Principal Report

Transition - Kinder visit

Starting school is a major milestone in a child’s life. Next term is the start of our formal orientation process for students beginning school at Boroondara Park in 2025. 

Careful planning of the orientation process to enhance each child’s transition to school is a priority for a successful move from a kindergarten or childcare setting. We aim to provide continuity between the pre-school setting and our Foundation classrooms and a key element to this process is reciprocal visits between educators and students.

As part of our ongoing work in strengthening these relationships with our local kindergartens and promoting professional learning partnerships with educators, we have had a number of reciprocal visits between educational settings this year. This has included STEM, Art and PE activities organised by our Year 6 leaders and shared reading experiences with kindergarten groups and our Year 1 and Year 5 students. 

Last Monday September 9th, a group of our Boroondara Park Choir students performed songs for the Boroondara Pre School kindergarten group. The group of students, led by our Performing Arts teacher Zoe Tsai, practised and prepared beautiful songs which were performed in front of an audience of very excited four-year-olds! Although quite nervous themselves, our choir students were just as excited and delighted afterwards to be taught a song by the kindergarten group with entertaining actions and movement. 

What a wonderful opportunity to connect with our local kindergarten and showcase our talented choir students!  

Expo thank you!

It was wonderful to see so many families attending the Expo on Friday September 13th. 

Being able to celebrate your child's learning for the term is always a highlight. 

What fun was had by all of the students and families who stayed on after the Expo for the games and BBQ. There was lots of laughter and students were able to try Minute to win it games like:

• Apple Stack
• Cereal Box Puzzler
• Balloon Fall
• Paper Cup Tower
• Sucker Swing
• Chopstick Race

Thanks to Their Care for donating the sausages and for managing the BBQ for this event. We appreciated their assistance! 

Thanks to Annette in the canteen for donating all of the Zooper Doper's. The kids loved this - you would think they had never had one! 

Thanks to Frank who arrived and helped out on the BBQ.

Thank you to all of the parent volunteers who assisted the students with the games. Also, to the members of the Community Engagement team - Leanne, Circe, Melissa, Carmen, Samantha, Lisa and Davina. And also, to members of our School Council who volunteered and assisted as well.  

Special mention to Maria who coordinates our Community Engagement team and is on School Council, she makes sure we are well planned, spends lots of her time setting up and running events for the school. We are lucky to have her as part of our community. 

There was a great atmosphere in the hall with ping pong balls bouncing, balloons hovering in the air, Nutri Grain being picked up with chopsticks, balancing apples and working out cereal box puzzles.

Sanitary products

Each school provides free sanitary products in girls toilets. At Boroondara Park these items have been removed from dispensers and used to block the toilets and drains. This has been an ongoing issue and when girls go to get a product to use there are none in the dispenser. 

To alleviate this situation, we have products available in a specific cupboard in the sickbay. All girls have been informed they can come for assistance and take what they need. This is an ongoing arrangement, and we hope it will support students in their time at Boroondara Park PS. 

Government school parent roundtable 

In partnership with Parents Victoria, the Department of Education is seeking your feedback on the next phase of education priorities. 

This is an opportunity for you to share your ideas in achieving better learning and wellbeing outcomes for Victorian students. 

Roundtable 1:  Tuesday September 24th 11.00-12.00pm 

Roundtable 2: Wednesday September 25th 7.30-8.30pm 

Both roundtables will cover the same content. 

School Saving Bonus - reminder

In Term 4, families with a child enrolled in a government school from Prep to Year 12 in 2025 will receive the one-off $400 School Saving Bonus.

The $400 School Saving Bonus provides families with support for education-related costs, such as school activities and/or school uniforms and textbooks.

The School Saving Bonus is not available for full-fee international students, home schooled students, TAFE students and students attending kindergarten in 2025.   

Actions for parents and carers

Before 18 October 2024, the Department of Education is asking parents and carers to:

• Complete enrolment: If your child, or children are changing government school for Term 1 2025, or starting Prep or Year 7 in 2025. For more information, read about Enrolling in School. 
• Check your contact information: Ensure your email address and phone number is up to date with us. You can check this information by contacting us directly.

We need to ensure your contact information is up to date as the Department of Education will email you twice:

• in October, to verify your email address
• in November, with your $400 School Saving Bonus and access to an online system.

Please check your junk mail regularly to make sure you do not miss an important email.

To learn more about the School Saving Bonus, attached is the School Saving Bonus Information sheet for government school parents and carers or visit vic.gov.au/school-saving-bonus. 

Student Climate Survey

The Victorian Department of Education is inviting students in years 4 to 12 to take part in the Student Climate Survey. 

This is an optional survey to understand what these students think and know about climate change, and how they prefer to learn about it.

The department hopes to use survey findings to better tailor teaching and learning resources for schools. 

There are 14 questions in the survey and all responses are anonymous. Students will need consent from a parent or carer to take part. 

The survey closes at 5 pm on Tuesday 17 September 2024. 

To take part in the survey, students should refer to Student Climate Survey.

Dear Ms Lowe - tell me about your child 

Each year as part of our planning process I invite parents to spend time considering their child's learning, social and emotional needs for the coming school year. 

This is the opportunity for you to consider what you know about your child 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.

As indicated above 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.

Putting together classes is a complex jigsaw, we work to support all students and their needs. It is important to note, we will take your thoughts into consideration, but it will not always be possible to fulfil your requests. 

Students will get the opportunity to let us know who they think they would work well with in a class, they will have at least one person on their list in their class. 

2025 plans - is your child leaving Boroondara Park PS? 

For many reasons students arrive or leave Boroondara Park PS at the end of each school year. This term we have had seven new students join our community. Families often experience change for one reason or another. 

If you know your child is moving to another school, or you are moving suburbs, cities or countries please fill in this form to let us know. 

When students start to put together the people they work well with for class creation it assists if we know a child is leaving. 

We are offering the opportunity for exit interviews before you leave, please tick this box if you would like to participate in a conversation before you leave. 

Leaving Boroondara Park PS in 2025 

Prep bags 2024 survey 

Have your say about this year’s Prep bags in a short survey, closing Sunday 29 September

Each year, the Department of Education gives every Prep student attending a Victorian government school a bag full of goodies to celebrate this milestone in their education journey. The information and educational resources in the bags are designed to help Prep students and their families thrive from the start of Term 1.

The department is inviting parents and carers of current Prep students to complete a short survey about the 2024 Prep bags, by 5 pm on Sunday 29 September 2024.

Your feedback will help the department learn what families liked about the Prep bags and what can be improved in 2025.

You can have your say atPrep bags 2024 evaluation survey.

The survey takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete, and responses are anonymous. 

For more information on this year’s Prep bags, refer to Prep bags.

Emergency Management Drill 

The school held a desktop evacuation drill this week focusing on severe weather. This involved staff working through the steps we would take if there was a severe weather incident during school hours, at the end of a school day and if students and staff were off site at an excursion or camp.  

We were able to identify in some circumstances the need to have students wait inside for pick up by parents - which did occur last week. Parents drove into the carpark with the storm happening and students exited when they were at the front door. We particularly spoke about the need for caution when there is lightning.  

We were able to review our Shelter in Place procedures, our evacuation plans, our incident management team and the specific procedures in a variety of emergency situations. 

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