Banksia House

A celebration of the efforts and achievements of our students and staff, together with our families.

In our previous newsletter edition shared in the middle of Term 3, I expressed how incredibly proud I was of our students, staff and our families and I commented on the outstanding levels of resilience, courage, bravery and perseverance shown by everyone despite the challenges. It is fitting that the values shown during these times are the values of our school, reflecting the remarkable community that we are.

As we close the term, I continue to be filled with pride. While this is a challenging time for us all, learning has remained at the core of every experience and we have continued to grow, ‘getting better’, as teachers, staff, students and learners.

Teachers continue to, even as I write this, experiment with new ways of engaging and extending our students in their learning and students have learnt more about who they are as learners, what they need to learn effectively and the many ways learning can happen, while reflecting also on what they are grateful for.

Families have shown incredible interest in their child's learning and remain critical partners and drivers in the learning success of their children. Our partnership with families continues to strengthen and we feel closer to our families than ever before, suported through our ongoing phone conversations ‘checking in’ and again during parent/teacher/student interviews, with incredibly high levels of engagement.

I have decided to focus this newsletter on the theme of ‘Celebration’, as there is so much to celebrate.

Even during the hardest of times, we have so many positives and achievements to share. 

• Banksia House WON the ISO Games challenge in PE (for Years 7-9)! We saw an incredible level of participation by our students, especially our Year 7 students, across all PE classes. Our students saw this challenge as an opportunity to get active, have fun and earn points for Banksia House. Our Year 7 students came out on top and had the most students achieve points. Well done to all students who participated, both in Banksia House and across the school

Our students scored the following points:

• Rachael in Year 9 WON the poetry/short story competition run by the Learning Resource Centre! Well done, Rachael.
• Ekamjot in Year 7 WON the Science STEM video competition run across Junior Science classes! Well done, Ekamjot.
• Rahmat in Year 8 received a full 20 points for his efforts in Decoding – this is outstanding and his literacy is improving every day!
• An incredible number of green compass posts have been recorded across the House this Term. As a snapshot, from Aug 29 to the 11th of September we saw 129 green compass posts made by teachers, highlighting student engagement, efforts and achievement during this remote period. Posts range across year levels and we would like to congratulate particularly our Year 12 students who have continued to work hard during this time, focussing on their studies.
• Our attendance has remained incredibly strong. Year 7 – 93.2%, Year 8 – 97%, Year 9 – 95%, Year 10 – 91%, Year 11 – 97%, Year 12 – 88% - this is OUTSTANDING! We thank our families for supporting their children to engage and we also thank our House Administration Officer, Katie Brennan, for working tirelessly to connect with our families.
• 150 students remain at 100% attendance for the Term, 32 students have an attendance percentage ranging from 90-99% and 19 students have attended 80-89%. All students and families have done their best during this time and we thank you for your hard work, efforts and persistence.

Well done to our students, staff and our families for their continued efforts, hard work and perseverance. As we move into Term 4 I am certain we will do so with real momentum and a stronger understanding of where we need to focus as a Community.

Outstanding work this term, everyone. You are all incredible, you are strong and you are amazing individuals. To our Year 12 Students, I am in AWE. You have, in face of adversity, never given up and we know you will succeed in Term 4 when we move to on site learning as you prepare for the next chapters in your lives!

I would like to share some reflections from our Students, recorded on our House Padlet for this Term, on our House Google Classroom, which highlight what our students are grateful and thankful for.

I am thankful that teachers are doing all that they can for us during remote learning, although I am still struggling in some subjects. But it is good to know I have people, teachers, to go to for support.

I think it is really challenging to not be able to see all my friends and go to school every day, but we're all very fortunate to even be able to have an education - many people in the world do not have this.

Something nice I want to say to teachers is that I appreciate all the hard work you put into helping students have a successful online experience.

I'm looking forward to onsite learning.

I am thankful for all the teachers during online school for their hard work and patience.

I'm grateful that even though we can't have face-to-face learning, we are still attending school remotely.

I am grateful that I was able to do remote learning and learn instead of doing other things or being lazy. I am also grateful for having a laptop and actually talking with the teachers.

To my teachers, you are doing an amazing job! All I want to say is a BIG THANK YOU.

I'd like to thank all my teachers who put in their time and effort every day to answer emails and questions and set and mark our work.

Learning at home is challenging. I would like to thank my teachers for their hard work.

Learning on my own made me realise how capable I am of doing quality work in a short period of time.

Remote learning has made me realise how much I like actually going to school. One positive moment of what I have experienced in my learning is having a sense of laughter and joy as in these days, times are very difficult.

And from one of our Senior Leaders, Neya

Remote learning has been quite a mix of feelings for me. At times, it’s felt convenient, and other times it has been stressful. But even though we are experiencing a global pandemic, I feel so fortunate to even be able to continue my education. All of my teachers have been extremely supportive and even just the small things like giving us catch up lessons and extending due dates, have been really helpful for us. For me, the single, most significant challenge that remote learning has entailed so far, is of course the lack of social interaction. I find it so difficult to not be able to see my friends face-to-face every day. However, by staying home, we are all staying safe and protecting ourselves. The biggest takeaway from remote learning, for me, is to never take education for granted. Being able to still have an education, even in the most difficult of times, is truly a privilege. A privilege that we should never undervalue. 

Kelly Krieg and the Banksia House Leadership Team