BBPSLife

Ellen José Art Awards

Brighton Beach Students Recognised in the Ellen José Student Reconciliation Art Awards

On Saturday 23 May 2026, Brighton Beach Primary School students Alfie Thomson (Grade 3) and Frankie Higginson (Grade 6) were selected as finalists in the prestigious Ellen José Student Reconciliation Art Awards.

Ellen José was a Torres Strait Islander artist, photographer and activist who was passionate about reconciliation and the empowerment of young people through the arts. Following her passing in 2017, her family established the Ellen José Memorial Foundation in 2018 to continue her important legacy. Ellen’s vision was to promote reconciliation and encourage young artists to express their understanding of First Nations and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ culture and history.

The Ellen José Student Reconciliation Art Awards began in 2018 and are open to Bayside primary and secondary school students. The awards aim to raise awareness and understanding of reconciliation through art and writing. This year, students were invited to interpret the theme, “What Reconciliation means through their eyes”, through the design of a sports jersey artwork.

The awards ceremony, held at Sandringham City Council, was a very special occasion and included a Flag Raising Ceremony and a traditional Bunurong smoking ceremony. Traditional Owners used native foliage including Manna Gum, Wattle and Cherry Ballart to create cleansing smoke, symbolising healing, welcome and protection.

This year saw the largest number of entries to date, with 257 submissions from 17 primary and secondary schools. From these entries, only 21 finalists were shortlisted, with all finalist artworks now proudly displayed within Sandringham City Council.

As finalists, Alfie and Frankie were presented with certificates and prize money by Ellen José’s partner, Dr Joseph Toscano, and her son Josh. We were incredibly proud of both Brighton Beach students for being selected as finalists, and especially excited when Frankie was awarded second prize for her outstanding artwork, receiving $150 in prize money.

Congratulations to all Brighton Beach students from Prep to Grade 6 who participated and created such thoughtful, creative and inspiring artworks. We are extremely proud of the way our students explored and expressed the important message of reconciliation through art.

Below: Georgia Hellier (BBPS Visual Arts Teacher) being thanked at the flag raising ceremony. 

Production

Production rehearsals are well underway at BBPS. We can't wait for you all to see how talented our performers are!

The Grade 6 band perform at ‘Young Creators Market’ in Sandringham

Were you there? The Grade 6 Band branched out and performed in public - finally the world at large got a glimpse of their extraordinary talent. 

School Pride

Mrs May took these pics of students at BBPS caring for the school grounds. They certainly have made a difference to the yard by sweeping up the autumn leaves. Thank you for your pride in our school. 

Around the school

Prep

Skylah, Jemima, Carl - What is something that you know now that you didn't when you started Prep?

Jemima: I used to not write but now I know I write good letters, spelling out the sounds and I think about how to hold the pencil “pinch it, flip it, don’t forget to grip it, rest it on your tallest finger, let the others go to sleep”.

Skylah: My drawings have got better, I am better at drawing people, I put lots of detail in my drawings, now I colour carefully and in the lines.

Carl: My letters are very tiny. I am good at reading and making big numbers. 

Grades 1 and 2

Jack, Frankie, Annabelle – a report about Grade 1 Maths

We’ve been learning about plus and take away. And we learnt about Capacity – measuring liquid. We measured a rock and pillow to see how much it can hold. Sometimes we get harder questions to challenge us – that’s my favourite thing about Maths. Ms B helps us in lots of ways. For Daily 5 for Maths we sit at our desks, we are asked lots of different questions, some times Ms B gives us really hard ones, and some times she gives us a big clue. We have to draw pictures to show our thinking, write number sentences on our white boards, or do a thumbs up or down if we think the answer is right or not. 

Grades 3 and 4 - What have you been learning in Maths?

Ava, Mia: In Grade 3, we have finished our unit about fractions. We’ve had to cut shapes into equal parts, shaded parts, we learnt the words numerator and denominator. We are now learning about measurement - length. 

Billy: In Grade 4, we’ve been doing time. We’ve been learning about minutes, reading analogue clocks, and working out how much time has passed. I feel great now, compared to when I started learning it because now I find it way more easier to read analogue clocks. 

Grades 5 and 6

Grade 5s have started looking at data and graphing - "Today we discovered tha tmost people in Grade 5 like AFL sport. Now we are turning the information into a column graph" Mira

Grade 6s have been learning about decimals.

"A good challenge has been needing to solve worded decimal problems" Aydin

"Adding the thousandths decimal place has been a good challenge" Lucas