Principals' News

Principal News 12/06/2026

Dear Banyan Fields Primary School Community,

As we head into the final two weeks of Term 2, there is a great sense of excitement across the school. Our Year 1 and Year 2 students are busily preparing for their upcoming concert and can't wait to share their hard work with families. We also had a wonderful time celebrating Milo's birthday in Foundation, with students enjoying the special occasion and joining in the fun. It has been fantastic to see so much enthusiasm, engagement and positive learning across the school as we approach the end of a busy and successful term.

Tenacity: We try, we learn, we never give up.

Attendance Arrive To Thrive:

Every family received an attendance snapshot outlining their child’s current attendance and highlighting the important link between attendance and learning success.

At Banyan Fields Primary School, we know that regular attendance is one of the strongest predictors of student achievement, wellbeing and connection to school. Every day at school provides valuable opportunities for learning, building friendships and developing confidence.

Our goal is to work in partnership with families to support strong attendance habits and ensure every student has the best opportunity to thrive. We understand that there are times when absences are unavoidable due to illness or other circumstances, and we appreciate the efforts families make to prioritise school attendance whenever possible.

Through our Arrive to Thrive initiative, we are focusing on the positive impact that consistent attendance and punctuality can have on student success. Even small improvements can make a significant difference over the course of a school year.

Thank you for your ongoing support and commitment to helping our students arrive, engage and thrive every day. By working together, we can ensure every child has the greatest opportunity to learn, grow and succeed.

Semester One Reports 2026

Reports will be available to families through Compass from 9:00 am on Monday 22 June.

As a result of the recent industrial action, Semester 1 reports will not include teacher comments. Reports will instead provide information on your child’s achievement against the Victorian Curriculum 2.0 through progression points, as well as attendance information.

We encourage families to take the time to review their child’s report and celebrate the progress they have made throughout the semester. If you have any questions regarding your child’s report, please contact their classroom teacher.

Equity: We include, we respect, we support.

Carrum Downs Secondary College Update

The team at Carrum Downs Secondary College regularly support our Thriving Through Excellence program at Banyan Fields. For example, the Maths team visit our students participating in ThriveX:Solve every Friday, and our ThriveX:Innovate group will visit to access their 3-D printers before the end of the term.

We are delighted to celebrate their recent accreditation to run a Select Entry Accelerated Learning (SEAL) Program in 2027. More information can be found here.

Synergy: We listen, we learn, we grow together.

PLC

At Banyan Fields Primary School, we continue to build students’ spelling knowledge by exploring how words change when we make them plural. Understanding spelling patterns helps students become more confident readers and writers.

This week, students are learning how to make words ending in y plural.

Students are learning that:

If a word ends in a consonant + y, we change the y to i and add es.
If a word ends in a vowel + y, we simply add s.

For example:

Change y to i and add es

baby → babies
lady → ladies
party → parties
fly → flies

Just add s

toy → toys
day → days
key → keys
boy → boys

This spelling pattern helps students understand how words change when talking about more than one object, person or thing.

How Families Can Support at Home

Ask your child:

“What letter comes before the y?”
“Is it a vowel or a consonant?”
“Do we change the y or just add s?”

Try this together

Say words aloud such as:

babies, parties, flies
toys, days, keys
ladies, boys, stories

Ask your child to decide whether the word changes from y to i before adding es, or whether it simply needs s.

Spot it while reading

While reading together, see if your child can find plural words ending in:

Talk about why that spelling choice was used.

By learning spelling patterns like changing y to i and adding es, students continue to strengthen their reading and writing skills while building confidence and independence as learners.

Concert Update:

We are excited for our upcoming school concert for Year 1 and 2, and can't wait to see our students perform on stage! Thank you for your support in helping make this a memorable experience for our students.

If you haven't already done so, please log in to Compass and provide consent for your child to attend the concert. This is an important requirement and must be completed prior to the event.

