Principal's Message
Volunteering at BNPS
It has been great to see community volunteers engaged in many different aspects of school life already this year. We have volunteers reading in classrooms, helping on excursions, serving coffee in our cafe, selling second hand uniforms, joining sub-committees, sorting book club orders, organising decodable readers, writing grant applications and sitting on school council to name a few examples.
This high level of community engagement was reflected in the attendance at the parents and friends AGM on Friday. There is another great year of events planned, reach out to the P&F to find out how you can get involved.
Soon we will be calling for volunteers to join our school council sub-committees. Below is a document outlining the sub-committees planned for 2025 and a brief outline of their focus. Sub-committees meet twice a Term. If you are interested in joining a sub-committee in 2025 or would like to find out more, please email me at adam.dunemann@education.vic.gov.au.
We understand that life is busy, so we want to provide volunteering opportunities that can adapt to different lifestyles. All these efforts help us provide a quality education for our students, but more than that it energises our staff to know we have a community that works alongside us.
Swimming Program overview
Our grade 1-4 students have enjoyed participating in our swimming program at Brunswick Baths this week. Students participate in five days of lessons, developing their swimming ability and increasing their knowledge of water safety. This week is one part of our approach to swimming and water safety education. In grade 5/6 students have the opportunity to participate in a water safety educational program at the Port Melbourne beach, working with surf lifesavers from Port Melbourne surf lifesaving club. The program runs similar to a 'nipper' program and aims to introduce children to lifesaving. The students will be involved in a variety of beach and water-based activities as well as learn the basics around lifesaving, CPR , and first aid. In Foundation students have water safety lessons at school with qualified instructors.
School documentation on compass
We are continually working to improve how we communicate with our community, and how we can ensure you have the information you need about your child's school life. This year we have activated feature of compass to assist this, the school documentation page. Navigate to the people icon at the top left, select school documentation and you will find information such as relevant school policies, forms and information on services we provide.
Lunch order provider procurement
Whilst we are keen to secure a lunch order option for families as soon as possible, it is imperative this provider provides healthy, high quality food for our students.
The procurement of a lunch order provider is not managed directly by the school, it is a process undertaken by school council. At our school council meeting last week, it was decided a working party will be formed to manage the procurement of a new lunch order provider.
If you are interested in joining this working party, please reach out directly to me at adam.dunemann@education.vic.gov.au. We are keen to canvas as many potential providers as possible, the more assistance we have the sooner we are likely to secure a provider. Your assistance would be greatly valued.
Also, if you are aware of any local cafes or food providers that may be interested, please contact me with their details.
Procurement processes such as these can take some time. We ask for your patience as we source a quality provider for our students.
Please reach out to me if you have any questions or suggestions.