Message from the Principal 

Walking around the school, spending time in classrooms and talking with our students over the past few weeks has continually reinforced to me so many of the strengths of our school. These are due to the commitment and positive intentions of our staff, the energy and sense of adventure our students have around learning and the partnership we are building with you – our parents and carers. As you read our newsletter this week you will see lots of evidence to back these thoughts up.

YEAR 4’s VISIT TO KINDER

A real strength of our school and one that we are keen to keep building on is our links with our local community. Last week and this week, this was evidenced by our Year 4 classes visiting Greenhills Pre-School. This is an annual event for our school and helps to build our partnership with our local Kinders. During the visit our students were able to share our school’s love of reading with the kinder kids which was an experience enjoyed by all. This is also part of the way our students develop their skills and leadership ready to become a big buddy when they are in Years 5 & 6.

IMPROVING OUR GROUNDS & ENVIRONMENT

An often-underestimated strength of our school is the space, environment and resources our students are provided with. Looking after our buildings & grounds is a real challenge, especially during a long and protracted building program but know that we are always trying to improve our facilities for our whole school community.

Recent improvements have included the retaining wall outside the Prep and Year 1 classrooms and a new garden to match, refreshed mulch under all our playgrounds and last weekend we installed a new drink tap unit that also contains three bottle filling stations. 

You will notice from the photo that we have included our new school banner artwork designed by Emma Bamblett and the word Baan is the Woi Wurrung word for water. 

MEET WITH THE PRINCIPAL TEAM

Communication is a growing strength of our school. This is because we are continually trying to keep you informed in the most up to date and timely way about the things that are happening across our school. On that note, keep the date free: Wednesday 15th November at 7.30pm. This will be our Term 4 Mid-Term Meet with the Principal Team. The session will be held via Webex with the link sent out shortly. Some of the topics that we will cover include:

• School structure & class sizes model for 2024
• Planning for 2024
• Opportunity to discuss the Parent Opinion Survey 2023 and provide feedback into 2024.

Hope to see you there!

CONTINUOUS REPORTING

Over the next two weeks, another sample of your child’s work will be available via Seesaw. We know from our Parent Survey that one of things you are looking for is more communication about your child’s progress. Our Continuous Reporting strategy is about providing more frequent snapshots into the learning your child does at school and as importantly, the next steps in this journey. The GREAT thing about Seesaw is that you can also be part of the process through two-way communication. Just like our teachers provide feedback via a comment, you can also provide feedback to your child. This is something we would really love you to do and is more powerful than you can imagine!

THANK-YOU REFERENDUM BBQ HELPERS

Last but certainly not least when it comes to knowing our school strengths, we have our simply awesome parent and career helpers. Every day we have so many examples of how parent and carers are continuing to assist across our school. On this note, a very big shout out to our volunteers who helped to run our Referendum Day BBQ here at the school last Saturday. We raised over $1,200 which is a great result for our school. This money will be used to purchase more C Pens. These assistive technology devices are being trialled by some of our students to assist with their reading and more readily access learning resources in the classroom. 

A special shout out to Josh and Mel Lucas who organised all the BBQ supplies and made sure the day was so successful. 

Cheers,

James Penson

Principal