A Message from 

Hannah & Keir

We would like to acknowledge and honour the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation as the traditional custodians of the land on which our school stands. We pay our respects to all First Nations elders, past present, and emerging.

Transition Inquiry and Step Up Session - 

As you would have read in previous newsletters, BNWPS is moving from our Social Design Inquiry to our Transitions Inquiry. Our school wide focus for this Inquiry is; 

‘I have grown and I am ready for change. I can use tools to build my resilience, personal and social skills and self-efficacy to make a positive transition into 2024.’

Classes will be inquiring into this understanding in a variety of ways throughout the rest of the term. One big way that we explore this understanding is through the ‘Step-Up’ sessions that are beginning on Tuesday next week. These sessions will run on Tuesdays or Wednesdays for four weeks in a row, and each session has a different focus. Our focus next week will be ‘Hello New Spaces!’ During these sessions, students will spend time engaging with new spaces, new staff and a new peer group. As Deb has outlined in her previous explanations of these sessions; they are not the rooms your child will be in or the teacher they will have, or the peers they will be in a class with in 2024. Instead, these sessions are a moment to experience transition and practice the resilience, personal and social skills we talk about in the school wide key understanding. 

Planning Week - 

This week is our planning week. This means that we do not run our normal specialist timetable, and, instead, classes will have all of their specialists on one day so that teams of teachers can meet together to plan for the next cycle of teaching and learning. In this case, teachers will be planning for engagement with the ‘Transitions’ inquiry. Because planning days are a change of normal weekly routine, it is often good to chat at home about the upcoming differences and how your child can self-regulate throughout the change. Examples of supportive strategies can be to make a visual schedule or discuss subjects, to highlight the parts of the week that will stay the same or to bring small and portable fidget toys on the planning day.

Planning days will be as follows; 

Tuesday 24th October - Seniors

Wednesday 25th October - Juniors

Thursday 26th October - Middles 

Friday 27th October - Foundation 

Aths

We would like to celebrate five BNWPS students: Anthony, Lucy, Saskia, Thomas and Viola each of whom qualified for District Athletics on Wednesday 11th October. These students each made us exceptionally proud of their efforts, dedication and results - it is a real achievement to make it to this stage.

Thomas and Viola came first and second in their respective events and have qualified for the next rounds - State Championships! Best of luck for that next challenge!

Pie Pie 

We are sad to share the news that our beloved neighbourhood cat (Pie Pie) passed away on 10th October. Pie Pie was known and loved by most of our students and many of our parents and carers - though we know she gave more than a few parents and carers a fright as she darted across the road at pick up or drop off time!

Pie Pie enjoyed the privileged life of a free-roaming animal near a primary school - her days were filled with snoozing in the sunshine, endless pats and lunchbox crumbs and she was very much loved by her home-family as well as her school-family.

We are sorry to say goodbye to Pie Pie, but so glad that so many people had the opportunity to enjoy giving and receiving the love of a pet. Teachers have already shared this news with their classes, with some people choosing to make a card to help them say goodbye to Pie Pie.

Philosophy Kids 

Over the past few weeks, we have both been spending our Sundays completing a Philosophy for Children Implementation course. We are very excited about the many opportunities we can see for Philosophy to be woven into our evolving approach to Inquiry. 

In the past week, we have each worked with small groups of students to discuss and (try to!) define the concept of Kindness. We looked at various scenarios - both pictures and words and chatted about whether or not they were demonstrations of kindness, not kindness or if they were somewhere in the middle!

Some of the students from Unit NF who were involved in the discussion defined kindness as; 

• helping people in need; let somebody that looks lonely join in with you and if somebody is hurt you can help them
• A fine balance of being kind to others and to you 
• Helping others when they are left out, sad, frustrated, hurt and lonely. 

And in the words of one of our senior students; With Kindness, its both intentions and results that matter. 

Maybe your family could chat about the question ‘What is Kindnes?’ over dinner or on the drive to school sometime in the next week.