Buninyong PS Newsletter

Principal's Report

GETTING OURSELVES ORGANISED FOR 2020

We are now well down the track in terms of setting ourselves up for 2020 and in the coming weeks will have information to share regarding that.

We’re close to have all of our staff in place for next year and over the coming few weeks will be organising staff roles for 2020.

Our Finance Sub-Committee of School Council is working on budgets and has a half day meeting soon to finalise those for 2020.

As mentioned previously, we’ve had working parties of staff and parents coming together to work on a Strategic Plan for the 2020-2023 and an Annual Improvement Plan for 2020.  The last of those working parties is gathering between 8am and 1pm tomorrow (Oct 30), with the focus being ‘community engagement’.  If you’d like to be part of that, please give me a call.

The transition process for our 2020 preps is well underway and it has been lovely having a large number of kinder students with us on Wednesdays and Fridays at the Pre-Schooler Program.  The program has been very successful again and we look forward to getting our 2020 preps away to a settled start.

If you have a prep for next year and don’t have an enrolment form in yet, please act on that quickly as we are close to capacity and will be closing off enrolments soon.

A reminder that if you have any placement requests for your child for 2020, they need to be in by November 11.  Soon after that, our teachers will begin the process of sorting children into class groupings.

UNIFORM REVIEW

Last week our Uniform Sub-Committee came together to discuss the results of the uniform survey.  It was fantastic to see so many responses (135 in total) and as you’d expect, a wide range of views were expressed.

At Thursday’s PLP meeting (Oct 31, 2:30pm) we’ll share the survey data and initial thoughts from the Uniform Sub-Committee.  Come along if this topic is of interest to you.

REPORT FROM SCHOOL COUNCIL

We had our October meeting last night, with a broad range of discussion taking place due to so much going on at the moment.  Some of the items discussed that will be of interest include:

  • Introduction of a cooking program - School Council supports the introduction of a cooking program at the Buninyong Campus in 2020.  Planning is in the very early stages, but would likely include an average of 2 sessions per term for each class.  Teachers would take their own children into the home eco room (the renovation should be finished by early term 1) and be supported by a food tech person, which would be employed 2 days per week.  This will be a brilliant opportunity for us to give a real sense of purpose for the Scratch & Patch program (vegie garden & chickens) and enable us to run a version of the ‘kitchen garden’ program.  This has all become possible because Tracey and her team are doing such a great job in the canteen, with profits making it possible to employ a food technician for 2 days each week.
  • Base 1270 - We discussed the success of Base 1270 and the improvements that have been implemented along the way.  Liam Rigby and Kim Dargaville are doing a brilliant job running the program and are well supported by Mel Crimeen and Tania McKay who manage the administration and finance side of things.  We are in the process of surveying parents who use the service and are delighted with the initial responses….almost 100% positive.  We are delighted to be providing students and families with a positive experience, but also are very pleased with the financial success of the program. Over the coming 5 years, we expect the program will enable us to:
    • undertake renovations to the gym building (create a break away space, install solar panels on the roof & climate control, extend the bike shed),
    • purchase a modular building to provide the Japanese program with a dedicated space,
    • purchase a bus to transport children from other schools using the service and to build a shed to house that bus.

Once these works are complete, our facilities and resources will be perfectly set up for Base 1270 and other users of the gym building, meaning any profits from the service will be available for other programs and projects across the school.

  • Supporting drought affected communities - For some time we have thought about how we could make a difference for students in drought affected areas.  We like the idea of hosting a small school for a week and showing them a good time, as a distraction from the worries that impact on them every day.  We could take them to the beach, spend a day at Sovereign Hill and a range of other things.  An approach has been made to the Community Bank, which is considering partnering with us to make this happen.
  • Facilities Update – Our Building and Grounds Sub-Committee of School Council has been completing an audit of both campuses.  The focus has been on identifying maintenance needs, whilst also considering potential improvement projects.  The sub-committee will meet again in the next couple of weeks before making recommendations to School Council at the November meeting.  Efforts over the past few years have us in a situation where the Scotsburn campus is in very good condition, but the maintenance needs at Buninyong are significant.  It’s fantastic to see the BBQ area going up at Scotsburn and it has been nice to get the kids involved to spruce up the front entrance at Buninyong over the past couple of weeks.
  • NAPLAN -  We spent some time discussing NAPLAN results for 2019.  Overall the results are positive and detailed analysis has been completed and will inform the development of our new Strategic Plan and Annual Implementation Plan.