Category: Uncategorized

 

What a crazy week onsite with the weather!  We had our first real taste of an Australian summer with three consecutive days of high temperatures to conclude with a storm at 3:40pm and then losing power.  Thankfully the power returned to school by Wednesday morning but some of our families and staff were not so lucky.  For future reference, if the school were to close, we would contact our community – so ‘no news, is good news’.  We do assess the situation to ensure that it is safe for everyone to come onsite and we would work with the Department of Education.  I hope that those affected by having no power have it restored some time soon.  If there is anything we can do at school to support, please let us know.

School Review

Over the past two weeks, our school staff have been working through a School Review.  School Reviews are conducted every four years for all Department of Education schools. A panel of people consisting of an independent reviewer, a Senior Educational Improvement Leader, two Principals and leadership from our school (Tyson Buckingham, Cara Trott, Chris Jeffries and myself) work through a process.  We look at our past Strategic Plan to see what has happened in the past four years – our successes, what enabled us, what was a barrier, what is the data telling us. The panel then spent a couple of days observing our classrooms, talking to students, staff and parents to determine what are the next goals for the school and the key improvement strategies.  The panel then determines the next Strategic Plan for the next four years – goals, targets and key improvement strategies.

The process did show us that we have a great school. Our school and community have done an amazing job at navigating learning and wellbeing through the pandemic.  There is lots of evidence to show great teaching practices, student agency and supports for wellbeing currently in places.  Our future work will see us to continue to improve the outcomes for all our students in literacy and numeracy.  We will have a numeracy focus this year and then move into writing.  Our wellbeing goal is for happy, healthy and resilient students.  We will continue to work with our wellbeing program and strengthen our knowledge, understanding and practices for all our community – student, staff and parents.

Family Open Afternoon

We hope you are able to join us for our Family Open Afternoon. We invite all our families to join us on Monday 19^th February from 3:30pm to 5:00pm to meet your child’s teacher, see their classroom, walk around our school grounds and ask questions about 2024.

This week we sent home information about our school.  It was sent via an email.  Hopefully you have had time to read it and if you have any questions, please come and ask our staff.  The Family Open Afternoon is a great opportunity to have all your questions answered.

Assembly

Our whole school assemblies will resume on Monday 19^th February and parents are invited to join us.  This week will be announcing our house captains to our community.  We hold assemblies every fortnight.  We aim to start the assembly at 2:45pm and they are held in the shed or gym – depending on the weather.  We will open up the top gate at 2:40pm for parents to enter. 

Annual privacy reminder for our school community

Our school collects, uses, discloses and stores student and parent personal information for standard school functions or where permitted by law, as stated in the Schools’ Privacy Policy.

Please take time to read our school’s collection notice, found on our website.  Link for collection statement.

School Council

On Monday 20^th March, we will be running our Annual General Meeting for School Council.  We currently have couple of vacancies on our council.  If you are interested in being a part of this group, please contact the office for a form.  Nomination forms need to be in by 23^rd February.  Members of school council will require a Working with Children Check. 

What is a school council and what does it do?

All government schools in Victoria have a school council. They are legally constituted bodies that are given powers to set the broad direction of a school, in accordance with Ministerial Order 1280 Constitution of Government School Councils, and the Education and Training Reform Act 2006. In doing this, a school council is able to directly influence the quality of education that the school provides for its students.

Code of conduct for school councillors

School councils in Victoria are public entities as defined by the Public Administration Act 2004.School councillors must abide by the Code of Conduct for Directors of Victorian Public Entities issued by the Victorian Public Sector Commission. The Code of Conduct is based on the Victorian public sector values and requires councillors to:

·       act with honesty and integrity – be truthful, open and clear about their motives and declare any real, potential or perceived conflict of interest and duty

·       act in good faith in the best interests of the school- work cooperatively with other councillors and the school community, be reasonable, and make all decisions with the best interests of students foremost in their minds

·       act fairly and impartially – consider all relevant facts of an issue before making a decision, seek to havea balanced view, never give special treatment to a person or group and never act from self-interest

·       use information appropriately – respect confidentiality and use information for the purpose for which it was made available

·       exercise due care, diligence and skill – accept responsibility for decisions and do what is best for the school

·       use the position appropriately – not use the position as a councillor to gain an advantage

·       act in a financially responsible manner – observe all the above principles when making financial decisions

·       comply with relevant legislation and policies – know what legislation and policies are relevant for which decisions and obey the law

·       demonstrate leadership and stewardship -set a good example, encourage a culture of accountability, manage risks effectively, exercise care and responsibility to keep the school strong and sustainable.

