Message From Bev and Kim 

Its hard to believe that it is the end of week 3, term 3 based on the term we have had so far! We are thrilled to have our children back, and to be able to dig deeper into our learning face to face.

We giggled at this reflection about learning from home, by parent/journalist Jacqueline Maley (Sunday Age) – we could relate, as we are sure you can too:

“Home schooling while working is a raucous joke that splits the day into atoms equivalent to your child’s attention span. It pulverises concentration. It robs you of quiet. It is adorable and infuriating. It is very hard to combine with any other activity.” 

In other words, it can seem, impossible! And yet, WE DID IT.

In the BBPS Life section of our newsletter this week, we celebrate the outstanding work produced and uploaded from home. You are all heroes in our eyes!

Writer's Recognition

Flynn’s story (from Lockdown 2020) has been read by Tim Minchin on the Storykids podcast streaming on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.  

Check out one of our superstar writers - our budding author Flynn Plumley now in Year 5 being recognised for his creativity whilst in year 4 during lockdown. Click here

Baking Brownies

Check out our BBPS Master Chefs in action in the staffroom.

Please access our 5.0 PARENT SURVEY HERE as an opportunity to provide feedback on our Learning from Home program this time around. With each lockdown, our understanding and capabilities as practitioners shifts and grows, and you will have noticed the ongoing adjustments that we made / continue to make as we align feedback from yourselves and our students with our own growing knowledge of how students best learn online. While we hope that a 6.0 does not take place, your ongoing feedback is invaluable in affirming and adding to our program. 

Some updates on school events, following the latest restrictions:

Walk-a-thon Money – thank you so much to those who have returned their fundraising money. Please do so this week, Friday is the final chance. We will announce our total money raised (it’s phenomenal so far!) and the winning Pizza Party class in our next newsletter.

Awesome August begins next week! – 

This August, Brighton Beach Primary will be embarking on an exciting new challenge! Together with Hampton Primary School and Beaumaris North Primary school, we will be tracking how many kilometres we can cover over the course of the month of August! 

Why???  Well read on;

• Data submitted by the children each week will be fed into a central pool which will then be churned out as sets of statistics which can be transformed into a number of charts and graphs. This presents a real-life learning opportunity for the students to apply skills in maths & enquiry, not to mention other disciplines by interpreting the results week on week, predicting future data all by contributing to the ‘story behind the numbers’ themselves. Which year level is winning? Teachers vs students? School vs school? How did a rainy weekend of weather impact the numbers etc
• Health & Wellbeing – Awesome August presents a unique opportunity to focus on the positive impact of physical activity on mental and physical well being.
• Students can be sponsored along the way to raise funds not only for our school, but 15% of ALL funds raised will also be donated to the Children’s Cancer Foundation. For BBPS this aspect is optional because we have come off the back of our Walk-a-thon.

How???

• Throughout each week, from August 1st, students and families are encouraged to keep a track of how many kilometres you have covered whether walking, running, cycling, playing a soccer match that week. Total those up each week and submit to the school through a Google Form link which will be provided. Everything counts, sport matches and training, walks to school, weekend bike rides, skate-boarding, swimming etc!
• The ‘Awesome August team’, will then be turning those numbers into fantastic charts and a report distributed to families every week, plotting the progress of each sub team around Australia, pitching year levels against each other and other charts to really get the excitement building throughout the school….something like this;

***Stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks! ***

DREAMERS UPDATE

Dad’s Football Game – in light of public event restrictions, our Dad’s Footy match (originally Sat 7th August) is currently postponed. We thank Pat Malone and the organising team for their ongoing enthusiasm as plans have had to shift. Watch this space for a new date!

Grade 5/6 Movie Night – Thursday 12th August – our hope is that this 5pm viewing will still be able to go ahead. We are currently confirming venue details to ensure we are in line with density limits. Watch this space – it will happen at some point!

Excursions – excursions can go ahead, in line with venue restrictions. Please be aware that most venues are required to use electronic record keeping to support contact tracing. Parents/carers/guardians are advised that, when required, the school will be providing excursion venues with contact details for students. The phone number on school file for the student will be provided as the nominated contact number. Venues will be collecting student names and contact phone numbers for a legitimate purpose and are subject to Victorian privacy laws so will handle the information securely and only retain it for the required 28-day period.

Assemblies – currently cancelled for this restriction period.

Camps – planning for school camps will continue to go ahead. Our ability to conduct upcoming school camps will be guided by current DET Guidelines which outline detailed processes for camps. Please continue to complete the payment process, and know that should a camp be cancelled we have refund processes in place.