Principal's Report

TERM 2 DRAWS TO A CLOSE

The vast majority of us will be glad that this very weird term is coming to a close.  We’ve all been thrown out of routine and faced a range of significant challenges.  We’re really proud of how our school community responded and dealt with circumstances beyond our control.  As a result, we now have virtually all students doing well back at school and well placed to succeed for the remainder of 2020.

At School Council last night we spent some time looking at the surveys completed by parents relating to remote learning.  Overall the results were positive, which is what we expected given the anecdotal feedback we have received over the past few months. Some clearly didn’t have a great experience with remote learning, which we knew was the case. 

This week we are giving students the opportunity to provide feedback and yesterday we ran a reflection session with staff.  When parent, student and staff reflections are collated, we will have a really good sense of what worked, what didn’t and the learning we can take forward.  We’re all hoping not to be thrust back into a remote learning environment, but will be much better placed should that eventuate. Regardless, we have learnt a host of new skills that can be used in any teaching and learning environment.

We hope the remote learning environment was a one off and will certainly remember this time for many years, each with our own personal take on the period.  Everyone now deserves a good break and we hope you all get the opportunity to change things up for a couple of weeks and come back refreshed and ready for term 3.

MINOR WORKS GRANTS

Recently DET (Department of Education and Training) announced that schools could apply for grants to maintain or improve school facilities (buildings or grounds).  The turn-around for this round of grants is much shorter than what we normally see, meaning only projects that are ready to go could be considered.

For us, there was only really one project that fitted the criteria, that being the installation of a synthetic turf pitch (16M x 20M) at our Buninyong Campus.  This pitch would be located on the east side of the oval and provide another all-weather option for ball sports.  This would be particularly beneficial for our grade 1 and 2 students, who like to use the oval, but can battle for space amongst the bigger kids.  Another all-weather play space for ball games would also be brilliant for times like now, when the oval is out of use due to being so wet and muddy.

This project was considered last year as an option for use of concert/fete proceeds, which is why we have all that is needed to apply for this grant.  Fingers crossed, as this project would present a significant improvement for the grounds at our Buninyong Campus.

REPORT FROM SCHOOL COUNCIL

Last night we held the June meeting and as per usual covered a wide range of topics.  These included:

• Instrumental Music – The departure of Greg, our guitar teacher prompted a discussion about the Instrumental Music program and the pros and cons of running such a program alongside everything else we do in schools.  We decided it’s time to consider how the program runs, which includes looking at what other schools do.
• Self-Assessment – DET (Department of Education and Training) now requires School Councils to complete an annual self-assessment of their processes against the guidelines provided.  We started that process last night with a focus on ‘governance’.
• Policy Development – This month we reviewed two existing policies, those being ‘Administration of Medication’ policy for Base 1270 and the ‘Asthma’ policy for the school.  Both require a little more work before we’ll be completely happy with them.
• Remote Learning Parent Surveys – As mentioned above, we took some time looking at the overall results.  Next month we’ll see if we can spot some trends in the comments.

TREE PLANTING

Today we embarked on a tree planting mission at both campuses and managed to get a heap done. Thanks to all who got their hands dirty and in time our work will lead to more shade in the yard, more trees to beautify the school grounds and some trees that provide fruit for our cooking.