A Message from Hannah & Keir
We would like to acknowledge and honour 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.
HR Returning
Hannah has returned from her carer’s leave and we don’t know who is more excited about the reunion. It is very special to be part of a community (and workplace) that truly values family and recognises that people’s connections to their family will sometimes require flexibility and patience. Thank you to the staff, leaders and school council for continuing the school program without even a hiccup.
NAPLAN Results
Our school received a visit from the new State Education Minister - Natalie Hutchins last week. The reason for the visit was to celebrate the significant improvement our school has seen through our NAPLAN results over the past few years. Arwyn and Abby (grade 6), lead Natalie and her entourage through parts of the school and our new building, answering their questions with the maturity we have come to know and expect from our spectacular senior students.
Unfortunately due to some big news stories on the same day, the news article did not make national headlines, but our success is still cause for celebration at school! Despite the challenges faced by students, staff and families over the past few years, we are continuing to improve our teaching practices to support our students to reach their full potential - and gee whiz, do they have potential!
Our school leadership team will spend time analysing these results to help evaluate the impact of our school improvement actions over the past few years and confirm our 2023 teaching focus areas from our strategic plan.
More detailed information on the data available will be tabled at an Education Committee meeting and will be shared through our Annual Report next year.
If your child is in grade 3 or 5 and sat NAPLAN this year, individual student NAPLAN reports will be sent home with students this week - please contact your child’s teacher if you do not receive a report by Friday.
Term Four Planning
Over the next two weeks, the teaching teams at BNWPS will have their planning days for term four. On these days teams of teachers will get together to plan the focus of the teaching and learning for term four in their year level. Teachers use student data and school documents such as our Numeracy and Literacy scope and sequences, and some agreed continuums to guide their planning.
On the planning days, students will have a rotation through specialist teachers instead of their classroom teacher. This also means that our normal specialist timetable will not run for these two weeks.
Planning days will occur as follows;
Thursday 8th September - Seniors
Friday 9th September - Juniors
Monday 12th September - Specialist Team
Tuesday 13th September - Foundies
Wednesday 14th September - Middles
Collective PP Day
Term 3 will finish (for students) on Thursday 15th September, as Friday 16th September is our school’s Collective Professional Practice day. Professional Practice days are provided to teaching staff each term in recognition of the immense amount of time that is spent on planning and preparation outside the classroom. With significant teacher shortages in 2022, the Department of Education has recommended that schools plan for collective days as it minimises the impact to students’ learning.
School council have shared the intention to minimise any impacts to families or the learning program by deciding on the last day of term, as our student attendance rate is lower on the last day of school. If you require childcare for this day, our OSHC service offers an incredible whole-day program.
Front Office Changes
The final stage of our massive Capital Works program is approaching fast. In this final stage, the front entrance of our school is finally getting a much needed makeover to make it more functional and to align with the updates across the rest of the school and the portables near Yakai Barring will finally get the deck extended to join the four classrooms together. Our front office and finance offices will be redesigned to accommodate our larger school and reduce the congestion that happens at the beginning and the end of each day. While Hannah and Keir have enjoyed using a classroom as their office so far this year, it will be fantastic to have the principals’ office return to the front of the school - next year.
From the last week of Term 3, the front office will be operating out of the ground-floor double classroom. Students, parents and carers will be able to access the front office through the undercover area or the doors near Sprout. As the office will be moving during the final week of this term, we ask any families with non-urgent enquiries to wait until Term 4.
The front gate on Culloden St will no longer be accessible to students, staff or families - the bike racks will still be operable with access via Shetland Ave and the OSHC gate.
We have scheduled this final stage of building works to cause minimal possible interruption to our learning program, however we understand that some inconveniences may be unavoidable. We thank everyone for their ongoing patience and understanding of these necessary changes.
Hats Required
This is a reminder to all families that September - April are SunSmart months, which means your child is required to wear a SunSmart hat when out to play at recess and lunch, as well as during outdoor lessons. Please make sure your child comes to school with a hat for the rest of this year; we encourage students to personalise their hat with their name, badges or other decorations to make sure they don’t go missing. Hats are available to purchase from the front office.
Wellbeing Forum
On Tuesday evening last week, Deb Robinson presented our second community forum for the term. The focus of this forum was Wellbeing and student voice. If you were unable to attend the forum live, you can access the recording in the Community forum folder on Sentral. All of the forums that we have had this year are available through the same link.
Next term, we will be continuing our cycle of Community Forums with a session that will focus on Numeracy in years three to six, and another session covering the BNWPS approach to Inquiry.
Spring Family Day
A huge thank you to all of the families who donated, purchased and made merry at our Spring family Plant and Produce stall on Friday. It is so great to see the community come together for these moments - COVID has helped us to realise how precious they really are.
Parking After School
As we are all aware, parking spots at BNWPS pick up time are in high demand. We wanted to take this opportunity to remind everyone to park with consideration for others and their properties, and only in places and spaces where parking is allowed. This means that no-one should be parking in the driveways of any houses along Culloden St. Next term, we will be having some ‘open street’ events (run in collaboration with the Moreland Council) where we will close the streets off to traffic and encourage our students and families to walk or ride to school. Maybe parking a few blocks away and walking or riding the rest of the way would be a good practice for the open streets?