Safe behaviours at school crossings

As students travel to and from school it’s important for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists to be aware and take extra care during these busy times. Following the road rules at school crossings doesn’t just keep our community safe, it is also the law.

To help keep our students safe, it’s important for drivers to:

Slow down around school crossings at a speed slow enough to stop safely, if necessary.
Stop if a hand held “Stop” sign is displayed and you must give way when school crossings flags are displayed.
Stop and wait until the school crossing is clear of all pedestrians including supervisors.
Stop if a child or adult is about to cross or is crossing, even if there is no crossing supervisor.
Never overtake a vehicle stopping or stopped at the crossing.
Never let children get in or out of your vehicle when stopped waiting at a school crossing.
Respect School Crossing Supervisors, they’re trained to support children’s safety.
Always watch out for children near schools and if you see a school crossing, use it.

At school crossings, all road users need to be alert, including pedestrians. Always look and listen for approaching traffic from each direction before crossing. Pedestrians need to be sure that drivers or riders have seen them and are stopping.

Identifying a school crossing

School crossings are operational when flags are displayed or signs with flashing lights are operating. Drivers, riders and pedestrians can look out for the following to help identify a school crossing:

School crossings are active on weekdays during Victorian school terms. Usually between 8am to 9.30am and from 2.30pm to 4pm.
Red and white posts on each side of the road with orange children’s crossing flags.
Two parallel continuous or broken lines across the road surface. Children’s crossing yellow signs and twin yellow lights flashing.
School crossing supervisor may be present, easily identified by a high visibility yellow safety vest or jacket and a hat with the word ‘Supervisor’ embroidered.
If you’re driving in a school zone, it usually means a school crossing will be nearby. In most cases, the speed limit displayed will be 40km/h or 60km/h (when the original speed limit is 80km/h or higher).

Traffic Safety

We often have parents reporting to the office concern for the safety of all students in the community. Their concern is based on the behaviour of other parents and carers. A reminder it is not okay for students to run across the road to get into your car, it is not okay for a student to be motioned by their parents to do so. It is not okay for students to exit from the car into the middle of the road. It is not okay for parents to cross the road with their child but not use a school crossing.

We must all lead by example and model safe use of crossings and the roads around our school.

More on road safety will be shared by our Admin pillar Year 6 students at our next assembly.

Parent Survey

We want our parents/caregivers/guardians to tell us what they think!

Our school is conducting the annual Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey offered by the Department of Education and is seeking your feedback. The survey is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behaviour, and student engagement. The survey is optional, but we encourage and appreciate your participation.

Our school will use the survey results to assist in identifying areas for improvement and professional development needs in the school, to target school planning and improvement strategies.

The Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey will be open online from Monday 18 August to Friday 19 September 2025.

All families are invited to participate in the survey. You will be sent a message via COMPASS with your pin to log into the survey.

The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time on desktop computers, laptops, tablets or smartphones.

The online survey will be available in English and 10 other languages including Arabic, Greek, Hakha Chin, Hindi, Japanese, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Turkish, and Vietnamese. Resources are also available in additional languages to assist parents / caregivers / guardians who speak a language other than English at home. Please reach out to the school directly for survey guides in your language.

Survey results will be communicated to parents / caregivers / guardians through annual reporting and are reviewed as part of the work of staff and School Council. Please speak to the school if you would like more information.

Year 5/6 Play equipment

We are excited to have the installation of our Year 5/6 play equipment almost completed.

We are awaiting soft fall and an independent inspection of the equipment prior to students playing on it next week.

We are grateful to have gained a North East Link Community grant for this project.

Book Week

We are very excited to be celebrating Book Week from August 18th. There will be a Lamont book fair in the Library throughout the week, with books arriving on August 15th in preparation. The Book Fair will be open on August 18th, 20th, 25th and 27th.

