We would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation as the traditional custodians of the land on which our school stands. We pay our respects to all First Nations elders, past present and emerging.

Meet our Staff

This week we would like to introduce you to our wonderful Senior School team;

Larissa is the new addition to the senior team for 2022, moving from teaching Foundation the last few years. She is loving the challenge of a new part of the curriculum and is enjoying spending time with students up the top end of our school. As an educator, Larissa has a background working with children with additional learning needs, specifically those with Autism. As well as working full time she is currently completing her Masters in Learning Intervention at Melbourne Uni part-time. When she is not at school or studying, Larissa enjoys spending lots of time walking with her partner Jo and much loved fur puppies Daisy and Wally. Her other favourite past-times are eating good food and being a weekend tradie, going Bunnings and completing many DIY projects around her house.

Tom is a grade 5 teacher in his 3rd year of working At BNWPS. He has become the school ICT leader in 2022, sharing this job with Michael. Tom is an active person and loves playing soccer for his club team. He also enjoys movie nights with partner Scarlett and cat; Smudge.

Deb grew up in Castlemaine, and moved to Melbourne for her Arts degree majoring in Criminology. She completed her teaching degree and found a spot at BNWPS 7 years ago! Deb has taught in the junior years and foundation. This is her third year in the senior school. Deb is the Wellbeing leader and this year has Wednesdays fully dedicated to the role. Deb lives with her husband Adam and her French Mastiff, Ila, they love to go on adventures in the bush together. Deb is fascinated by aliens and all things paranormal.

Ann is one of the grade 5 teachers and loves going on long walks with her two giant dogs Olive and George. Ann lives with her husband, Nyoman and has two adult children who have followed in her footsteps into the teaching profession.

Michael is one of the grade 6 teachers and has been in the Senior team for 3 years now. Michael, along with Tom, are the school ICT leaders and enjoy looking for new and exciting ways to incorporate ICT into the classroom. Michael lives in Glenroy with his partner Rebecca and two young daughters, Ruby and Pearl. He spends his time away from school either down at the park with the girls and his dog Aggie or playing/watching/talking about basketball.

School Events

Over the past two weeks it has been a real joy to start reconnecting with community members at school or school events; earlier this week we had a few visits from past students who wanted to come and say hello - oh how we have missed seeing these young adults and hearing how they are going in their next chapters of life and learning!

Students, teachers and school council are all excited to have grown ups involved in our day to day life again and we are regularly talking about how to achieve this. We know that some of you are still finding your way through (and to) social events and some of you can’t wait to jump back in. As a school, we are aiming to provide opportunities for everyone to re-engage at their own pace, while keeping in mind that our priority is always to have the students safely at school to learn and play together.

Last weekend our marvellous music teacher, Jack Madin, worked together with Andrew the (amazing) Art Teacher and Ed Service (Jack’s partner in Shouse) to organise Communitas at Siteworks. This day was a brilliant opportunity for some of our families to gather in an outdoor environment and celebrate music, community and creativity and we would like to extend a huge thank you and well done to Jack and Andrew for the wonderful day!

Today, our 3-6 students enjoyed our Cross Country around the school, which was the first opportunity for our parents and carers to help out at an event this year. We would like to extend another massive thank you to Tom Nelson for arranging the cross country and to the parents and carers who joined in to marshall this huff ‘n’ puff event!

Next term we have a few events on our school calendar; including but not limited to Autumn Family Day (with some mud stomping fun), a whole school sports day and our Saturday (grown ups only) Trivia Night. Each of these events will be a moment of joy for some and a big step for others. The school will continue to work within the DET guidelines and in partnership with the school council and its subcommittees to ensure we are taking steps towards our goal of coming together again, without risking anyone’s sense of security or our students’ opportunity to learn at school.

School Calendar

With an understanding of the unpredictability of the future and the frustration that can come from needing to change dates of things that are ‘meant to’ happen, the Communication Sub Committee and the School Council have decided to release the printed school calendar term by term rather than for the full year.

On Friday, the eldest student from each family will receive a printed term two calendar for families to put on their fridge or notice board, and we will continue this pattern going into terms three and four.

We have also made the decision to alter two important dates as we move into term three;

This year, term two is a nine week term. If we were to follow our normal assessment and reporting timelines, teachers would need to have reports finished by the end of week six in order for them to be published at the end of term. This does not give time to have properly and thoroughly worked through the teaching and learning plan that teachers have. In response to this, school council has approved a change to Semester one reports, which will now be published to families in Week one of Term three.

Following on from this, School council and the leadership team recognise the importance of having the four key assessment ‘moments’ (written reports x 2 and conferences x 2) spread equally across the year with time in between for students and teachers to act upon the goals that have been set, and properly understand and analyse the data that is being communicated before the next assessment moment comes up. In order to align this, we will be holding our next Student-led Conferences in Week five of term three. As always, however, if you have any questions about your child’s progress at any time throughout the year, please contact your child’s teacher through Sentral.

School Council Elections

Our school council elections for 2022 have come to a close, with no new nominations for this year. At last night’s school council meeting, we elected Tanya Pittard as our 2022 School Council President and Helen Metzger-Roberts as our 2022 Secretary - both incumbents in the role. We thank Tanya, Helen and our whole school council for the incredible support and partnership in navigating our school through another unprecedented year last year and for the energy, enthusiasm and robust conversation that has been carried through to this year.

Strands of Hands

BNWPS Cultural Connections