Principal's Report
Year 6 Camp
After waiting patiently for two Years our students in Year 6 finally boarded the bus for their much-awaited school camp last Monday. I must admit I was extremely relieved to watch the students and staff finally get on the bus as I had feared a lockdown and/or isolation action could have occurred at any time and prevent them from this long-awaited Year 6 highlight.
The week at camp was an experience of a lifetime and something that the children will remember with fond memories always.
A camp does not occur without the dedication and support from our staff. They not only assumed the responsibilities of caring for 96 students 24 hours a day for 4 nights and 5 days but they also had to leave their families at home.
I would like to sincerely thank the Year 6 staff- Angus Ross, Claire Badley, Donna Appel and Nick Arnold. Nick was responsible for the management of this camp and he even managed to ensure the weather was perfect!
Our Year 6 teachers were supported by Brent Plowright, Doug Bray, Elysha Jardine, Jameel Marashli, Janine Nelson, Jen Baird, Silvi Levine, and Zac Taylor.
It would not be possible to run our school camping program without the support of additional staff who are willing to leave their families and support our students. When our students attend a camp we work on a 1:10 ratio at all times.
A camp would not happen without the support from everyone left back at school. The Art teachers accepted that their program would not operate for the week and both Arla and Nicole taught the classes of the teachers at camp. I thank them both for assisting the Year 6 team.
Our approach in closing a specialist program in order to staff a camp is to reduce the cost for parents but this also results in the remainder of the staff at school forgoing one of their planning sessions for the week. To enable our school camping program to occur it takes the commitment of everyone employed at our school. Thank you everyone.
A new addition to our communication with camp staff was to use Teams so that our staff could join in on our daily morning briefings. It was wonderful seeing the children at the camp site. We could see their tents and the children completing their morning chores which included washing breakfast dishes in a plastic dish - no dishwasher at camp and NO DEVICES for a whole week.
2022 Class Structure
Our total school enrolment for 2022 has decreased overall. Many families have departed the Bayside municipality and other families have accepted scholarships to move to another educational sector. Although our numbers have slightly declined, it is a recognition our exemplary education and student achievement levels, when other school canvass for our students.
We are determined to provide the best education for all of our students and as a result have limited our 2022 class sizes. Our students in Prep to Year 3 all have classes below 20 students and the class size average in Years 4-6 will be 23, based on our predicted numbers at this time. When we include the additional support that we will assign to specific year levels next year we will have a 1:19 ratio.
We are extremely mindful of the large amount of time our students have spent online this year and as a result we have decided to maintain our current class structure for 2022 with four grades at each year level.
Christmas Chocolate Raffle
Thank you for the support given to the Christmas Raffle, it was a huge success with 823 tickets purchased and $2533.00 raised.
The Winners were
Riley 3C
Nicholas 3B
Savannah 2D
2022 Prep Transition Morning
We had a very successful and lovely transition morning for our soon to be preps in 2022. The children were very excited, some even had on their school uniforms already.
The Prep teachers all thoroughly enjoyed the morning with the children and are looking forward to meeting their new grade on 8 December 9.30am - 10.45am for the next transition morning.
COVID Safe Practices at BNPS
At Beaumaris North Primary School we are continuing to incorporate additional practices to keep our school community as safe as possible. We have recently implemented an additional daily clean of all touch surfaces throughout the school day. The cost of this clean is met by school based funds which is made possible by the ongoing support of our families who support our voluntary contributions.
The areas of concern related to COVID 19 is likely to continue into 2022 especially in primary schools as the majority of our students are not yet vaccinated.
Curriculum Day
Monday 29 November is a Curriculum Day.
Students are not required at school, the teachers will be working on assessments and end of Year Reports.
Changes to management of cases and close contacts as determined by DET
The restrictions and changes that are occurring because of the Delta virus is ongoing, often the changes are communicated by the media hours before schools are notified. I understand that this causes confusion with families but schools cannot implement changes until we have been officially informed by DET. The most recent change now means that schools are responsible for contact tracing and not the health department.
Details pertaining to the most recent changes have been communicated to all families last week via Compass.
Hopefully these changes will now mean that we will no longer have to isolate classes for an extended period of time and that there will not need to be a return to remote learning.
The Operations Guide states that:
“Students who are required to isolate should be supported in the same way that students with an extended absence due to illness or injury are treated, i.e. with learning materials provided to support their continued learning. Schools are not expected to provide a full remote learning program.”
These new guidelines are hopefully a huge relief for all families.
Coming school activities include:
- Year 5 Camp
- Prep Transition
- Year 6-7 Transition
- Year 6 Beach Program
- Circus skills program
- Year 5 supportive Friends Program
After almost two years of ongoing disruptions we are now looking forward to a “COVID” normal school program. Your ongoing support and encouragement is greatly appreciated by every member of our school community as we have all had to manage an ever changing school life.
SHERRIL DUFFY
PRINCIPAL