Parenting

Being a parent is such a rewarding experience.  Being part of someone’s life from the very beginning and watch them grow and seeing the person they become is such a privilege.  However, it has moments of being very challenging (hopefully they do not last too long).  I thought I would bring your attention to Dr Billy Garvey.  Dr Billy is a dad, podcaster and a developmental paediatrician with over 20 years’ experience working with children and families in a number of settings.  One of his podcasts is ‘Pop Culture Parenting’.  The podcast is about finding the sweetspot between the textbooks and real life when it comes to parenting.  He uses iconic TV and cinema scenes from the 80’s and 90’s to give contect to Billy’s parenting advice.

A couple of weeks ago I listened to episode 77: 10 things I hate about you & school success.  It discussed how to support your child to succeed at school, especially their social and emotional development.  I enjoyed listening to Dr Billy – I hope you find him helpful and informative as well.

World’s Greatest Shave

On Monday 18^th March, one of our grade 6 students will be participating in the World’s Greatest Shave.  Jack will spend the next month raising money and then will shave his hair at our school assembly.  He is a message from Jack:

Hi my name is Jack F from 6S. I am doing the World Greatest Shave to raise money for the leukaemia reach. On Monday 18th March 2024 I will have my year’s worth of hair shaved off in assembly. 

Leukaemia is one of the most common cancer in children and I hope one day they can find a cure for it. 

I have already raised over $200 for this great cause. If you would like to make a donation you can go to qkr! or make a cash donation in assembly when they shave my head. 

Thank you for your support in advance. 

Enjoy your weekend.

Heidi Inglis

Principal

Keep up to date with what’s happening in our classrooms and around the school by subscribing to our blogs.

Preps – https://blogs.beaconsfield.vic.edu.au/Preps

Grade 1 – https://blogs.beaconsfield.vic.edu.au/Grade1

Grade 2 – https://blogs.beaconsfield.vic.edu.au/Grade2

Grade 3 – https://blogs.beaconsfield.vic.edu.au/Grade3

Grade 4 – https://blogs.beaconsfield.vic.edu.au/Grade4

Grade 5 – https://blogs.beaconsfield.vic.edu.au/Grade5

Grade 6 – https://blogs.beaconsfield.vic.edu.au/Grade6

STUDENT ACCIDENT INSURANCE AND AMBULANCE COVER

The Department of Education does not provide student accident insurance or ambulance cover. Parents may wish to obtain student accident insurance from a commercial insurer and/or ambulance cover, depending on their health insurance arrangements and any other personal considerations.

Special Toys/Items

We encourage our students not to bring their special items or toys to school. It is not the schools responsibility to keep these items from being accidently lost or broken.

Early pick up

Please make note when making appointments or decisions during school time that require early pick up, to avoid any time during the lunch breaks, as students are not always able to be found easily. Lunch breaks are between 11:40-12:20 and 2:00-2:40pm on normal school days. Special events may affect these times.

Please notify the school of early pick up on the same day via a phone call. Otherwise pre-arranged early pick up can be sent via an email up until the day before. Emails received on the same day, may not be monitored.

Absences

If you child is absent, please make sure you report this to the school. You can do this via the Sentral App, email or to our absence line by calling the school.

Medication/Sickbay

Students requiring medication must not hold this in their bags. It must be held in the sick bay for safety of all students. When dropping medication into the office, you will need to have a medication form completed. It is best you take note of the expiration date of medication (such as Epipens and Asthma medication) as you are responsible for replacing these when expired.
Department of Education policy is to give medication (such as antibiotics) outside of school hours where possible.

Sick bay is covered by the Office staff who are first aid trained. They will contact you only should it be required as per the school policy.

The school office is open between 8:30am – 4:00pm during the school term. Please contact us should you have any queries.

SICKBAY NOTIFICATIONS

After reviewing our procedures, it has been decided that as of January 2024, no sickbay notifications will be sent out. If we do however need to contact you and we have been unsuccessful at getting in touch with you by phone, we will also try contacting you by a notification.

UPCOMING DATES

Wednesday 13th December – Last canteen day

Wednesday 20th December – Last day of school 1.30pm finish

CONGRATULATIONS

A very big congratulations to our Hoop Time Basketball team who competed at State Finals today. What a fantastic achievement to come 13th out of a total of 750 teams. You should be extremely proud of yourself and the way you represented Beaconsfield Primary School. Well done!!!!!

