Principal's Message

Upcoming Events

The result of some valuable PFA meetings has been the finalisation of dates for events. If you would like to be involved in PFA, please let me know and I can add you to the email list. It is a great way to be able to help out when you cannot necessarily attend the meetings. Here's what coming up:

June 15 – Community Raffle @ The 1860 Hotel 

The first Saturday raffle that The 1860 Hotel in Romsey has run and we've got some families who are going to sell raffle tickets for us from 5pm - 7pm. So get on down there and help our school. The money from the raffle is being set aside for an exciting new play space for the children. 💛

June 21 – Sausage Sizzle Lunch (Gold Coin Donation)

Information will go out on Tuesday, June 18 about how children can participate in the lunch. This isn't a fundraiser we just want to hold a special lunch for our school. PFA will be cooking the BBQ on the day. 

June 28 – Whole School Celebration Day – Koopa’s Birthday 

Speaking of special lunches, on the last day of Term 2, we will have another pyjama day to celebrate Koopa's birthday. The day will start with a morning movie, followed by fun party games. We might even have a dance session with some disco tunes before lunch is served. The highlight will be the birthday cake, which we hope will surpass last year's excellence. There is no payment necessary for this day. We are celebrating an excellent term’s work and the love that Koopa brings to our community.

July 21 – Bunnings BBQ 

All the funds we raise will go towards helping to subsidise the costs of the Year 3 - 6 camp and paying for a special event for our P - 2 students while the older kids are away at camp. 

We need your help to make this happen! It was brilliant to see everyone come together for the working bee recently, and our PFA is hoping to count on you again. We’re looking for volunteers to help out in 2-hour shifts at the BBQ.

We have spots needing to be filled:

10am - 12pm (3 spots)

12pm - 2pm (3 spots)

Please let me know if you're able to help out on the day. 

August 2 – Whole School Athletics Day 

Just as the Olympics and Paralympics will be in full swing, the students of Bolinda will be participating in a whole school athletics day run by the PFA. While this day will be used to see which children we'll be sending off to the Athletics event in Bendigo on August 16, the main focus will be having fun. We're hoping for a clear day without any rain. 

Discovery Centre Incursion

This week the children had another free Discovery Centre incursion. Here are some of their thoughts from the engaging session: 

"It was super fun to see we started with a game online called Quick Draw and an AI had to guess our drawing. I think it was rigged though but it was fun. After that we played a guessing game with some objects in front of us, we had to guess what was in the boxes and the AI answered what it thought was in the box. We did some other guessing games after that but that was mostly it it was fun I would like to do it again and thank you Veronica if you're reading this I had fun." - Rosie

"Veronica explained a website named Quick Draw, we did a bit of that and Miss B and I did it together, I had a lot of fun on Quick Draw. We tried to outsmart the AI, it was easy, just do horrible drawings! After Quick Draw, we did a guessing game and saw what Chat GPT did for it. I would say it was close and so were we but still not quite. I was having a lot of fun and I'm sure everyone else did too." - Victoria

"On Tuesday, some people from the Discovery Centre kindly came to our school to teach us about AI. First, we went in partners and tried out a game called "Quick, Draw", in which you had to draw a randomised object given to us and an AI had to guess it. Then we tried tricking the AI by drawing different parts in an unclear order, so the AI would have more trouble guessing. After that, everyone got together to try to guess what was under a cardboard box using elated objects around it, and what different objects had in common. ChatGPT guessed too. Overall, the incursion was very fun and interesting, so thank you to Veronica for coming." - Fletcher

"On Tuesday 11th of June the Discovery Centre came to our school. When we got to the classroom, Veronica explained to us what we would be learning about. We learnt about A.I. and how that Artificial Intelligence can sometimes be wrong (I still think negative things about them). We learnt how to get across a maze quickly, we also tried to guess what the items were underneath the cardboard box. I felt good about the incursion, it was nice, but as I said before, I still don't like A.I." - Peter

"On Tuesday the Discovery Centre came to our school for an incursion, it went from class to class. It started with the middles, seniors then the juniors. When the seniors walked in Veronica greeted us and had us seated, we picked our partners for a fun game called Quick, Draw. We had to try to outsmart the AI, then we played another game, this was extremely fun." - Isabella

New Toilets Update

We have some exciting new updates regarding our toilet upgrade, which is currently in the process of being finalised. The project is presently out to tender, and we have received a number of drawings of the proposed toilet block. We're very excited about them – something I never thought I'd say!

At this point, I need to hold off on sharing the plans with the community, as they may need to change if the project cannot come in under the proposed costs. Below is an overhead view of where the toilets will be located. While it is unfortunate to lose some space, we see the value in having the toilet block so close to the classrooms and fully undercover.

Additionally, we are installing drinking taps just outside the block so that children will not miss much class time when they need to step out for a drink.

As soon as the project has a builder, I'll share the plans with the community.

Curriculum Day

Just a reminder that Monday, June 17 is a Curriculum Day where the teachers will be spending the day focusing on Assessment & Reporting.