Principal's Report 

Cultural Diversity & Harmony Week Celebrations

This week, students and staff at Bimbadeen participated in classroom activities and discussions to help celebrate, share, and embrace cultural diversity, as part of Victoria's largest multicultural celebration, Cultural Diversity Week. 

The 2023 Cultural Diversity Week theme is Our Past. Our Future: Celebrating and reflecting on the contributions of Victoria's multicultural communities. 

The theme invites Victorians of all ages and backgrounds to reflect on multicultural Victoria's long history and celebrate its bright future. Our students wore a touch of orange on Wednesday to help celebrate Harmony Week, and many students brought along items of cultural significance that they shared with their peers during classroom celebrations.

Easter Raffle

A highlight each year for our children is the annual Junior School Council Easter Raffle. Each family is asked to donate an Easter egg or Easter treat of some sort that will be put with other items and packaged for the raffle prizes. 

Each year we have around 30 prizes, so excitement levels are very high at the final school assembly before Easter when we announce the winners. 

Thank you for your support in sending along Easter treats for the raffle and for buying raffle tickets to support our school. We hope that your family is a recipient of a prize!

School Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS)

SWPBS is a framework we implement across the school to support our student wellbeing and engagement. You may have heard your child/ren talk about value tokens by now and possibly wondering where this stems from. SWPBS is what underpins the evidence and research as to why we have value tokens. Our students this year have made a flying start to earning their tokens and we have been able to fill one whole value cylinder already!

The SWPBS Parent Handbook, included in this week’s newsletter, provides you with more detail in regard to our school values, what they mean, how we teach them and most importantly all the ways students demonstrate the values and earn tokens in the different areas around our school. 

We appreciate your support and the discussions you have with your child/ren about the values and how they are going earning them. SWPBS is not just for the students, it is for our staff and whole school community! 

If you ever want to know more about SWPBS, please see your classroom teacher, Marty (Inclusion Leader and SWPBS Leader), Adele, Sabrina, or any staff member around our school. 

We also have our SWPBS display in our office with our value cylinders so please come and check it out!

Vandalism – we need your help!

Unfortunately, we have experienced increasing vandalism around our school grounds over the past month. The entry gate adjacent to the Specialist Building and the Hall has been damaged multiple times, with increasing severity. Last month, our goal posts were damaged. Over the past weekend, one of our flag poles was pushed over, and the other two significantly damaged, while several signposts were damaged or removed on surrounding streets. We seek your assistance in keeping an eye out when visiting or passing by the school and reporting any suspicious or malicious behaviour to the Mooroolbark Police on 9725 9999.

CCTV At Our School

Bimbadeen Heights PS has decided to use a closed-circuit television (CCTV) system at our school.

Our school has an obligation to ensure the school environment is safe and secure, and fulfil our duty of care to students, staff, and visitors. The CCTV system will assist our school to fulfil these obligations and to prevent and manage other inappropriate behaviour on school grounds. CCTV will also provide enhanced capability to protect our school’s assets against vandalism and theft.

We will follow Department of Education and Training policy requirements for the design, installation, management, and use of the CCTV systems. This policy is available at: CCTV in Schools – Installation and Management.

We will also place a CCTV Privacy Notice on our school website with more information about our school’s use of CCTV before it is rolled out in Term 2. 

If you have any questions or concerns at this stage, please contact Adele Gregson or Sabrina George on 9726 9989.

Holiday Works

During the Easter holiday break, there will be works continuing around the school grounds as part of our accessible building works. 

Please ensure you take care if you are visiting the grounds during this time.

School Council Update

The first meeting of the new School Council was held last week. The meeting included the election of office bearers, and the following members were duly elected to specific roles 

on our council: 

• President – Kate Hession
• Vice President – Cyndi Grant
• Treasurer – Andrew Lanigan 
• Minutes Secretary – Bree King. 

The membership of your School Council this year is as follows:

• Vacant (until March 2024)

We were pleased with the interest from our parent/carer community in nominating for council. We are also very pleased with the calibre of the people on our School Council who are all great supporters of our school, and we look forward to working with them as we continue our journey with a focus on improving student learning outcomes.

School Council Sub-committees

Our School Council sub-committees provide an excellent opportunity for our parents/carers to contribute to our school community. Members of our community, including parents/carers, do not need to be on School Council to be a member of a sub-committee, and we warmly invite you to consider joining one or more committees to help lead the work of our council this year. 

In 2023, we have five sub-committees of School Council:

• Finance – oversee and monitor the school’s finances and budgets.
• Fundraising – help raise funds to support the school’s annual goals and key projects.
• Buildings and Grounds – focus on school maintenance and improvement to buildings and grounds.
• Student Learning – develop school policies, contribute to the school’s curriculum plans, and help prepare for our next school review (to be held in 2025).
• Student Wellbeing – support the school’s work around student wellbeing, and our wellbeing programs of Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships and School Wide Positive Behaviour Support.

