school council

news from the Community Events Team

THANK YOU

Firstly, thank you to everyone for coming and providing such AMAZING food at the inaugural Wominjeka picnic. We would especially like to thank the Reconciliation Action Plan committee, OSHC for being so accommodating, the children at OSHC for their help sweeping, Mara for her ingredient list prowess, Tamsin for her dessert bar crowd control and the incredible families who stayed back and helped to clean the MPR. What a way to start the year!

PLANT & PRODUCE

We are fast approaching our second Plant & Produce organised by the Grade 5 families on Friday 20th March at 3.30pm after assembly. It would be great to see the sheet fill up with Grade 5 families and others who are willing to donate, bake, make, pick or help set up/serve/pack up.

The link to sign up is http://tiny.cc/wfb7dz

TRIVIA NIGHT

Saturday 23rd May Estonian House, Melville Road

The team would love to invite anyone who is interested in assisting with the planning for this fun-filled night to let us know via email CET@brunswicknwps.vic.edu.au

There are roles for everyone – promotion, decorating, delivering glasses, organising or donating auction items, serving, writing quiz questions…

We will communicate further about this in upcoming newsletters.

2020 COMMUNITY EVENTS TEAM MEMBERS

This year the wonderful people below have joined the Community Events Team. They have offered to help with planning and assisting at specific events as well as being a source of information from within our community. Please feel free to approach them if you have any questions, suggestions or would like to help.

Emily Myer – Co-chair

Liz O’Neill – Co-chair

Stacey Roberts - School Council representative role only

Matt Adey

Amy Brennan

Carmen Brown

Elena Cazacu

Nella Combe

Tamsin Downes

Tas Game

Calandra Gilligan

Sam Gravster

Vanessa Hughes

Kara Keys

Linda Reiling

Naomi Wake

We are thrilled to have this team together!

That’s it for now,

CET team

our one Education Committee now becomes two

It is a well-known fact the best educational outcomes for children come from strong links between committed educators, engaged parents and valued children. For many years the Education committee has worked quietly behind the scenes to discuss issues educational and wellbeing issues impacting the school community, assess results and survey data and develop the policies which have to underpin the functioning of our school.

Recently the Department of Education released a set of standard policies for all Victorian public schools. The standardised policies mean that while the school may want to customise a few of the policies, to better reflect our special school environment and community, the education committee no longer has an enormous policy workload. Rather than being disappointed, the Education committee members celebrated as this gave us an opportunity to evolve the role of the committee and focus on other ways to help our children thrive at BNW.

The first meeting for 2020 was well attended by a large number of parents, all very passionate about education and some of the schools highly committed teaching staff. The opportunity to modify the work of the committee led to detailed discussions regarding each persons reason for volunteering their time to the committee and what they believed they could bring to the discussions.

The committee agreed to recommend that school council separate the functions of the Education Committee into two sub-committees. A Curriculum Committee and a Student Engagement and Wellbeing Committee. The committees will have defined terms of reference separating the work being done, but will meet at the same time and come together as a larger group to ensure strong collaboration. The School Council strongly supported the change, recognising you need both areas to functioning well to give students the best chance to thrive. Playing to their considerable strengths and passions Hannah will be Chairing the Curriculum Committee and Wendy will be Chairing the Wellbeing and Engagement Committee.

Information, including photos so you can find them in the yard, about the wonderful committee members will be made available soon and I encourage parents with questions to seek out the parents volunteering their time to the committees and talk to them. The aim is for the Committees, like all School Council committees to provide an opportunity for engagement and discussion.

Author: Tanya Pittard, School Council parent member of Education Committee