Looking back on 2022
What an incredibly busy year 2022 has been after two years of lockdowns! It has been so wonderful to see students back at school on-site this year and to enjoy both everyday activities and milestone events. Looking back on this year, it's not a surprise that everyone is feeling fatigued by now and ready for the holidays.
We saw a return to sporting events such as house athletics, cross country and swimming carnivals and interschool sport. Interschool sport is a great opportunity for our students to learn team skills, being a good sport and self responsibility.
Our visual arts and performing arts teachers have organised some fantastic classroom activities and incursions, including a visit by Kaboom Percussion, choir performances and an upcoming visit by Stomp Dance. And, as part of our French language program, our French teachers organised the whole school celebrations of Mardi Gras and Bastille Day with fun dress ups, French food and a puppet show.
At the end of June, Wanyara group spent 3 days with our students as part of Naidoc Week, which was a wonderful educational experience for our school community. At the closing assembly, students in Grades P-3 performed a dance they learned that told a traditional story. The school also received a plaque to display.
Our library is an important part of our school community and we celebrated Book Week this year, enthusiastically dressing up as book characters, and enjoyed National Simultaneous Storytime. We also had a large number of students once again successfully complete the Premiers Reading Challenge. This year, we welcomed Rotary Readers and Story Dogs back to BPS. We are very grateful to all these wonderful volunteers who listen to and support our students to read with confidence and fluency in a safe environment.
All grades enjoyed a return to incursions and excursions again this year. Grade Prep loved their Teddy Bears Picnic, firefighters visit, and celebrating 100 Days of Prep. Grade 5 hosted a fantastic Market Day at school and raised money to make a generous donation to Very Special Kids, and Grade 6 students proudly displayed and discussed their final PYP Exhibition Projects with the school community.
Our Hearing Unit students enjoyed being able to do activities once again with their class buddies and H.U. buddies. Our Grade 4 H.U. students had a great experience at urban camp with students from 2 other schools.
All students enjoyed the return to camps and extended days this year. Our camp program offers camps tailored to specific year levels and is a wonderful experience for our students where they work on building various skills including, collaboration, resilience and risk taking.
Parents haven't missed out on the fun and events either with our incredible PFC organising many fundraisers including the Mothers Day lunch, parents extravaganza at Encore plus many on-site fundraisers that our students took part in like the Lapathon. The Dads Social Club also welcomed new dads and our dads footy team, the Brighton Lions, were victorious again this year!
Our staff and students have all worked so hard this year and we are incredibly proud of all they have achieved. Our NAPLAN results demonstrate our strong focus on reading, writing and numeracy, with BPS scoring above average in all learning areas when compared with State, network and similar schools.
At BPS we take pride in supporting children'shealth and wellbeing needs as well as their learning needs and we are very grateful for all the support and hard work of not just our School Nurse and Wellbeing Coordinator, but of all our wonderful staff. This year has been extremely busy for everyone but just as rewarding.
From all the staff at BPS to our school community, we wish you a safe and happy holiday break.
Sally Collins
Newsletter Editor