Wednesday 17th June

Students should be dropped off at school at 8:45am as normal. Students will attend school before walking with their teachers to Carrum Downs Secondary College for their performance.

Following the performance, students will walk back to Banyan Fields Primary School with their teachers and should be collected from school at the normal dismissal time of 3:10pm.

Thursday 18th June

Performing students should be dropped off at 11:00am at Banyan Fields Primary School and attend their regular classroom. Students will participate in normal classroom activities before walking with staff to Carrum Downs Secondary College later in the day in preparation for their 2:00pm performance.

Thursday Pick-Up

Following the final performance on Thursday, students should be collected at approximately 6:00pm. For student safety, classroom teachers will dismiss students directly to a parent or carer.

We look forward to celebrating our students' hard work and sharing a fantastic concert with our school community!

Foundation Enrolments, 2027

The system is now open for our Foundation classes in 2027. To support us with our planning, please use this link to complete and submit your child’s enrolment.

If you have any friends or family members who have a child who is due to start school in 2027, please share the link above and remind them to complete their enrolment as soon as possible.

Policy Update

The team at Banyan Fields are constantly reviewing and updating policies to ensure our processes and practices enable every member of our community to thrive. Our current focus is on our Bullying Prevention Policy. Please have a read through and send your feedback to banyan.fields.ps@education.vic.gov.au

Stewardship: We care for people, places, and possibilities.

Network Triad Visit

The senior leadership team are working in collaboration with the teams at Seaford Primary School and Frankston Heights Primary School on school improvement strategies in all three schools. This work includes visits to each of the schools, identifying specific areas of growth and sharing best practice. The team at Banyan Fields hosted a visit recently with a focus on positive classroom management strategies. Our colleagues visited classrooms, including specialists, and identified a high level of consistency in our approaches and strategies. They also provided suggestions as to how we can further enhance our approaches to ensure that every member of our community continues to thrive.

TESS Friday Clean-Up Challenge

The student leaders will introduce a new approach to protecting and respecting our school environment this week - our TESS Friday Clean-Up Challenge. The idea is that two classes will be rostered on clean-up duty every Friday afternoon. Armed with gloves, buckets, pick-up tools, and weighing scales, the two classes will spend some time on Friday afternoon picking up rubbish around the school. The rubbish will be weighed and the class that collects the most rubbish across the next term will win a prize. All other students are constantly reminded to put their rubbish in the bin - this approach will further encourage appropriate rubbish disposal behaviours as the classes who are not on clean-up duty will want to reduce the amount of rubbish around the school to give them a better chance of winning the prize!

Teachers will remind students in advance of:

Informing an adult if they come across anything sharp or dangerous, including animal waste
Wearing gloves and washing your hands after the activity
Remaining in the assigned area so they can be supervised by their teacher at all times

We love to have volunteer parents and carers at Banyan Fields Primary School. Some people sign-up to support a particular activity with their child’s class while others sign up to be a regular volunteer for an activity that their child may not be directly involved in. Please speak to your child’s class teacher for more information.

Help us to keep our school safe

We had a scheduled incursion by the Police recently. The big focus was on e-scooters and e-bikes. While the visitors acknowledged that e-scooters can be lots of fun, they reminded students that children under the age of 16 should not be using e-scooters. Parents and carers are reminded that students are not permitted to bring their e-scooters to school, whether that’s during the school day or outside school hours. The educators running our outside-school-hours care are often challenged by riders coming onsite while their program is running. This causes a significant hazard as they travel around the school grounds at significant speeds.

We are also aware that the basketball courts provide a great surface for cycling regular push-bikes and scooters before and after school, it can cause a hazard as students are playing.

Your help is also required to remind community members that dogs should be kept on a leash at all times on school grounds, even outside regular school hours.

Patrick Halpin - Principal

Jennifer Churcher - Assistant Principal

Sharleen Nason - Assistant Principal