Principal's Report
Dear Families,
What a wonderful day we had at Llanberris Reserve on Friday for our Senior Athletics Sports Carnival. As we hit the second part of Term One, this was a fantastic celebration of student effort and achievement, as well as our great BNPS community, with so many parents, carers and grandparents in attendance. Thank you to those who were able to attend the day (hopefully you didn't get sun burnt!). One of the great aspects of the day for me personally was celebrating the personal achievements of individual students; some had run or competed for the first time, some had never run 800m before, some threw their longest or jumped their highest. And whilst the ribbons were a bonus and clearly something to be proud of, so many students were proud of THEIR OWN personal bests, ribbon or not. What a brilliant way to approach the day!
A big congratulations must go to Atikins (yellow) House for their very narrow victory this year, and to our Year 6 Championship runners - Madison and Noah. Well done, we are very proud of you all!
NAPLAN
Next week our Year 3 and Year 5 students start NAPLAN testing alongside all Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 students across Australia. Whilst we will always encourage students to try their very best, we also need to acknowledge and emphasise to students and parents that these are just one assessment for each of the areas of Reading, Writing, Conventions of Language and Numeracy, and do not represent the entirety of knowledge that might be assessed across a whole month, term or year of work at school for example. It is important for students to understand that their success is not determined by this one test.
STUDENT BEHAVIOUR
In the past couple of weeks we have had to deal with some instances of racism between students at our school and I thought it timely to raise this with families to encourage some positive conversations at home in this space. This is an area that we cannot tackle alone as a school and it requires a "whole of community" approach. We at Ballarat North Primary School do NOT tolerate any form of racism or racist bullying.
Further information about our approaches within the school can be found through the Student Wellbeing & Engagement and Bullying Prevention Policies on our school website: https://www.ballaratnthps.vic.edu.au/index.php/about-us/school-documents and I have also included an information sheet from the Department of Education, which outlines definitions and supports for parents and families to hold conversations with your child/ren around this topic.
As with all matters involving student behaviour, we take a very strong and supportive approach with all parties, and work restoratively with students, staff and families keeping our school values of Care, Respect, Excellence and Community at the core of our processes and communication.
Upcoming Events
Lastly, I would like to highlight two events happening in the last week of the term which are of significance: firstly, we are holding our 2025 Foundation Student Information Session and School Tour on Tuesday 26th March at 9:30am in Penberthy Hall. This is designed for "new"/prospective families to our school. If you know of anyone intending to choose BNPS for their child/ren in 2025, please ask them to contact the office for more information. There will be more information in Term Two for any current families with younger siblings starting next year.
Then, on Thursday 28th March we will be holding our annual Easter Parade at 9:15am. This is always a wonderfully positive community event with gorgeous hats on display, parents and carers invited and the Easter Bunny in attendance! We hope to see you on the basketball court if you can make it!
I hope you all have a restful long weekend. Until I see you in person,
David
“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”