From the Head of Junior School

Today, we celebrated our 27th Grandparents' and Special Friends' Day and ArtsFest. 

When it first started, ArtsFest (then the Arts Show) was a Junior School event with Junior School grandparents and special friends invited to spend the morning at our school. They visited the children's classes, visited the library, listened to the wonderful musical performances and, of course, visited the Art Show in the John E Higgs Hall.

For the last few years, ArtsFest has involved the whole school featuring works from students in Prep to VCE. While it is still our Junior School grandparents and special friends who visit today, we now have Senior School parents and members of the general community visiting ArtsFest. Unfortunately, due to the building works at the Hall, we haven’t been able to hold ArtsFest at the school. However, this has given us the opportunity to take the show into the community. Last year, we held ArtsFest at the Bendigo Town Hall. This year, thanks to the generosity of Dugal James, we have been able to hold ArtsFest in the historic Beehive Building. 

Parents, carers and the general public are invited to visit the Beehive Building over the weekend to have a look at this year’s ArtsFest. Congratulations to Mrs Nic James, Mrs Sharon Hocking and Mrs Leanne James for their efforts in guiding the Junior School students in the production of their work for the exhibition, and for spending days curating and producing another magnificent ArtsFest for the entire school community.

Seeking Assistance from Year Five and Six Parents

Over the past two weeks, our Year Five teachers and our leadership staff have been investigating reports that some of our Year Five and Six students are using language or discussing topics that are not appropriate. 

We are seeking your assistance in helping us to educate your children about the implications of such conversations while they are still young in the hope that, as they move into adolescence, they will be well prepared for developing mutually respectful relationships. Parents can supplement the work that is being done at school by having open conversations with their children. I have included some links to resources for parents as prompts for conversations.

• How to talk to your kids about misogyny in school (from the University of Melbourne)
• Respectful and disrespectful relationships: pre-teens and teenagers (from the Raising Children Network)
• How to talk to your kids about gendered violence, and seven ways to model good behaviour (from SBS)

Mr Don Thompson

Head of Junior School