I hope everyone has some nice plans for Mother’s Day this weekend.  A time to get together with your families and special people in your life.  I know our students have some lovely cards and gifts coming home for their mums.  I hope all our mums and grandmothers get spoilt.

Please note that we have a curriculum day next week – Thursday 18^th May.  Our staff will be spending the day on inclusion and the adjustments we make to ensure that all the students are accessing the curriculum and achieving success.  They will also be working on Assessment and Reporting.

School Council

Last term we held our Annual General Meeting.  We farewelled three School Councillors – Amanda Read, Shaun McEachern and Sonya Nori

• Amanda served for 4 years and was a great support of our staff and programs and always celebrated the positive elements of our school.  She served on Curriculum and Building and Grounds committees.
• Shaun served for 2 years and was a great voice for student learning and ideas.  He served on the Curriculum committee.
• Sonya served for 8 years and was a great insight into the classroom and how it looks for students.  She served on the Curriculum committee and minute secretary.

We welcomed three new parents and one staff member to our School Council (Marika, Wayne, Sarah and Nick).  School Council comprises of the following:

President – Peter Raja (Parent rep)

Vice President – Sarah Reidy (Parent rep)

Treasurer – Linda Amos (DET employee)

Committee – Parent representatives: Natasha Morris, Jackie Owen, Alison Wilkinson-Falk, Paul Carter, Wayne Buttie, Marika Smith, Sarah Clemens, Catherine Pattison

DET employee – Shoana Carey, Heidi Inglis, Tyson Buckingham, Nick O’Shea

Wellbeing

The other day I had the privilege of watching ‘The Imperfects Podcast live’.  For those not familiar with The Imperfects Podcast – it has Hugh van Cuylenburg from the Resilience Project, his brother Josh and comedian Ryan Shelton.  The podcast is all about how perfectly imperfect we all are. When we constantly comparing ourselves to others, it can not only be exhausting, but extremely harmful. However, when we share our struggles, we start to realise that everyone, no matter how successful, has something they are battling with.

In the podcast, Hugh, Josh and Ryan chat to a variety of interesting people who bravely share their struggles and imperfections, and we can all learn some valuable take-aways we can apply to our own imperfect lives.

I encourage you to have a look through and take a moment to listen to some of the amazing people they interview.  I personally have enjoyed Ben Crowe, Hamish McLachlan, Dr Billy Garvey and Chrissie Swan, however, there are many more episodes that I could list and there isn’t many that I have learnt something new or able to connect or relate to.

At the live show, I had the privilege of listening to Ben Crowe.  Ben is a leadership mentor and life coach and has worked with Ash Barty, Dylan Alcott, Richmond Football club and more.  He spoke about preparing ourselves for an event coming up and acknowledging our feelings, what we hope to achieve from it and what we can control and not control.  It is so important that we do not get distracted with the things that we cannot control.

Consider an event that your child has coming up – excursion, performance, a game, a test, camp, a sleepover.  You could talk with them about how they are feeling about it and what they want to achieve/get out of it.  You can talk to them about the things that they cannot control and how they need to let go of those feelings.  Some ideas of things we cannot control – the rules or procedures of an event, the weather, how an audience will react, the content of a test, how other players will perform, other people’s feelings and what they say.  Then get them to understand what they can control – their preparation, their attitude, their mindset, their feelings, their choices.

This is a very powerful activity and can be applied to all events and for all people – big and small.  I hope this supports you with helping your child through a challenge.

End of day pick up

Do you ever get the feeling that it always rains at 3:30pm!  We have had some very wet afternoons that presents challenges.  I thought I would take the opportunity to remind everyone of our afternoon procedures.

At the end of the day, students will be dismissed from their classroom and follow your pick up arrangements.  We will have staff at the gate on the Princes Hwy and at Kiss’n’Go.  The staff member will stay on the gate until 3:45pm.  At 3:45pm a bell will sound and any child that have not been collected, will head into the office where they will wait for you.  Sometimes we will give you a ring to check on your arrival time and to let you know that your child has moved into the office.

Therefore, please be reassured that if you are held up in traffic that your child is with us.  It is always a good idea to tell your child to wait near our staff so if you are running late, we can keep them company and move them inside when the bell rings.

If you know early enough that your pick up arrangements have changed, you can ring the office to pass on a message.  However, with 650+ students and our grades often out and about in the afternoon, it can be challenging to get the message to the student late in the day.