Each sub-committee meets once a month (approximately 6-8 times per year), in the week prior to each School Council meeting. Meetings are usually held in the early evening and to ensure accessibility and inclusion, all sub-committee meetings include a Webex option for members of our school community to attend meetings virtually, when they are unable to attend in person. 

If you are interested in joining one or more of our sub-committees for this year, please contact the relevant convenor via phone or email:

• Finance – Andrew Lanigan, coordinated by Adele Gates and Adele Gregson, please contact Adele Gates on 9726 9989 or via email to bimbadeen.heights.ps@education.vic.gov.au
• Fundraising – Bree King, please contact Bree on 9726 9989 or via email to Bree.King@education.vic.gov.au 
• Buildings and Grounds – Sabrina George, please contact Sabrina on 9726 9989 or via email to Sabrina.George@education.vic.gov.au
• Student Learning – Andrew Curnow, coordinated by Michelle Franks, please contact Michelle on 9726 9989 or via email to Michelle.Franks@education.vic.gov.au
• Student Wellbeing – Kate Rogers, coordinated by Marty Gill, please contact Marty on 9726 9989 or via email to Angad.Marty.Gill@education.vic.gov.au

Change of parent or student details

Student Resource Funding is determined by parent codes taken from the self-nominated category on student enrolment forms. This means that funds from the Government are taken from the Parent Occupations and Education levels. We would like to remind families to ensure you inform the school of any changes to employment, or education level in a timely manner. As always, any information provided is confidential. In the case of an emergency, we will attempt to contact parents/carers, and if there is no response, then we move to the emergency contacts. It is important that the office has the most current and correct contact details for any parent/carer and correct emergency contact details.

Attendance matters

In accordance with the Education and Training Reform Act 2006 (Vic), schooling is compulsory for children and young people aged from 6 to 17 years unless an exemption has been granted. Parents/carers must enrol a child of compulsory school age at a registered school and always ensure the child attends school when the school is open for instruction. Students are expected to attend the school in which they are enrolled, during normal school hours every day of each term, unless there is an approved exemption from school attendance or attendance and enrolment for the student, or the student is registered for home-schooling and has only a partial enrolment in a school for activities. 

Schools must advise parents/carers of unexplained absences, on the same day, as soon as practicable. We use Sentral attendance to record this at Bimbadeen Heights Primary School.

Child Safe Standards

Our School Council Student Learning Sub-Committee regularly review and update our school policies that fall under the umbrella of the Child Safe Standards. In 2023, we will be discussing and reviewing the Child Safe Standards at each meeting, with the aim to continue to improve how we address each standard and improve the structures and processes we have in place to help keep our students safe from harm.

Over the coming Term, we will be sharing an overview of each of the Child Safe Standards in the newsletter to help build community awareness of the standards and to seek feedback around how the standards are addressed at Bimbadeen. 

A vital component of reviewing and updating school policies is parent/carer involvement and feedback. Whilst there are several avenues for this, the most effective way is to attend a Student Learning Sub-Committee meeting. The next meeting is scheduled for Monday 8 May at 5pm, in the staffroom at school. If you would like to join the Student Learning Subcommittee or attend our next meeting, please contact Michelle Franks on 9726 9989 or Michelle.Franks@education.vic.gov.au   

Future Student Learning Subcommittee meetings for this year are:

• Tuesday 13 June 2023
• Monday 7 August 2023
• Monday 4 September 2023
• Monday 13 November 2023.

Parking, Traffic Management & Active Travel

Please continue to be ultra-cautious and safe around our school at drop-off and pick-up times. Also remember to be courteous and respectful. We have continued to receive reports from neighbours and members of our school community who report dangerous driving and illegal parking. The Traffic Control Unit was seen outside our school this week, along with parking inspectors from the Shire of Yarra Ranges. 

Please remember, if you want to avoid traffic congestion in the mornings and afternoons, active travel is a great option. Walk with your children, get them to walk with friends, or park a few blocks away from the school and walk the rest of the way to school. The children will be exercised, socialised and much more ready to learn when they get to school, and you won’t have to deal with potential traffic infringement notices, or other hazards related to trying to drop your child off at the front gate.

2024 Enrolments Open at the Beginning of Term 2

Mrs Gregson, Mrs George and Mr Gill have been busily providing personalised school tours for interested families looking to enrol their child at Bimbadeen in 2024. Prospective families can book a school tour through the office on 9726 9989 or via email to Bimbadeen.heights.ps@education.vic.gov.au 

With a new state-wide enrolment timeline this year, we will be accepting enrolments for Foundation for 2024, and any other year level, from the beginning of next term. Further information about choosing a school and enrolling your child is available at https://www.vic.gov.au/how-choose-school-and-enrol 

Enrolment information will be available at the office from Term 2.

Designated neighbourhood schools and school zones 

Visit findmyschool.vic.gov.au to find your designated neighbourhood school (referred to as your local school) and other nearby government schools. All government primary, secondary and specialist schools are on the Find my School website. The designated neighbourhood school is generally the school within closest proximity to the student’s permanent residential address. Parents/carers with children living outside a school’s zone still have the choice to request enrolment at their preferred government school. If the school has sufficient capacity, the enrolment may be accepted. 

