the Nor'Wester

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.

Inquiry Forum 

On Tuesday 15th November at 6pm, we will be holding our final online community forum for the year, and this time our focus will be Inquiry at BNWPS. The way in which Inquiry is being explored  has evolved a lot over the past few years, and Inquiry is something that our students and teachers are very excited about, and very engaged in!

If you have any questions about Inquiry that you would like answered at the forum, please jot them down in this  Google Form. 

To attend the online forum on Tuesday 15th November at 6pm, please use this link 

As always the forum will be recorded for families to watch later if they are unable to attend on the night. 

Transition Inquiry

To keep up with the Inquiry theme, we want to remind families that we are embarking on a new Inquiry journey. We will be exploring and unpacking our school wide key understanding of; 

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 2023. 

One component of this Inquiry will be the change and transition sessions that will take place every Wednesday morning starting this Wednesday (9th November) for the first two sessions of the day. These sessions will involve students going into mixed groups that represent the cohort that they will be in next year. These groups are not the 2023 classes, and these teachers are not the teachers that students will have in 2023. The focus of these sessions is to apply the tools that are highlighted in the key understanding in a real -life ‘change’ situation. 

Just like with any other Inquiry focus that we explore at school, we are very keen for families to unpack some of the key ideas at home over the dinner table, while walking the dog, or on the drive to school in the morning. 

Some of the questions that you might like to discuss as a family might be; 

  • What have been some big or small change moments that we have experienced? (as individuals or as a family) 
  • What was challenging about these changes? 
  • What ‘tools’ did we use to get through these challenges? 
  • Did the change turn out (or end up) exactly as we had predicted at the start?

One of the biggest ideas that we will be unpacking as we inquire into the concept of transition and change is RESILIENCE. 

 

A great resource to help us understand why resilience is so important for children is the Beyond Blue ‘Building Resilience in Children’ page - It’s well worth a read, and you can find it here. One of the most informative quotes from the web page is in its introduction and definition of resilience; 

When we talk about resilience, we’re talking about a child’s ability to cope with ups and downs, and bounce back from the challenges they experience during childhood – for example moving home, changing schools, studying for an exam or dealing with the death of a loved one. Building resilience helps children not only to deal with current difficulties that are a part of everyday life, but also to develop the basic skills and habits that will help them deal with challenges later in life, during adolescence and adulthood.

Such an important concept for us to encourage and foster in our students and children, but also to notice and nurture in ourselves! 

Update to COVID Safe Practices

There have recently been changes to the school operations guide that now states schools are no longer required to communicate positive COVID cases to the community. Despite this update, we will continue to notify our community of any known positive cases within the school until the end of this year.

The number of positive cases within our school community has reduced over the second half of this year, but we feel that communicating known cases is an important element to our community keeping aware and safe.

5/ 6 Canberra Camp Forum Recording

The recording of the Canberra Camp information session is now available here for anyone who was unable to attend, or even any families who did attend, but might like a reminder of some of the details as the camp gets closer. 

By clicking this link you will be able to access a folder with the recording of our forum (approximately 25 minutes), a copy of the slides shown at the forum and a copy of the itinerary, which is subject to change.

Questions about devices were raised at the forum, which we did not completely answer. To answer these questions:

  • Students can bring a kindle or similar device to camp as long as it is not connected to the internet and does not record images. Students will remain responsible for this device throughout the camp.
  • Students cannot bring music for the bus ride - we are consulting with the company to see if we can play DVDs for entertainment
  • Wearable devices (such as watches) cannot be brought on camp