Dear Parents and Carers of the BEPS community,

We have had an exciting two weeks of Learning, Creating and Inspiring at Burwood East Primary School. Students across Foundation to Year 6 have been exploring imaginative writing, including historical narratives, fairytales and poetry. The students have impressed us with their creative ideas, vivid and descriptive language, and their ability to experiment with the writing structure to engage their audience. We hope you were able to see some examples of your child’s writing when visiting the classrooms during Education Week and celebrate their ideas and stories.

John Monash Science School – Little Scientist

Last week, John Monash Science School hosted a Student Science Exhibition, showcasing a diverse range of scientific and mathematical topics and inquiry learning. Our ‘Little Scientist’ groups from Year 4 and Year 5 impressed the crowd with their confidence and clarity in presenting their hypotheses, observations and results, as well as reflections on what they learnt. The student investigations explored real-world problems, such as animal adaptations, physics of flight, the pH of household goods, cells and anatomy, and robotics and engineering. Their work exemplified the scientific method in action and highlighted how learning can extend beyond the classroom.

Our partnership with John Monash Science School has engaged and inspired our students to be curious and innovative. We thank our JMSS Year 10 student mentors for providing guidance and support. We extend our congratulations to all participating students, Georgios, Janelle, Malek, Evelyn, Brandon, Shezreh, Aiden and Sienna. We also extend our gratitude to the teachers who guided and supported them, Daniel, Luke and Lorraine.

Attitudes to School Survey (Years 4-6)

Burwood East Primary School values student voice as a key component to supporting us in improving student engagement, wellbeing and quality instruction. The AToSS is an annual student survey offered by the Department of Education and Training to assist our school in gaining an understanding of students' perceptions and experiences of school. Students will be asked about their thoughts and feelings in relation to their school, their learning, peer relationships, bullying and life in general. Students from Years 4 to 6 at our school will participate in the survey. Your child will complete the survey online during school hours using an online survey tool.

Your child will be provided with a unique login to complete the survey. This year the Attitudes to School survey will be conducted at our school over the next two weeks. The survey takes around 20-45 minutes to complete and occurs during your child's class time. The survey results will be reported back to the school in an aggregate form throughout the survey period. All survey data that is made available in reports are for groups of students only, so that no individual student can be identified. This data is invaluable in providing student feedback which enables us to continue to develop our approaches across the school in learning, wellbeing and student health. Further information has been provided to parents of children in Years 4 – 6 via Compass.

Student reports

Teachers are currently completing student assessments and writing Semester 1 reports. Students' reports will be released via Compass on Friday 4th of July. Based on the guidelines set by the Department of Education and the introduction of the Victorian Curriculum 2.0, a revised version of student reports will include:

a description of the areas of the Victorian Curriculum F-10 taught.
a teacher judgement, which is a score assigned against the achievement standard.
an indication of progress since the curriculum area was last reported on.
a five-point scale.

A further change to our school reporting is how we now report on the Mathematics Curriculum 2.0. On your child's previous report, the teacher reported against the 3 strands of the achievement standard for Mathematics (Number and Algebra, Measurement and Geometry, and Statistics and Probability). Under the Mathematics 2.0 curriculum, your child’s teacher will report against the achievement standard as a whole, providing a single, aggregated score.

As the achievement standards reported on have changed, the first time you receive a report under the Mathematics 2.0 curriculum, it will only show achievement and not progress. For all reports after this, progress will be shown against the single achievement standard.

The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority made these changes to help teachers plan their teaching and learning programs in Mathematics, giving them more flexibility to support students to link ideas within Mathematics and also with other curriculum areas.

In addition to our Semester 1 reports, we will be hosting conferences in Term 3. Parents/carers will be provided the opportunity to discuss their child’s future learning goals with teachers in a 3-way conference. More information will be shared via Compass towards the end of this term.

Take care,

Teri and Edwina

Assistant Principals

Principal's Award