From the Principal Team

Natalie Shanahan, Sam Fleming, Claire Johnston

Welcome to another newsletter for Term 1. It's again been a busy time with lots happening here at Banyule Primary over the past fortnight. This week we welcomed our Preps to a full-time program, having not attending Wednesdays for February. They continue to impress us with their transition into Primary School world, however a funny interaction this week when a child exclaimed "Hi Mrs Flemahan!!" shows we've still got a little work to do!!

School Review

Our school review has also officially begun since our last newsletter. We have now completed the observational phase of the process, having had the review panel visit our school across several days. This has involved observing lessons in all year levels, interviews with teaching teams and discussions with student and parent focus groups.

While we now await our report, we are extremely pleased to share that initial feedback from the panel has been overwhelmingly positive, praising everything they have seen and heard during their time with us. It is incredibly validating to know that our combined efforts and hard work have been recognised by the panel and reassuring to know that the strategic decisions in our approach to teaching and learning are having the impact and outcomes we intended.

Playground and School Yard Works

While our major playground project continues slowly in the hands of Departmental decision-makers and construction compliance-checkers, we creep closer to the time our basketball court makeover gets underway, with work beginning later in the term. This project is being undertaken by us as a school (as opposed to the Department-managed major building project) with some funding-help from the North-East Link. The majority of this work will be done during the Easter break and we can't wait to unveil yet another new amazing space to our school community in Term 2.

We are also pleased to announce another project that we are undertaking in our yard. Again, separate to the building project, we have just given the go-ahead for landscapers to begin work rejuvenating the embankment between our BER building and Banyule Road. The work will involve retaining walls, climbing rocks, garden beds and pathways. Having previously been unsuccessful in a grant application for this area we have now prioritised this worn out area as a school-funded project. Our Community Engagement Committee would like to support this project by fundraising for soft landscaping such as plants and garden mulch, for which we are grateful.

You can see this area in its current form below, as well as concept drawings provided to our landscapers for reference.

We are looking forward to the time when our physical environment will finally be matching the outstanding learning environment we have created.

Have a great long weekend,

Natalie, Sam and Claire

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