Principal's Report

WELCOME BACK

Welcome back to everyone and we hope you had a nice break.  It was lucky that we got to enjoy a few nice days in the second week, but still envious of those who managed to escape somewhere warm for the break.

It was great to finish last term with our Celebration of Learning Evening.  As always, we had an enormous crowd in attendance and thanks to everyone for coming along and showing an interest in what your children are doing at school.  A big thankyou to Tracey and her team who did an excellent job providing dinner and other refreshments on the night.  Then it was nice on the last day to have our Footy Colours day, combined with a Mpatso fundraiser and staff v students' game of dodgeball.

There’s always a lot happening in term 4 and plenty for the kids to look forward to, which includes:

• The Pre-Schooler Program in week 1 to week 4.
• Swimming programs for the grade four and grade six students.
• Grade five and six students (week two) and grade three and grade four (week 9) camps.
• Grade five and six Sovereign Hill Experience (week two and week three)
• Grade one late stay (25 Oct) and grade two sleepover (this Thursday)
• EBT (week 7)
• Grandparents and Special Friends Day (29 Nov)
• Scotsburn end of year concert and whole school sleepover (12 Dec)
• Orientation Day (10 Dec)
• Parent Teacher Interviews (9 and 11 Dec)
• Grade 6 Graduation (17 Dec)

Attached is a calendar of events for term four. 

Kinder to Primary School Transition

We’re excited to have our Pre-Schooler Program start this week and expect to have a number of excited 4 and 5 year old children join us for sessions on Wednesday and Friday.  No doubt our grade six Transition Team members will also be excited, as they get to help out with these sessions.

Planning for 2025

We are now in the thick of planning for next year.  Obviously, this is dependent on student numbers, so we urge anyone who has a prep student to enrol for 2025 to get an enrolment form completed and submitted as soon as possible.

Vacation Projects

We had a lot going on over the break in terms of maintenance and improvement projects.  These included:

• New Carpet for the Junior Quad - New carpet has been laid in the grade 2 classrooms and looks fantastic…massive improvement. 
• An Upgrade for the Senior Boys Toilet Block – This toilet block was due for some attention.  Water damaged studs and internal walls have now been replaced and the walls and ceiling have been painted.  This week new vinyl will be added.
• New Sheds - A new EBT shed is up at Buninyong and a new sustainability shed has been constructed at Scotsburn.  These spaces will greatly enhance our capacity to run the EBT program for students at both campuses and sustainability projects at the Scotsburn campus. Both sheds have been funded by the Buninyong Community Bank and Buninyong and Mt Helen Lions Club. We appreciate their support and will acknowledge their contribution at an official opening of each shed at some stage in the near future.
• Painting – A range of small jobs have been completed, resulting in the relevant spaces looking refreshed.
• Line Marking - Line marking has been added to the new basketball court at the Buninyong campus, which we know the kids will enjoy.  All existing slow zone signage has been repainted, and some new slow zone signage has been added at both campuses.

It’s always good to get jobs, such as those listed above, completed while there are no students on site and it’s good to keep chipping away and making sure all spaces in the school (both campuses) are well maintained.  And it was great to see that the City of Ballarat proceeded with promised drainage works in Cornish St.  These works are designed to address the flooding we have experienced in the BER building after sudden downpours of rain.  Fingers crossed that these improvements to the drainage system work as intended.