Principal's Report
INTER-SCHOOL SPORT CONTINUES
It certainly has been a big year for inter-school sport at Buninyong Primary, and we’re not done yet.
Last week our boy’s tennis team headed to Colac to compete in the regional level competition. The weather conditions were tough, with strong winds, some hail and regular showers. The boys were not troubled by the conditions and finished up winning the event. This means they’re off to the state competition next Tuesday.
We wish the best of luck to our boy’s cricket team who compete at the regional level of competition in Ballarat. The team will be missing a few players due to a clash with EBT, but will still be competitive.
PREPARING FOR 2026
Term 4 is the busiest period of the year in schools, as we attend to tasks associated with finishing off the year well, whilst planning for the following year. Tasks associated with finishing off the year well includes:
- assessing student progress
- writing end of year reports, and following up with parent teacher interviews
- running transition programs
- holding a grade 6 graduation ceremony
- publishing the school magazine, etc
Preparing well for the year to come includes:
- recruitment of staff and making sure new staff are supported to successfully transition into our school
- developing budgets
- creating new class groupings
- sorting book lists
- developing an Annual Implementation Plan
- allocating staff roles
- school captain & scholarship program selections
- facilitating planning days for teams of staff that will be working together in 2026
- developing timetables and
- preparing for a handover of students from their 2025 teacher to their 2026 teacher
For a large multi-campus school, attending to all the above can be a challenge, but at this stage we’re on track to finish this year in good shape well placed to start 2026 strongly.
Budgeting – On Friday our Finance Committee will come together to further work on developing a budget to present to the School Council next Monday. This is always a challenge, as we struggle to make ends meet, but hopefully this will all be sorted and approved on Monday night. As always, we’ll be endeavouring to develop budgets that maximise the use of available resources to achieve the best possible outcomes for our students.
Annual Implementation Plan (AIP) - At this time of year all schools are expected to reflect on progress with respect to their Annual Implementation Plan (AIP) and to start developing an AIP for the following year. We’ve been chipping away at these tasks and will have a draft to present at School Council next week. This plan identifies priorities for the coming year and includes both teaching & learning priorities and those relating to student wellbeing.
School Captain Selections - Over the past couple of weeks grade 5 students have been writing letters to express their interest in school captain and other leadership roles for 2026. They have done a fabulous job, and the letters are both persuasive and make for an entertaining read.
In the coming weeks, interviews will be conducted for prospective School Captains for 2026. The school captain selection process is very thorough, with decisions based on student letters, the interviews and feedback from class and specialist teachers. Our aim is to have decisions made and communicated by the end of week 9.
Class Groupings - This week staff begin the task of developing class groupings for next year. This work will continue over the coming few weeks. Thanks to parents for being very reasonable with placement requests, as this certainly increases the chances of us developing groupings that work for everyone (staff and students). As always, we aim to have a nice balance of gender, personalities and achievement levels in each class and do our best to make sure every student has a close friend or 2. Students will get to meet their teacher and classmates for 2026 on Friday December 12.
ENERGY BREAKTHROUGH (EBT)
Good luck to our EBT Team, with the 2025 event scheduled for later this week. Bryan White and Barb Martin have done an excellent job preparing the students, which has included multiple before and after school practice sessions. The students are very excited and ready to go.
This event couldn’t happen without the support of parents and we’re grateful to have quite a few parents helping out in a range of ways.
This is an amazing experience for the students and something they won’t forget- well done to the team for making this possible and we wish them the best of luck.
We look forward to reporting on our exploits at EBT in next week’s newsletter.
SCOLARSHIP PROGRAM APPLICATIONS
A reminder that 2026 Scholarship Program Applications close next Friday, November 28th. These applications are open to all students who will be in years 4, 5 and 6 in 2026.
As previously mentioned, programs on offer are Art, Master Chef, Music, Photography and STEM.
GRANDPARENTS AND SPECIAL FRIENDS DAY
A reminder to everyone that we have our Grandparents and Special Friends Day on Friday November 28. This is always a big event and one of the highlights on the school calendar.
If your children have grandparents that can attend, please invite them along, but if not, they are welcome to invite anyone else that is special to them…that might even be you.
Our guests are invited to come along between 9:00am and 11:00am to visit classrooms and we will have people around to help visitors find the relevant classrooms. Our teachers will organise activities during this time that allow our grandparents and special friends to get involved.
At 11:00am our visitors will be invited to the BER for some morning tea and a chat. In the past we have had parents bring along a plate, resulting in an amazing spread for our grandparents to enjoy. We’d like to do the same again and invite all families to send something along. We also need a few adults to help organise and serve morning tea. Please let the office staff know if you are able to help. We’ll be looking for helpers between 10am and midday, but any help during that period would be appreciated.