Schools manage enrolments using the Placement Policy. The policy includes the ‘priority order of placement’, which tells schools how to prioritise applications when they have limited places available.

The priority order of placement is:

1. students for whom the school is the designated neighbourhood school
2. students with a sibling at the same permanent address who are attending the school at the same time
3. where the Regional Director has restricted the enrolment, students who reside nearest the school
4. students seeking enrolment on specific curriculum grounds
5. all other students in order of closeness of their home to the school.

In exceptional circumstances, a student may be enrolled on compassionate grounds. Applications on compassionate grounds are considered on a case-by-case basis where a student may be unable to enrol in their local school. If your circumstances are challenging and your local school is not suitable, you should talk to the principal or a Community Liaison Officer in the regional office.

ANZAC Service

Our annual ANZAC service will be held on Monday 24 April, the first day of next term, at 2:30pm. The service will be held on the netball court in front of our Gallipoli mural, weather permitting. We love to have parents/carers and other visitors attend the ceremony. On this day each year, many children also like to bring along medals or photos of relatives who have been service people. 

Teachers will give their students the opportunity to show these cherished items to classmates and talk about their significance. It is always pleasing to see how Bimbadeen students show great respect and honour the past in this way each year by participating in our school and other local ANZAC services. Keep a look out for more information about our ANZAC Ceremony in our next newsletter and via Sentral.

Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge

The Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge is now open and Bimbadeen Heights PS is excited to be participating. The PRC application offers a range of exciting features including:

• access to a library catalogue (including book images and blurbs)
• a modern user-friendly interface
• rewarding students with badges as challenge milestones are achieved
• the option for students to mark books as a favourite, give them a star rating or complete a book review

The Challenge is open to all Victorian children from birth to Year 10 in recognition of the importance of reading for literacy development. It is not a competition; but a personal challenge for children to read a set number of books by 8 September 2023. Children from Prep to Year 2 are encouraged to read or ‘experience’ 30 books with their parents and teachers. Children from Year 3 to Year 10 are challenged to read 15 books. All children who meet the Challenge will receive a certificate of achievement signed by the Victorian Premier and former Premiers.

To read the Premier’s letter to parents, view the booklist and for more information about the Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge, visit: https://www.vic.gov.au/premiers-reading-challenge If you have any specific questions about the Premier’s Reading challenge at Bimbadeen, please contact Emily Russell on 9726 9989 or via email to Emily.Russell@education.vic.gov.au

World Sleep Day - Is your child getting enough sleep?

On Friday 17th March it was World Sleep Day. Our latest DET newsletter provided some great information about the importance of sleep that might be of interest to you: 

While we know sleep is essential for good health, research shows that many children and young people are not getting enough sleep on school nights. This can affect thinking, concentration, memory, reaction times and mood.

Research shows about 12% of primary school-aged children, a quarter of 12- to 15-year-olds and half of 16- to 17-year-olds don’t get enough sleep on school nights. The recommended amount of time to sleep for primary school-aged children is 9 to 11 hours. For teenagers, it’s 8 to 10 hours.

Signs that your child is not getting enough sleep can include:

• low mood and irritability during social interactions
• reluctance or arguing about getting off devices and going to bed
• falling asleep during the day
• difficulties waking up for school and sleeping in late on weekends to catch up
• changes to communicating or interacting at home.
• You can help your child to improve their sleep by:
• establishing a regular sleep pattern and consistent bedtime routine
• supporting them to avoid using electronic devices such as smartphones before going to bed and in bed
• encouraging your child to exercise and spend time outside in daylight, steering clear of vigorous activity in the hour before sleep
• encouraging them to wind down and relax before going to bed.

If your child is still having trouble sleeping, has persistent problems with low mood, excessive daytime sleepiness, restlessness in bed, severe snoring or wakening unrefreshed, despite getting adequate length sleep, they should see a doctor.

For more information on sleep health, you can refer to: 

• Sleep tips for children and Facts about sleep for parents and school staff, from the Sleep Health Foundation
• Why sleep is so important, from the Kids Helpline’s
• Sleep explained, from the Better Health Channel.

End of Term Arrangements

Thursday 6 April is the final day of Term 1. A final assembly will be held at 1:45pm in the hall, with students being dismissed at 2:30pm. Please make appropriate arrangements for your children to be collected at 2:30pm on this day. 

TheirCare will be running an afterschool care program on Thursday 6 April, beginning at 2:30pm. They also have a comprehensive holiday program planned for the school holiday break. Please contact Theircare directly for bookings. Contact information is available on our website at https://www.bimbadeenheightsps.vic.edu.au/before-and-after-care/

We hope you have a wonderful weekend. Feel free to give us a call or pop in for a chat with either of us, Mr Gill, or any other member of our Leadership team should you wish to discuss anything. Our doors are always open!

Kind regards, 

Adele Gregson and Sabrina George