Welcome to our very first digital newsletter!

I hope that you find this easy to read, enjoy the colourful photos and the important information included. This newsletter will be published each fortnight with a link posted on our website and sent directly to parents via Facebook and our Sentral messaging app.

School Council Elections

At the close of nominations, last Friday February 15, nominations for School Council membership this year equalled vacancies meaning that all nominees are considered duly elected and an election will not be needed.

Congratulations to the following people who are commencing two year terms:

Parent Members: Aaron Lee, Andrew Lanigan, Matthew Richardson and Troy Hovey.

DET Members: Garry Fowler and Malcolm Rosendale.

In addition to the aforementioned people the 2019 School Council includes the following who are in the second year of their two year term:

Parent Members: Matthew Genever, Kate Hession and Patrick Weeding

DET Members: Cath Buckland and Annie Rountree.

The first meeting of the new 2019 School Council will be held on Wednesday night March 20th at 8:00PM where office-bearers will be elected and sub-committees established.

Last Wednesday night we held the final meeting of the 2018 School Council and farewelled and thanked those School Counciillors who have served our school well for many years. Bruce Lee, Samantha Wahrenberger, Mace Rushgrove, David Downs and John Hays all ended their time on our School Council. Bruce has served the school admirably leading the School Council as President for the past five years. His enthusiastic support for the school and his capacity to see the ‘big picture’ and always keep the best interests of the long term future of the school will be greatly missed. Sam has similarly been a great supporter and tireless worker, not only on School Council but in many other roles around the school. She is the epitome of the saying, “If you want something done ask a busy person to do it”! Mace Rushgrove has been our School Council treasurer for many years and his advice and support has been invaluable. David and John have been on School Council for shorter periods of time but their contribution was none-the-less valued and appreciated as they brought their experience and perspective to School Council discussions in positive ways.

Building Project Update

It has been great to see the progress on our new school building. It is really coming together now with all the roof on, the framing in place and bricks and cladding ready to go on in the next few days. Here are a few recent photos of the project.

Parking, Traffic Management & Active Travel

This is a very common and regular section of our newsletter as traffic around our school is such a challenge. Because of these traffic challenges, Drop-off and Pick-up times are the times when members of our community, including the children, are at most risk of accident. It is critical that all parents and drivers take all precautions and care to reduce the risks to children.

I will write about this regularly as the consequences of an accident could be devastating. Please consider using active travel such as parking away from our school and letting your children walk the last couple of blocks to school or arriving around 8:45 in the morning or after 3:35 to avoid the rush times. Protecting our children must be everyone’s priority.

Welcome Miss Aiken

We have welcomed a new teacher to Bimbadeen this year. Miss Alannah Aiken is teaching Year 1/2 and is at the start of her career. Alannah was one of the top graduates from Deakin University last year and came highly recommended by her lecturers and the schools where she had done her pre-service teaching. She certainly impressed the selection panel when she was interviewed last year. I spoke to the children in her class to get their opinion. Lots of words came like ‘nice’, ‘very kind’, ‘funny’ and ‘pretty’, which are all indicators that they like their new teacher. As principal however I particularly liked hearing the children say comments such as, “She knows that I’m good at writing”, “She encourages us when we’re stuck”, “Miss Aiken always comes to help” and “She shows the school values”.

We are very happy to have her on our team. Thank you to everyone who has made her feel so welcome. If you see her around the school please say hello.

Meet the Teacher

Thank you to the over one hundred families who came along to the ‘Meet the Teacher Night’ on Monday evening this week. It was great for teachers to meet some of the parents they hadn’t previously met. We believe that the relationship and partnership between parents and teachers is critical to children’s learning success. If you were unable to make it on Monday evening and have not yet met your child’s teacher we strongly encourage you to drop in before or after school to meet your child’s teacher to commence building the relationship with them. Knowing your child’s teacher and having a positive relationship with them is one of the best things you can do to help your child enjoy success at school.

Back to School Kit

Thank you to the many families who have already returned the forms from the Back to School kit that was sent home last week. If you have not yet gone through the kit and/or returned the relevant forms to school could you please do this asap as it is most important.

Sentral App

One of the most valuable pieces of information in the Back-To-School kit is the information about the newly released Sentral App that will send messages directly to parents phones without the need of going to the Parent Portal to receive messages. There are instructions about how to load and log onto the app however I understand that Sentral may have made this process even simpler. If you have any problems with this please don’t hesitate to speak to our Sentral co-ordinator Melinda Ruscitti. (The best way is to email her at ruscitti.melinda.m@edumail.vic.gov.au) We would love every parent to have this app on their phones as it will make staying in touch with the school so much easier.

Final-Leigh:

“The world is changed by your example not by your opinion”

(Paula Coelho)

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