Teaching & Learning

Celebration of Learning

On Wednesday 11th September we will be conducting our Celebration of Learning. This is a night where students welcome their parents and other family members into the classroom to share in their learning journey. This is an informal celebration that will run between 5.30 pm and 7.30 pm. Come for as long as you like.

While here your child will be able to show you the Visual Arts displays around the school and the STEM hub.

If you come straight from work or have hungry kids with you, we also have that covered with the Canteen offering coffee, tea and hot chocolates and of course the BBQ will be operating during the night as well.

This is an important part of our reporting and communication program for the year so we look forward to seeing everyone on the night.

Goals of the Celebration of Learning

• Provide students with the opportunity to connect further with their learning by prompting them to reflect on their goals and their learning in general and articulate this to their parents/guardians.
• To provide an opportunity for parents to better understand what their child is doing in class.

Attendance Notes and Unexplained Absences

This week’s Compass tip is to look at how parents can submit an attendance note and clear unexplained absences.

When ever your child is away from school an attendance note is required. This allows the school to submit up-to-date attendance data to the department.

Submitting an Attendance Note:

There are 3 ways to submit an Attendance note for your child:

1. Use your Compass portal to submit a note (see video below)
2. Ring the Buninyong Campus office.
3. Send an email to the Buninyong office.

Clearing Unexplained Absences: (check out the video below)

Every time your student is absent from school without a note an Unexplained Absence will be recorded against your child’s name. An Unexplained Absence is also recorded if you drop your child off late for school and do not accompany them to the school office.

You can add attendance notes to any Unexplained Absences by doing the following:

1. Go to your Compass portal.
2. Click on Attendance next to your child’s name.
3. Click on the Unexplained Absences tab
4. Choose the absences and click on Add Attendance Note.
5. Choose from the choices available.

If you have an Unexplained Absence that isn't accurate, that is fine, please just contact the office at the Buninyong Campus and we will clear the entry for you.

To help out please check out the video below that shows the process to follow.

Victorian Premiers Challenge

This is the last week for registering for the Victorian Premiers Challenge. Simply log in to the website and register the books you have read. Remember, in order to meet the challenge you must register:

P-2: 30 books (at least 20 books from the challenge list)

3-6: 15 books (at least 10 from the challenge list)

We currently have 31 students who have met the challenge. Can we reach 50 by the end of the week??

Book Week 2019

Thanks to everyone who participated in our Book Week celebrations last week. This year we opted for a low key approach given the amount of extra curricula activities that are happening around the school at the moment.

During the week we celebrated the books of the year by hearing about each during Morning Announcements.

We also had guest story tellers in the library at each campus every lunchtime. These story tellers had the chance to share their favourite stories and engage in discussions with the students about why they love reading. Special thanks to our guests.

In case you haven’t caught up on all the news, here are all the winners from the 2019 Book Week.

Older Readers Section:

The winner is BETWEEN US by Claire Aitkins

This book is stunning new novel about two teenagers separated by cultural differences, their parents’ expectations and twenty kilometres of barbed-wire fence. 

Younger Readers Section

HIS NAME WAS WALTER by Emily Rodder

After their bus breaks down on a school excursion four kids, including Colin and their schoolteacher, take shelter from a huge storm in a nearby deserted mansion. While there, Colin discovers a secret drawer that contains an old book with strange vivid drawings and a handwritten story about a boy called Walter who was found abandoned and was raised in a beehive-orphanage.

Early Childhood Book of the Year

TRICKY’s BAD DAY by Alison Lester

Poor Tricky! Nothing is going right for him. Milk spills, pyjama buttons won’t work, his little sister wrecks their game, and when he tries to help out, everything gets worse.

Tricky’s having a very bad day!

Then Dad has an idea. Outside it’s wild, but there’s a lot to explore…

Picture Book of the Year​​​​​​​

CICADA by Shaun Tan

Cicada works in an office, dutifully toiling day after day for unappreciative bosses and being bullied by his coworkers. But one day, cicada goes to the roof of the building, and something truly extraordinary happens … 

Eve Pownall Award​​​​​​​

Awarded to a book that celebrates factual events and presents them in a way that children can understand .

SORRY DAY by Coral Iiius Vass and Dub Leffler

Two stories entwine in this captivating retelling of the momentous day when the then Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, acknowledged the sorrows of past and said ‘Sorry' to the generation of children who were taken from their homes.

Digital Detox

Thursday and Friday this week are our digital detox days for Term 3. Based on the feedback we have received on our previous detox days, we decided that they should be part of every term. We are encouraging parents and families to join us in putting devices away for 2 days, at home and at school. 

The challenge has been put to teachers to find alternatives to using technology where possible. This does mean that students will not be required to bring iPads to school on these days. 

Why do we have a digital detox?

It’s always good to take a step back and think about the ways in which we use technology and this is a great opportunity to do that. It also ensures that we don’t become reliant on technology to run our classrooms and lives. We have also found in the past that it provides a great chance for children and adults to have a go at things they wouldn’t normally do when on a device. 

Does this mean we don’t teach ICT on these days?

Did you know that over half of the digital technologies curriculum can be taught without using a device? Just because we won’t be using devices over these two days, doesn’t mean we can’t still teach the digital technologies curriculum. This gives us a fantastic opportunity to explore parts of the curriculum that are less known and not regularly covered.

Bicycles For Humanity