Principal's Report
We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners of the land on which we work, learn and play. We pay respect to Wurundjeri elders past, present and emerging and extend our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and families of Bimbadeen Heights Primary School.
This week we welcomed our new Foundation teacher, Miss Tess Mathews, to the Bimbadeen community. Miss Mathews comes to Bimbadeen from Knox Park PS and is replacing Jacqui Duncan who bid farewell to our community at the end of Term 1. The students of 0TM (formerly 0JD) were so excited to meet their new teacher, and Miss Mathews has settled right in with her new class and our fabulous Foundation teaching team.
We would like to express a huge thank you to Mrs Catherine Buckland for pausing her retirement and taking on the role of classroom teacher in 0TM, prior to Miss Mathew’s arrival. Mrs Buckland has done an incredible job supporting our students to continue their
learning and develop a strong sense of belonging and connection.
We appreciate Mrs Buckland’s ongoing contributions to the Bimbadeen community, even after her retirement, and would like to express a heartfelt thanks for her work throughout this term.
There was excitement in the air when our new guitar teacher, Matt Edwards, started lessons last week. Our instrumental music program is a much-loved aspect of the Bimbadeen community, and we are so excited that lessons are back up and running after the impact of COVID-19 on school operations over the past two years.
Matt is studying a Bachelor of Education (Primary) at Deakin University, and his enthusiasm for music & teaching students is contagious. He is passionate about the positive impact of music on cognitive development, and believes music provides a productive outlet to assist a student’s everyday mental health and helps get kids off their screens! Matt’s ultimate goal is to support the development of students’ intrinsic motivation to play the guitar. Interested students can sign-up for individual or group lessons, with expression of interest forms available at the office. Students of all experience levels welcome!
On Wednesday 11 May, I met with Regina Atkinson from Methven’s The Professionals in Mooroolbark who has donated $500 to our school from a recent sale in our area. Methven’s The Professionals are a long-time supporter of our school and regularly make donations when they sell properties of people connected to the Bimbadeen community. We appreciate your ongoing support, Regina and Methven’s The Professionals - Mooroolbark, and thank you for your contributions to our school.
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.
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 will not have to deal with potential traffic infringement notices, or other hazards related to trying to drop your child off at the front gate.
Reporting to parents/carers about how each child’s learning is progressing underpins the work of teachers and parents/carers in supporting our students to achieve their full potential. Our teachers are busily collating information about their students’ learning and are preparing to implement formal assessments in the coming weeks that will assist with report writing. Our mid-year reports are made available to parents on the Sentral Parent Portal.
They will look different to our reports in 2020 as we will be returning to the same format as our reports pre-2020. Mid-year reports will be available in PDF form for parents/carers to read online or print out a hard copy for themselves.
Reports will be available for parents/carers on Sentral on Wednesday 22nd June at 4pm. For parents/carers to access these reports they will need to be registered for and be able to access the Sentral Parent Portal.
If you have not yet registered or are having difficulties accessing the portal, please contact our Sentral co-ordinator Melinda Ruscitti on Melinda.Ruscitti@education.vic.gov.au or contact Shelley and Emma in the office for support. Parent-Teacher interviews will be held in Term 3, with further information being provided to families at a later date.
We warmly invite our Bimbadeen families and prospective families along to the school for Open Night on Wednesday 25th May. Classrooms will be open from 5:30pm to 7pm, with fun maths activities to complete in classrooms across the school. Please see the Open Night flyer in this newsletter and the advertisement board at the front of the school for further information. We would love to see all Bimbadeen families attend our Open Night. We hope to see you there!
Enrolments are open for Foundation in 2023. We encourage prospective parents to complete an online tour via the school website where you can learn about our wonderful school and meet our staff and students. Prospective families can also attend an in-person tour where we can show you our wonderful school and answer any questions you might have or discuss your child’s individual needs.
Parents/carers of 2023 Foundation students are encouraged to submit their enrolment form as soon as possible but no later than the state-wide Foundation enrolment due date of 12 August 2022. We will be notifying parents/carers of their child’s Foundation placement at Bimbadeen Heights PS by 26 August 2022.
Completed enrolment forms can be returned to the school:
Jody Daff, a Visiting Primary School Nurse from the Department of Education and Training, will be attending the school to conduct Foundation student health screening assessments and to see children in grades 1-6 as requested by teachers and parents and carers (only with parent or carer consent).
The purpose of the visit is to provide all Victorian school entry aged children with the opportunity to have a health screening assessment, to link children, families, and schools to services available in the community, and to provide information and advice about children’s health and wellbeing.
