Principal's Report

PREPARING FOR 2023

For schools, mid to late term 4 is the busiest period of the year as we attend to tasks associated with finishing off the year well, whilst planning for the following year.  Tasks associated with finishing off the year well includes:

• assessing student progress, 

• writing end of year reports, and following up with Parent Teacher Interviews

• running transition programs, 

• holding a grade 6 graduation ceremony, 

• publishing the school magazine, etc

Preparing well for the year to come includes:

• recruitment of staff and making sure new staff are supported to successfully transition into our school,

• developing budgets, 

• creating new class groupings, 

• sorting book lists, 

• developing an Annual Implementation Plan, 

• allocating staff roles, 

• school captain selections, 

• facilitating planning days for teams of staff that will be working together in 2023, 

• developing timetables and 

• preparing for a handover of children from the 2022 teacher to the 2023 teacher

For a large multi-campus school, staying on track with all the above at this time of year can be a challenge, but we’re doing pretty well at this stage.  This coming Monday we have our final School Council Meeting for 2022 and by then we should be in a position to explain what is in place for 2023.

Budgeting - Tomorrow our Finance Committee came together to further work on developing a budget to present to School Council.  This is always a challenge, as we struggle to make ends meet, but hopefully this will all be sorted and approved on Monday night.  As always, we’ll be endeavouring to develop budgets that maximise the use of available resources to achieve the best possible outcomes for our students.

Annual Implementation Plan (AIP)

At this time of year all schools are expected to reflect on progress with respect to their Annual Implementation Plan (AIP) and to start developing an AIP for the following year.  We’ve been chipping away at these tasks and will have a draft to present at School Council next week.  This plan identifies priorities for the coming year and includes both teaching & learning priorities and those relating to student wellbeing. 

School Captain Selections – Today we are interviewing prospective School Captains for 2023.  This is an enjoyable experience, and we are always impressed by the calibre of students that put themselves forward.  

Conducting interviews is also a great experience for our current school captains who love being on the other side of the table.  The school captain selection process is very thorough, with these interviews following student speeches and feedback from class and specialist teachers.  Our aim is to have decisions made and communicated early next week.

Class Groupings 

- On Monday the focus at our staff meeting was on developing class groupings for next year.  This work will continue over the coming few weeks.  

Thanks to parents for being very reasonable with placement requests, as this certainly increases the chances of us developing groupings that work for everyone (staff and students).  As always, we aim to have a nice balance of gender, personalities and achievement levels in each class and do our best to make sure every student has a close friend or 2.  

Students will get to meet their teacher and classmates for 2023 on December 16 (last Friday of this term).

ENERGY BREAKTHROUGH (EBT)

Last week I had the pleasure of joining the BPS EBT Team over 3 days in Maryborough.  The team consisted of 20 students, supported by Miss Richardson, Mr Arnold and Mr Rodgers.  The staff team did a power of work to make this happen and did an outstanding job. 

Our parents provided fantastic support as well, in particular Matt Reynolds and Jason Carter who were there throughout, transporting students, setting up & packing up camp and helping the pit crew.  It was also great to have a number of parents travel to Maryborough to watch some of the action too.

The kids did an amazing job.  The Pit crew remained focussed and did everything they could to organise the riders and keep the bikes on the track.  And the riders pushed themselves hard to make sure our teams were competitive, but also took care of the bikes and made sure they made it through to the end of the race.  Racing in EBT requires quite a bit of courage too, as the action is fast and furious.

EBT provides an amazing experience for the kids, so we’re pleased to have staff and parents willing to do what’s required to make this all possible.  Our intention is to continue with EBT and so will do it all again with a team of grade 6s this time next year.

Students involved with EBT will put together a page or 2 in next week’s newsletter, so look out for that.