Welcome Prep 2026

Welcome to Prep!

Welcome to the new school year in Prep! We are delighted to have you and your child as part of our school community. This year promises to be an exciting journey filled with learning, discovery, and growth.

The Prep team is committed to providing a nurturing and engaging environment that supports your child's educational journey. We look forward to partnering with you to ensure a successful and rewarding experience for your little one.

Victorian Lesson Plans (VLP) 

VLP are high quality classroom resources designed to support schools to deliver the Victorian Curriculum 2.0 that was introduced at the start of 2025. They ensure consistency between classes of the same year level, allowing teaching teams to create support materials and extension activities tailored to our own student cohort.

Phonics

Phonics is a mandatory program for students from Prep to Year 2 (optional for Years 3 & 4) that teaches the correlation between sounds and letter combinations. Students in Prep to Year 2 undertake 25-minutes of phonics each day and are asked to read decodable books to develop reading fluency. Decodables are not rich stories with exciting plot lines. They are repetitive and predictable and are designed to be read many times so that students gain experience with the rhythm of sentences and to help with comprehension. Rich texts are also used during English lessons to develop analytical thinking and extended English skills. These two types of texts can be confused, but they have vastly different purposes.

Explicit Mathematics Program

 Explicit Mathematics Program will be delivered to students in Prep to Year 2 in 2026. It will move up with our students as they move through the school years. This is a highly ambitious mathematics program designed to support foundational learning as well as challenge our most able students. 

Wellbeing & Inclusion Programs

Cyber Safety

We want to reassure all families that strong internet safety measures are in place at BNPS to protect students while they are online at school. All Victorian schools filter by the Department of Education security platforms.

Our systems use secure filters, monitoring tools, and restricted access settings to ensure students can only view age‑appropriate and educational content. Staff also actively supervise online activity and teach students safe and responsible digital behaviours as part of our curriculum.

Student wellbeing—both online and offline—remains a top priority, and we are committed to providing a safe, secure, and supportive digital learning environment for every child.

If you have any questions about our online safety practices, we’re always happy to discuss them further.

Please note that the Prep students do not have access to the internet and only very limited time allotted to ipads with strict supervision.

Internet Code of Conduct Parent/Student Agreements

During the enrolment process, parents and students are required to consider and complete ‘The Internet Code of Conduct Parent/Student Agreements’ authorisation forms. Students who break these rules will be subject to appropriate action by the school which may include loss of Internet access for some time.

Social Networking

Most social networking and chat/instant messaging sites and applications have a legal requirement for users to be 16 years of age. This means that NO BNPS student should be using Facebook, Kik Messenger, WhatsApp, Ask.fm, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, MySpace, Bebo, Instagram or the multitude of other similar sites/apps. Sites such as Ask.fm and Tumblr allow users to post anonymous questions or comments and due to the anonymity, have been used for cyber bullying, harassment and sexual exploitation.

We ask that ALL families review their home practices in relation to the use of portable devices, particularly Apple devices. Our teachers in the senior school are constantly receiving information from parents about students using the ‘imessage’ facility on their Apple devices. As many students’ devices are connected through their parents email addresses, which we suggest should be the case; parents are also receiving message threads, often at inappropriate hours of the night. The latest research suggests that students’ sleep can be negatively affected using these devices before bed.

It is recommended that devices be turned off an hour before bed, and devices kept and used in communal family areas only. This ensures that children get a good night’s sleep and also prevents students from using messaging facilities at inappropriate times.

Respectful Relationships

The Respectful Relationships program supports schools and early childhood settings to promote and model respect, positive attitudes and behaviours. It teaches our children how to build healthy relationships, resilience and confidence.

Clear Folder

You child has started to bring home their Clear Folder each night. The Clear Folder is a useful communication tool, allowing notes to be sent home or for notes to be sent to the teacher/school. We ask that the Clear Folders are brought to school each day and placed in the classroom tub each morning.

Home Reading

Prep- Home Reading

The Prep Home Reading Program will begin with parents reading a rich literacy text to their child each night. These books will be selected by the students and sent home in the Green Reading Bag each night.

As students develop their understanding of letters and sounds at school, they will start bringing home decodable texts. These books are specifically designed to support the development of phonological decoding skills. Decodable texts reinforce letter-sound relationships and encourage students to focus on decoding words rather than guessing, in line with the science of reading.

We hope that home reading becomes an enjoyable and meaningful time shared with your child. Our goal is for every student to experience success and develop a love of reading. Additionally, the class teacher will regularly read with your child to further support their skill development.

More information about the Prep Home Reading Program will be sent home via Compass in the coming weeks.

Specialist Programs

A timetable of your child's Specialist times has been posted on Compass, please ensure you have printed a copy and placed it in a visible area.  Please support your child and ensure they have the appropriate items on the correct day.

Special Dates

Term 1

Meet & Greet - Wednesday 4, Thursday 5, Wednesday 11, Thursday 12 February

School Photos - Monday 2 March

Labour Day - Monday 9 March

School Fete - Saturday 28 March

Term 1 concludes - Thursday 2 April @ 2.30pm

Term 2

Term 2 commences - Monday 20 April

Parent Teacher Interviews - TBC

Kings Birthday - Friday 8 May

Semester Report - June

Term 3

Term 3 commences - Monday 13 July

Student Led Conferences - TBC

Prep Grandparents Day -  TBC

Prep Cubby Day - TBC

Term 3 concludes - Friday 18 September @ 2.30pm

Term 4

Term 4 commences - Monday 5 October

Prep Swimming - Monday 19 - Thursday 29 October

Melbourne Cup Day - Tuesday 3 November

Drama Toolbox Incursion - Thursday 10 December

Prep Aquarium Excursion -  TBC

Semester Report – December

Term 4 concludes - Friday 18 December 1.30pm

Compass

We also ask that you keep informed regularly check the Compass News Feed and action requests as they are posted throughout the year.

Ongoing feedback will also be provided throughout the year via Compass Learning Tasks.

Contacting Your Teachers

We understand that you may have questions to ask of the teacher, however the mornings are set aside for planning, preparation and a daily staff meeting. If you have any questions, please pop a note into the reading/multi-purpose bag or you can send an email (marked to the attention of your child’s teacher) to: beaumaris.north.ps@education.vic.gov.au

Informal discussions may be arranged upon request at any time throughout the year to discuss specific issues however please be assured that we will contact you should we have any concerns.

Finally...

Don’t forget to check out our A-Z Parent Guide for anything else you need to know about BNPS! This (along with loads of other information!) can be accessed on our comprehensive website.

We encourage you to get involved by discussing your child’s school day, offering to assist classroom programs and attending our school events - it’s going to be a wonderful year!

Kind regards

The Prep Team

Jenna Horler, Sue Evins & Tanya Gibbon

Beaumaris North Primary School is an International Baccalaureate (IB) World School authorised to teach the IB Primary Years Programme (PYP) and provides the framework for implementing the requirements of the Victorian Curriculum. 

The IB Primary Years Programme is an innovative international programme of teaching and learning that focuses on the development of the whole child and fosters a positive attitude to learning. The PYP strives towards developing internationally minded students who demonstrate the attributes of the IB Learner Profile. Accordingly, at BNPS we aim to educate inquiring, knowledgeable, and caring students, who are encouraged to ask challenging questions, critically reflect, and take responsible action.