Parents and carers are invited to contact the Visiting Primary School Nurse if there are any issues they wish to discuss; Jody’s contact number is 0412 081 846.
Parents and carers of students in grades 1-6, who request for their child to undertake a health screening assessment by the Visiting Primary School Nurse, must complete a Primary School Nursing Program Student Referral Form which is available at the school office. The completed Primary School Nursing Program Student Referral Form must be returned to the school office for collection by the Visiting School Nurse.
Our 2022 School Review has reached its conclusion and was an overwhelming positive experience. It was a thorough process that was led by John Haines in collaboration with our School Review Team and Challenge Partners. We are pleased to share with you a summation of the School Review including highlights and opportunities, as well as the new goals which are part of our next School Strategic Plan for the period 2022-2025.
Highlights
The following highlights were drawn from reviewing key documentation, analysing school data (both academic and wellbeing), observations in the classroom, student and staff focus group discussions that took place as part of the school review process:
Classroom Highlights:
Student Focus Group Highlights:
Overall Highlights:
Opportunities Moving Forward
The opportunities below were derived from the collation of data outcomes which were both academic and wellbeing focused, staff and student focus group and classroom observations that took place as part of the school review process:
2022-2025 School Strategic Plan (SSP) Goals – Four Year Goals
The SSP is a document that outlines our direction for the next four years. The goals are developed as the last stage of the School Review once all data has been collated. The goals are broken down into core elements of the new Framework for Improving Student Outcomes (FISO 2.0). Our new strategic plan covers fours of these elements: Teaching and Learning, Assessment, Engagement, and Support and Resources. The Key Improvement Strategies (KIS) assist with breaking down the goals, and inform our Annual Implementation Plan (AIP) for each year of the life of the SSP. A new 2022 AIP is in development that reflects the 2022-2025 SSP. An overview of our school’s new SSP is below:
Core Elements: Teaching and Learning & Assessment
Goal: Maximise the learning growth of every student and build the capability of students as learners.
Key improvement Strategies:
Core Element: Engagement
Goal: Empower students to be active agents in their learning.
Key Improvement Strategies:
1. Focused professional learning for teachers on building the capability of students to be active participants in their learning journey, through self-assessment and reflection.
2. Build student agency in their learning by utilising goal setting and feedback
Core Element: Support and Resources
Goal: Strengthen the engagement and wellbeing of all students.
Key Improvement Strategy:
The May meeting of School Council was held on Wednesday 18 May. School Councils play an important role in Victorian government schools. The Bimbadeen Heights PS School Council is committed to sharing our work with the Bimbadeen community. To strengthen communication between council and our parents/carers, each newsletter, we share information about School Council, including general information about the functions and operations of council and the specific work of our own council at Bimbadeen.
Last year we shared information about the key functions of School Councils. These functions are prescribed in the Education and Training Reform Act and the Education and Training Reform Regulations and provide a clear picture about what school council does.
The key functions of school council are:
If you have any matters associated with the functions of school council that you would like discussed at our next meeting, please reach out to a member of School Council. Our membership includes:
We look forward to continuing our school improvement work with School Council with a focus on improving student learning outcomes.
Bimbadeen Heights Primary School’s culture encourages staff, students, parents and the school community to raise, discuss and scrutinise child safety concerns. This makes it more difficult for abuse to occur and remain hidden.
All child safety documents, including the Child Safety policy, the Child Safety Code of Conduct, the school’s Child Safety Responding and Reporting Obligations (including Mandatory Reporting) Policy and Procedures, Identifying and Responding to All Forms of Abuse in Victorian Schools and the Four Critical Actions for Schools are readily available online on our school website and in hard copy at the school office for all staff and students to read at any time.
Child safety is everyone’s responsibility. All school staff are required to:
As part of Bimbadeen Heights Primary School’s child safe culture, school leadership (including the principal and assistant principal) will:
As part of Bimbadeen Heights Primary School’s child safe culture, school mandatory reporting staff are required to:
As part of Bimbadeen Heights Primary School’s child safe culture, in performing the functions and powers given to them under the Education and Training Reform Act 2006, school councils and school council members will:
School leadership will maintain records of the above processes.
School leadership will appoint a school child safety officer to ensure the development of a child safety culture and the implementation of the school’s child safe strategies.
The school will include discussions about child safety in class and assemblies as well as providing information on child safety to families.
We hope you enjoy a fantastic weekend.
Adele Gregson and Sabrina George
