School News 

Enrolling your child in Foundation (Prep) for 2024

Enrolling your child in Foundation (Prep) for 2024

The Department of Education has released a new statewide timeline for enrolling in Foundation (Prep) for the 2024 school year.  If you have a child starting primary school in 2024. Make sure to submit your enrolment application by Friday 28 July 2023.

If you are enrolling the sibling of a student at our school for Foundation in 2024, and both children will be attending our school at the same time, your child is prioritised for a place at our school as per the department’s Placement Policy. 

It is important to follow the statewide timeline to enrol your child in Foundation. Enrolling your child in line with the timelines allows us to plan our classrooms, staffing and transition activities and ensures your child has the best start to school.

Application forms and Residential Address check paperwork requirements are attached below.

Please provide a copy of your child's birth certificate, their immunisation statement from Medicare (AIR) and VISA/citizenship where applicable.

Upcoming changes to NAPLAN reporting 

Ahead of NAPLAN results for students being released from Monday 17 July 2023, I’m writing to inform you of some changes to this year’s reporting. These are changes being introduced nationally by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). 

NAPLAN will continue to measure student achievement in numeracy, reading, writing, spelling, and grammar and punctuation but the results will now be presented in 4 proficiency levels: 

These are: 

• exceeding 
• strong 
• developing
• needs additional support. 

This change will give schools, parents and carers clearer information that details student achievement against new proficiency levels. Students’ NAPLAN reports will continue to show how they are tracking against their peers and provide an indication of their skill levels against national averages and where we would expect them to be in order to get the most out of schooling. This provides valuable information to teachers about how we can continue to support your child. 

Each set of NAPLAN results is an important milestone but it’s also important that students know that one result does not define them – these results are about making sure every student gets the support they need so they can continue to get the best from their learning. 

When we provide you with your results, you will also receive information about what the new proficiency levels mean. 

As ever, you’re welcome to speak to Mr Russell Watson, Acting Principal, or your child’s teacher with any questions about these changes. 

Parent Volunteer Induction Course

The Parent Volunteer Induction Course is for all parents and carers who would like to be involved in activities at BPS.  This includes classroom helpers, incursion, excursion helpers, specialist classes and working in any space around our school with our students.

We strongly encourage parents /carers to attend the course being offered in Term 3, particularly our prep parents.

We have arranged for 2 different opportunities Tuesday 18th July at 2:30pm and again on Friday 21st July at 9:00am. We have made available the 2 different times and days so parents will find it easy to attend. It will run for approximately 40mins.

An important aspect we will be sharing is the Child Safe Standards for Volunteers.

The dates have been set on the calendar.  

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Please register your attendance using this link. 

Parent Payments

We have received payments from 49% of our families which indicates a slow increase in responses. Thank you everyone for your attention to these payments. 

We politely request that parents support our Parent Payments where possible so that we can continue to provide the broadest possible range of resources for your child and our entire school. Whilst we appreciate the funds received from the Department which provide support for the core Victorian Curriculum, Parent Payments enable your child's learning to be further enriched via our strong local programs. 

School Council appreciates your attention to these payments. Payment options are Qkr, BPAY and Credit Card. We wish to reassure you that personal payment arrangements can be accommodated by contacting Cath Lamb, Business Manager.

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