From Principal Steve - Welcome to 2022
Dear Parents and Carers,
Welcome to 2022!
A warm welcome back to all our students and families for the new school year. It has been terrific to catch up with students, to see them settle quickly and enjoying the first full week back at school for 2022 last week. It is a time for building positive relationships and setting clear expectations for the year - two essential ingredients for a culture with high levels of learning.
A special warm welcome to our Prep students and families as well as other new students and families joining Brighton Primary School for the first time this year. We hope this will be the start of an incredibly positive and rewarding learning journey for all new families.
Staffing Update
We also warmly welcome new staff to the school, Geri Kelly - Teaching & Learning Specialist and grade 1 teacher, Riley Hall - grade 6 teacher, Anna Harris - grade 5 teacher, Georgie Grace - Grade 4 teacher, Louisa Bujor - Grade 2 teacher and Jack O’Riley - grade 1 teacher. In addition, we welcome back Megan Mowthorpe - a grade 2 teacher who is returning following extended family leave. Please click on this link to learn more about our new staff.
Professional Learning and Pupil Free Days
Our first two professional learning (curriculum) days on Friday 28th January and Friday 4th February have focused on strengthening student writing. We will conduct our third professional learning (curriculum) day for teachers - no school for students - on Monday 7th March when we will continue this important work focused on writing conferences and writer’s notebooks. We will schedule our 4th (and final) professional learning (curriculum) day later this year.
Parent Teacher Conferences
Parent Teacher Conferences will be held in the week February 21st to 24th, 2022. This will be an opportunity for parents/carers to meet individually with their child’s teacher/s. The purpose of the conference is to meet the teacher and share any important information to maximise learning for your child. Our conferences will be held online, via Webex, and booking can be made on Compass from Friday 11th February. If you feel a face-to-face meeting with your child’s teacher will be beneficial, please reach out to your child’s teacher and they will make attempts to accommodate this request.
Conferences are not required with Specialist teachers (Art, P.E., French and Performing Arts) however if there are any specific concerns there will be limited time slots available with these teachers.
Grade Level Overviews & Fortnightly Snapshots
To support families to understand what is happening with learning and events in each grade level, we will continue with our fortnightly snapshots. These snapshots will provide an overview of what is happening in learning - literacy, mathematics, and units of inquiry - and also other relevant grade level information. Our first snapshots are out this week and will be a Grade Level Overview - something that can be referred to throughout the year as needed. The overviews and Snapshots can be found here.
Cyber Safety Project @ BPS
BPS is excited to continue its partnership with The Cybersafety Project (CSP). On Tuesday 8th February, the CSP team worked with our Grade 4, 5 and 6 students and our staff. The focus of the session was Digital Wellbeing. Some of the concepts covered included:
- Keeping myself safe and well online
- Showing integrity when faced with digital dilemmas
- Showing strength and managing peer pressure online
- Using empathy to help others feel included online
Later in Term 1, the CSP will return to work with all of our junior grades. Finally, don’t miss out on our online Parent Session on Wednesday 16th February 7:30 - 8:45 pm. Here is the registration link https://bit.ly/CSPFEB16 The flyer for this event is also included in this newsletter.
The Cyber Safety Project in action with our Grade 6 students this week
Assemblies
Our assemblies this year will continue to be held on Friday from 3:00 - 3:30 pm in the gym. Unfortunately, we are unable to conduct assemblies yet due to DET Covid guidelines. We hope to resume these whole school assemblies soon.
We look forward to working in partnership with parents and carers this year to ensure high levels of learning for all our students.
Steve