Leadership at BBPS

100 Acts of Kindness

Well done to our Grade 5 students, who have shared their letters of thanks with members of the team at Sandringham Hospital.

Harry and Harriet "We wrote letter to say thanks to EVERYONE at the hospital, including people who are sometimes overlooked, like cleaners, orderlies, midwives, cooks and radiographers. We thanked them for working nightshifts, and public holidays. We know how important it is that our hospitals are available to treat patients who need help 24 hours a day. It was nice to be able to meet the staff from the hospital and ask them questions about what it is like to work there. For example, we learnt that the hospital is busier at night than during the day."

Many thanks to our Grade 4 families for supporting the grade food drive, aiming to collect 100 cans for charities across Melbourne who support the homeless and disadvantaged people in our community. If you would also like to donate, send any cans to the ¾ Hub. 

Alexander and Zep 4H "We are collecting food to give to people in need. We are collecting food and drinks, like large bottles of water or cans of things. We think this is important because some people have no money for food or maybe are homeless. So far we have collected lots of donations, but we could always do with more. "

Grade 2s were treated to a visit from our local police, sirens and all, who were presented with thank you cards and morning tea to take back to the station with them. Students were able to check out the inside of the police car. They had their running speed checked with the mobile speed cameras. Some students were even handcuffed! The police have since written back to the school to express their appreciation from everyone at the station.

River and Maxine "We wrote the police some cards and we gave them biscuits for morning tea. They help us by keeping our community safe and we wanted to say thank you. We got to go in the back of the police car where the arrested people get put and we got handcuffed. We got to feel how heavy their jackets are that they wear to protect themselves. It was fun to check out the police cars and talk to the police officers."

SRC

Term 3 and 4 sees a whole school focus on the school value of RESPECT.

Students in the SRC will be working closely with Mrs Ancrum to revisit our key value statements, and will facilitate a whole school friendship lunch to further explore what this value means to BBPS. 

In the meantime, keep an eye out for the SRC posters, encourage happy healthy habits and minds. These will be put up next week around the school after their work with The Resilience Project. 

Upstanders have been busy this week completing their 2025 project – creating an anthology of stories focussed on the theme of ‘Words are Muscles – Use Them to Lift’. Each of our Upstander network schools has written to a sub-topic related to this theme, with the support of a guest author. At BBPS, our theme has been ‘Friendship Online’.

Here is a sneak peak of a few of our stories.

Jake B

After the school bell rang, Thomas raced home because he knew it was going to rain later that day. But then Thomas got a notification, and it was about him! It was from some bullies; they sent it into the Year 6 group chat. Thomas turned the corner and… there they were, the bullies. Thomas was freaking out! So he ran back home and checked what the video the bullies sent was really about. Thomas watched the video, and it was about him in class doing something embarrassing. Before he knew it, he got a notification—not from the group chat, from the bullies. It said, “Imagine doing this in class haha.” Thomas was really sad and embarrassed. He just ignored it and hoped that it wouldn’t happen again.

 

The next day at school, everybody was laughing at Thomas, calling him names. He was really annoyed at the bullies. He just wished that the bullies would stop and just be nice. However, Thomas knew that was not going happen.

 

The next day, Thomas got another rude text from the group chat about him. Thomas was super sad and annoyed. He wanted to find a way to stop these messages, so he told the teacher about it and his parents. The next day, the teacher made an announcement and nobody cared, nobody listened, so Thomas was furious. He went up to the bully at school and said, “Hey, what is that for? Why did you make fun of me?” But the bully didn’t care, so Thomas went home and he checked his phone and, of course, there was another mean video about him. Thomas wouldn’t let this slide. He went and told his mum, blocked the number and took a screenshot of the messages and videos. The next day, his mum told the teacher about the videos and photos. The teacher spoke with the bully and the bully had consequences. The bully stayed away from Thomas. Thomas felt relieved. Thomas never got bullied ever again. Thomas felt really brave about the steps he took to make himself feel safe online.

Xander B

Little Timmy is a six-year-old turtle who plays Roblox twenty-four seven, or at least it feels like that much. He is obsessed with a game on Roblox called Grow Garden.

Little Timmy has heard about cyberbullying in the news, but he has never paid much attention to it, mainly because his dad said not to worry about what’s happening on the news. Apparently, the news just tells you about the most tragic moments that have happened recently.

 

One day, Little Timmy went to school and his friend was getting sent mean and inappropriate messages from a random user on WhatsApp. When Little Timmy got home, he opened his iPad and started playing Roblox again. He looked at the corner of his screen and saw something that was impossible for Little Timmy’s brain to process. What he saw was his face on someone else’s body, on the game chat! He thought, “How on Earth is this possible? It must be someone else that looks a lot like me and who used to live in the same house as me!”

 

As Little Timmy scrolled down from the picture of his face, he saw that people were posting mean comments about him over the game chat. One of the users called him a “Turtlenerd🐢,” and Little Timmy started to feel embarrassed, confused, and like he was stuck in a hole of darkness. Player_31594 on Roblox had hacked Little Timmy’s camera on his iPad and had taken a picture without him knowing. Little Timmy couldn’t believe what he was seeing as his image was going viral on the internet! Little Timmy scrolled until he found Player_31594’s profile picture and posted a reply: “You're so ugly, Player_31594!”

 

Quicker than you can say “Little Timmy,” there were mean comments coming at him all at once. Little Timmy decided to put down his iPad, take a break, and sit down to relax, but he couldn’t escape with his iPad constantly dinging from the messages and comments coming through. Little Timmy tried to tell himself, “It’s only social media, it's not the real world.” But he could not stop thinking about what might happen next.

 

After a terrible night of worrying, Little Timmy woke up still not knowing why this had happened. “Why, why, why did I have to experience this? I only wanted to play my favourite game in peace. I didn’t want to fight with anyone, and now I am in a deeper hole.” He thought to himself, “I’m not going to let this slide,” and so he hopped back onto his iPad, tried to ignore the awful messages, took multiple screenshots of the mean things that the random people had said, and showed his dad. His dad said, “How on Mars is this possible? What is happening?”

“I know,” said Little Timmy.

“How long has this been happening, Timmy?”

“For about ten hours.”

“Well, that’s a lot of mean messages in ten hours.”

With his dad’s help, Little Timmy blocked Player_31594, and they got in the car to go and speak to the police for advice. His dad also told the school so that if the messages were from a student, the school would also be able to help.

Little Timmy felt really brave about getting help to make him feel safe online.

This project will be launched at Beaumaris Library on October 15th  at 5:30pm - Details to come, all Grade 5 Upstanders are invited to attend. We are thrilled that copies of our anthologies will be available to borrow in all Bayside Council libraries, our own school libraries, and even the State Library. Well done to our 2025 team for spreading such important messages about being an Upstander.

This week Grade 5/6 have engaged in a cyber safety program, supporting student understanding further about safety and respectful relationships online.

Waste Warriors need your help – please send in any 10 cent recyclable plastic drink bottles, cans or glass bottles to help us raise money to help protect the penguins who live in St Kilda. We chose to fundraise for Earthcare St Kilda to help protect the penguins after researching local environmental issues.