We encourage you to attend and purchase a sausage from Kay and Bert at the BBQ. No dogs, thankyou!

Facilities Upgrade

Over the school holiday period there have been several scopes of works including:

BER building - a complete electrical upgrade including the installation of new split systems for all learning areas and outside lighting.
Repair of bitumen areas around the basketball court
Installation of soft fall in our playground areas.
Purchase of furniture, blinds and other improvement to our senior school classrooms and new Flexible Learning spaces.

Projects to be scheduled this term include:

General gardening and maintenance in our courtyard and admin building areas.
Sorting and ordering furniture in the shed at the rear of school to house excess furniture. This will include a working bee in a few week's time. We encourage as many families as possible to attend - More details to follow.
Installation of our garden beds, and development of our Kitchen Garden Program in preparation for Term 2.

Child Safe

STATEMENT OF COMMITMENT TO CHILD SAFETY

Bittern PS is committed to the safety and wellbeing of all children and young people. This will be the primary focus of our care and decision making.

We have a zero tolerance for child abuse.

Bittern PS is committed to providing a child safe environment where children and young people are safe and feel safe, and their voices are heard about decisions that affect their lives.

Particular attention will be paid to the cultural safety of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and children from culturally and/or linguistically diverse backgrounds, as well as the safety of children who are vulnerable and those with a disability.

Every person involved with the Bittern PS community has a responsibility to understand the important and specific role he/she plays individually and collectively to ensure that the wellbeing and safety of all children and young people is at the forefront of all they do and every decision they make.

On a musical note ...

There are multiple places available for students to learn the guitar or ukulele!

Once you have mastered 10 songs, you will have the opportunity to go busking at Bittern Market. All money given goes directly to the student!

To participate in lessons if would be strongly advisable to make time to practise at least 15 minutes per day. If you need help purchasing a guitar/ukulele, I can help with that.

If interested, please ask for an "Expression of Interest" form from the office.

Thank you

Glen Vinton