We have our author visit on Monday August 18th. We will have Jess McGeachin (2025 CBCA 80th Anniversary Artist). Jess is the author of South with Seabirds. There is lots of artwork up around the school at the moment inspired by Jess's book.

We have our Book Week Dress Up Parade on Friday August 22nd. Join us in the Stadium at 2.40pm.

Teaching reading - phonics

At Boroondara Park PS we are using the Phonics Plus program to teach reading to our Foundation to 2 students. Through this program our students experience a systematic, synthetic phonics program.

Phonics is a way of teaching reading and writing by connecting sounds with letters or groups of letters. Phonic skills help children understand how letters link to sounds in spoken language and how those letters work together to form words.

Systematic synthetic phonics is an evidence-based way of teaching children to read and write words, and is used from Prep to Grade 2. This approach is called “systematic” because it follows a clear, step-by-step order for teaching sounds. It’s called “synthetic” because children first learn individual letter sounds and then learn how to blend those sounds together to form words.

Teaching children the connection between letters and their corresponding sounds, means they gain the skills to read words by sounding them out (decoding). They also learn to write words by breaking them down into sounds (encoding).

Children being taught systematic synthetic phonics become increasingly proficient in reading and spelling words. This increases their confidence, motivation and enjoyment of reading.

Parent guide to phonics

There is also information on phonics and spelling on the school website.

Website

Boroondara Park PS website

Student Wellbeing spotlight -

Boroondara Park PS has had a leadership position for Wellbeing for many years. Kristen Schultz is the Learning Specialist whose role is wellbeing and student voice. Kristen leads a team of teachers who provide professional learning, planning and support to staff to implement the many parts of Wellbeing.

If you are looking for information about the learning programs, including literacy and numeracy planners they can be found on the website.

Do you want to find out about the wellbeing programs the school has in place? There is detailed information on the website - Wellbeing programs

The Wellbeing Programs under Student Wellbeing provides you with information about the many programs and practices we have in place to support the wellbeing of our students.

You can find out about:

Visible Wellbeing
Start Up
Zones of Regulation
Respectful Relationships
Care learn and share
Pivot
Student voice and agency
Student leadership

The ESafety section under Student Wellbeing provides you with information about the ESafety and links to the ESafety commissioner website which has a wealth of resources to support families with the use of technology.

Blazers summer season reminder

Boroondara Park PS has had an ongoing relationship with the Balwyn Blazers basketball club for many years. They hire our Stadium in the afternoons and evenings throughout the week and all day Saturday. This provides the school with revenue and enables us to develop an ongoing and supportive relationship with a community organization.

Over the holidays we replaced the lights in the Stadium, they are now LED lights and provide much needed improvement to the facilities. Balwyn Blazers has supported the school by providing half the funds to undertake this lighting upgrade. We want to thank them and celebrate our ongoing relationship with the club.

The Summer 2025 season registrations for basketball have opened. Existing Blazers families can register via their website - www.balwynblazers.com.au

New families can register their expression of interest for try outs.

Final Reminder - Balwyn High School SEAL program

The Balwyn High School Select Entry Accelerated Learning Program (SEAL) 2026 testing will take place on Monday August 18th. This program is open for all Year 6 students who have accepted a place at Balwyn High School in 2026.

The 2025 program currently has five BPPS students, they have told us the program is excellent. Please see details below for how to register for the SEAL selection test.

Interpreter service for calling the school

This week we sent out information relating to an interpreter service you can use when calling the school. There is a simple step by step process to make a call to the school using a telephone interpreter.

Volunteer induction and registration

Thank you to those parents who have completed the induction and registration so they can volunteer at BPPS in 2025.

A reminder - All volunteers must undertake the induction and register to be involved in school activities.

Volunteer induction and registration

BPPS Facebook and Instagram

Don't forget to follow our social media accounts and see what is happening at school each day. Boroondara Park Primary School Facebook

Search @BoroondaraPark on Instagram to follow the school.

Father's Day