Principal's Message

Welcome back for the start of a very busy Term 3. Thank you to students and families for supporting Friday's crazy hair fundraiser for the Opera House Choir excursion. 

Evening with ACoS

As per last week's School Bytes notification, tickets for the combined Armidale public schools 'Evening with ACoS' creative arts night are now on sale. The Ben Venue orchestra, and students from the Stage 2 and 3 Ben Venue choirs, dance and circus groups, who have been involved in rehearsals will be performing in the event.

Tickets can be purchased by clicking here. These sell out quickly, so please book your seats early.

Electives

Following a successful trial of elective options for Years 1-6 last semester, students will be given the opportunity to choose a new elective for Semester 2. Students in the ACoS groups will continue in choir, dance or circus up to the performance evening, then will change into their new elective. Students may opt to continue with their Semester 1 choice. Some new options will be available as listed below. 

Stage 3 major excursions

Tomorrow, Stage 3 students and staff will embark on their major camp of the year, at the Great Aussie Bush Camp. This experience has become an institution and has been a rite-of-passage for Ben Venue students. Our Year 5 and 6 students will be challenged to tackle activities that take them outside their comfort zone, developing confidence, capability and a shared experience through which they will connect as a group.

In the following week, our Opera House Choir will travel to Sydney to sing in the Endeavour Concert. This is also a very special experience, with the Ben Venue choir being one of a small number included from the over 1600 public primary schools in NSW.

I want to thank parents/carers for supporting these opportunities and our teachers and support staff who will give up several nights of sleep and time with families to make these opportunities possible.

NAPLAN

Year 3 and 5 students received their NAPLAN results last week. NAPLAN represents a single snapshot of a students achievement and should be interpreted in conjunction with other assessment data and observations. Taken across a number of years however, NAPLAN results are a useful indicator of the impact of school improvement strategies. Shortly, we will receive detailed information for our analysis, including comparisons between our school's performance, statistically similar schools and the state as a whole. This information will be shared in our next newsletter.

Public Education Week

Education Week is a celebration of everything great about public education. This year's theme is 'Ignite your potential'. The official Education Week is 4-8 August. Due to major excursions for our Stage 3 cohort during and immediately before these dates, Ben Venue will celebrate Education Week on Thursday 14 August with a K-6 Assembly and open classrooms for Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3.  Further information will be shared soon.

Athletics

Despite the best efforts of the elements to further delay the 3-6 athletics field events, many of the age groups rotated through shotput, discus, long jump and high jump on Friday. The grounds dried out and the long jump pit was de-iced just in time for our students to compete.

Thank you to Ms Walker for organising the event (twice) and the team of staff who supported her.

Debating

Last week, the Ben Venue Blue and Ben Venue Gold debating teams argued against teams from Drummond Memorial PS in the first round of the Premiere's Debating Challenge. The topics contested were 'that homework should be banned in primary schools' and, ironically, 'that all Year 5 and 6 students should be required to participate in debating'. Our teams collaborated and spoke well, convincing the adjudicator that homework should be banned and that debating should not be compulsory. Both teams gained both experience and confidence ahead of the next round.

Pick-up road safety

I want to thank the vast majority of drivers who exercise caution, patience and respect when negotiating the challenge of collecting students at the end of the school day. In the interests of ease of collection, student safety and the wellbeing of all students, staff and families, I ask that all drivers using the Erskine St collection point please note the following:

• Ensure a clearly visible name is displayed for duty staff to see. This speeds collection and helps relieve congestion.

• Please be respectful of the requests of school staff if asked to drive further down in the collection ('no parking') area. These requests are made to ease congestion closer to the traffic lights and make available safe stopping points for other drivers.

• Congestion levels at the collection point are very high between 3:10 and 3:20 pm, but are significantly reduced by 3:25 pm. 

• It is not safe to ask children to enter a vehicle via the right-hand, or traffic side of a vehicle stopped at the collection point.

• 'No parking' zones - Drivers may stop in this zone to drop off or pick up passengers or goods for a maximum of two minutes. The driver must remain in, or within three metres of the vehicle at all times. The vehicle must not be left unattended.

• 'No stopping' zones - Stopping is not permitted at any time.

• Please pay particular attention to the delineation between the 'no stopping' and 'no parking' zones indicated by the sign located near the end of the guard rail, west of the pick up zone on Erskine St (pictured).

• Council Rangers regularly perform routine patrols to enforce traffic rules.

Source: NSW Government

Staff have been instructed not to direct students to vehicles parked illegally. I ask everyone to be aware that at no point is there an excuse for abuse of school staff who are following procedures and acting with student safety as their primary concern.

Cam Pryce

Principal