Wellbeing

What a fabulous start to the year! Welcome back to school everyone and welcome to our new families and students, especially our foundation students who already seem like they have been here forever. Thank you everyone for ensuring your children were so organised and ready to be back for learning after the school holidays.Ballarat North Primary School is a community. A community of learners who care and look out for each other, who welcome and ensure inclusivity. A community who lives their values each and every day.

Care   Respect   Excellence   Community

I have been impressed as I walk around the school and visit classrooms. Our students are focused and on task. Their belongings are organised. Their uniforms neat and clean. Hats on outside. Healthy lunches packed. Home reading books read and diary signed. Students are respectful, curious, interested and enthusiastic about what they are learning. Our classrooms are so settled with eager students engaged and trying their best. Teachers are professional, approachable, happy, engaging and prepared.This week you will have had an opportunity to meet with your child’s teacher and to discuss your child’s strengths and your hopes for them. Don’t be a stranger. Please make sure that you keep in touch with us as the year unfolds. We strongly believe that the home school partnership is of upmost importance. Students do better when they know their parents support the school and what happens at school. Don’t hesitate to contact your classroom teacher, the office, Mr Dave Garner or myself. For those who may not know me, my name is Mrs Kim Carey. I am the assistant principal at the best school in Ballarat. I grew up here in Ballarat but have taught for over the last 30 years in a variety of schools across the state, returning to where I love the most- Ballarat North Primary School. My office is in the heart of the main building, so please make sure that you wave or call in as you go past for a quick chat, get to know you or restore old connections. Our school has an amazing range of programs. One that is important in ensuring a restorative culture is ‘Reflection Time’. The purpose of this time is to provide an opportunity for students to reflect upon any challenges they may have in adhering to our school values of Care, Respect, Excellence and Community and work through some possible strategies to ensure the situation doesn’t occur again. Where student behaviour reaches a high-level or repeated/ ongoing medium-level incidents, students will attend reflection time in the library with Mr Garner or myself at lunchtimes. Where a student has attended reflection time, a note will be sent home with them and needs to be returned by parents the next day. Thank you for supporting this important approach.   

Don’t forget to give me a wave or stop for a chat and thankyou once again for welcoming back to our amazing school.

Kim Carey