the Nor'Wester

A Message from Hannah & Keir

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.

Wominjeka!

Hello Fabulous Families of Brunswick North West and welcome to your first newsletter of the year. We have had a great start to the school year at BNW, proving that perfection is not required in order to learn, connect and have fun!

 

Despite forward planning and all (available) hands on deck, a few goals have not quite gone to plan as the world struggles with staff and supply shortages. Our beautiful new building is still waiting on our new library and science furniture, some of our students and staff have started the school year in isolation and much of our construction work has not been completed… but if we focus on the core duties of our school, we see a very different story. Our students in F-2 start each day with Guided Play, which (along with gate drop-offs) have reduced our cases of separation anxiety significantly and in 3-6, a hum of learning and social activity started early this week and has continued each and every day. 

We have gone through this pandemic together and learned a lot about ourselves, our students, our community and our capacity to adapt. We still face a few unknowns, but it looks like even more flexibility will be asked of us this year than has been asked of our wardrobes this week. Thankfully, flexibility is a skill that has long been regarded as an essential skill for the future, as we are practising it in spades.

 

The first goal in keeping our students and staff safe whilst learning is to minimise the incidents of COVID in our school as much as possible. We know, however, that with new variant/s and restrictions lifting, some cases of COVID at school will be inevitable, so our school is taking a number of steps to maintain a calm, orderly and inspirational learning environment for your children, that takes into consideration the high chance students and staff having to isolate due to COVID-19. We have a pool of regular CRTs (Casual Relief Teachers) who either work only in our school or in a small number of other locations, who know our students, our approach to teaching and align with our vision and values. While our professional development for teachers this year will focus on developing our ability to adapt lessons to meet the needs of students who may have missed a number of lessons due to isolation. And, of course, our Tutor Learning Initiative continues.

Communications

Our school is always looking to improve the way we communicate with our families, and during this pandemic that prevents parents and carers from coming on site, we know that it is even more important to let our families know what’s happening here at school and how to get in touch. Our Communications sub committee will continue to develop our communication strategy in partnership with the school, but a quick list of how you can stay connected is below.

  • The majority of notifications from school will come through Sentral, which also provides registered parents and carers the ability to message your child’s teacher directly from the app
  • This newsletter comes out each week with important information, updates and interesting news from across the school
  • The office and leadership are available through emails and phone calls
  • For any questions, requests or information for School Council, you can contact our School Council President (Tanya Pittard) via email:  tanya.pittard@education.vic.gov.au 

Those of you who are keen Twitterers may have noticed our school accounts have been removed. The report our Communication Working Party developed over 2019 & 2020 recommended the school remove Twitter as a form of communication as it was not consistently used by teachers or families. After remote learning, we know there are other platforms that are much better suited to the task and will be sharing more information about digital student portfolios later in Term 1.

 

And just to finish off, here is a picture of the passionfruit collected from our new vines that grew over the STELA deck throughout summer. We see these passionfruit as reminders that nature is thriving during this pandemic, that our school continues to develop and improve due to the effort and connection of our whole community and that one day (hopefully not too far into the future) we will get to enjoy the fruits of our labour together once more.

Passionfruit grown at STELA
Passionfruit grown at STELA

With kindness,

Hannah & Keir