We have a small number of students with mobile phones and we have some of our students wearing smart watches.  Please be mindful that there is Department of Education policy in regards to mobile phones (switched off once on the school grounds and handed to the classroom teachers during the day) and wearable devices (must switch off all notification during the school day).

Linda Amos – leave

Mrs Amos is taking some well-earned long service leave this term.  She is away for five weeks and will return on the 13^th June.  Whilst she is on leave, we have Cara Trott and Chris Jeffries helping us in the leadership team.  Cara will be with us in the office for the whole period, and Chris will be sharing his role with the classroom and in the office.  He is also returning from leave and you might have seen him scootering around with a plastered foot!

Mother’s Day raffle and stall

On Monday, the P&Fs conducted our Mother’s Day raffle and Tuesday and Wednesday was the Mother’s Day stall 

• I would like to thank our school community and the Beaconsfield community for their generous donations – the prizes were fabulous. 
• I would like to thank our school community for supporting the raffle and purchasing lots of tickets – the box was very full with tickets, and for sending students along with money to purchase gifts.
• Lastly, I would like to thank P&F for giving up their time to receive the donations, make the prizes, write all the raffle tickets, set up the stall and selling the gifts.   You are an amazing group.

Let’s Celebrate

I wanted to finish up with a celebration as to how respectful our students are.  Over the past month we have received a lot of feedback from a variety of sources to let us know how polite and well-mannered our students are.  We have received:

• A letter from a member of the community informing us how polite and well-mannered our students were at the traffic lights – moving aside to let someone pass.
• We have had a new crossing lady for the last couple of weeks at Lyle ave, and she has commented how lovely our students are.
• The photographers that have come this term have feedback how well behaved our students were when taking our photos.
• Parents and Friends have been onsite for two days at the Mother’s Day stall and have feedback how lovely all the students and how helpful our grade 6 helpers were.
• We held our Open Day on Saturday with grade 6 captains attending and I have begun tours. We received many complimentary comments and an email, telling us how delightful and what an amazing job they did and how respectful our students are.

We try very hard to create a culture of caring and respect and we understand that from time to time our students might make a wrong choice, but we hope by the majority demonstrating the behaviours we expect, that they quickly make a choice to be a respectful member of the community and have that sense of belonging and being part of Beacy.

Sadly, we do receive emails and phone calls from the community about Beacy people doing the wrong thing but it is often our parents in regards to driving and being pedestrians.  Please make sure that you are also being safe, abiding by the road laws and modeling the correct behaviours.  From time to time we do have parking inspectors out issuing fines, and I would hate to see people receiving a costly fine Things to note:

• Only park legally – do not block drive ways, park in no standing zones or in the 2 minute zone, only access the disable parking if eligible.  If you have someone else picking up your child, make sure they are aware of the parking around our school.
• Crossing the road – only cross the road at the two school crossings.  Please do not cross at the Lyle ave end, near the Princes Hwy.  Please make the effort to walk a little bit further and use the school crossing. 

Happy Mother’s Day

Heidi Inglis

Principal

Reading aloud has been shown to have a positive impact on children’s literacy development and provides valuable time for us to connect with our children and check in with the progress of their learning, but sometimes reading can be challenging.

When students have difficulty reading a word or make a word reading error, The ‘Pause, Prompt, Praise’ method is helpful to get them back on track.

When your child is a beginning reader and has difficulty reading a word, these steps can help.

1. PAUSE for around 5 seconds—It may seem like a long time, but allowing children time to think can support the development of self-help strategies, rather than relying on adults for the answer.

2.  PROMPT—if the child cannot read the word, we can offer them a prompt. You could ask: “What is the first sound in that word?” If they are still stuck, sound out the word for them and encourage them to blend the sounds together. (e.g., f…r…o…g) You could also tell them the first sound and encourage them to sound out the rest, or break the word into syllables. (e.g., runn-ing) If they are still having difficulty, tell them the word and keep reading.

3. PRAISE is an important way to build confidence and reinforce the use of strategies when they have corrected an error or read the word correctly after a prompt.

You could say, “You figured that out by yourself” or “you noticed that you made a mistake and reread the sentence, well done.”

Sometimes, older students may experience difficult with reading a word or make reading errors, wait until they get to the end of the sentence before stopping them. Sometimes they will realise their mistake because it doesn’t make sense and then self-correct, but they often need to get to the end of the sentence to realise this.  If they continue on into the next sentence you may then want to ask them: “Did that make sense?”

1. If they think it made sense, then ask them to read the sentence again. They may get it correct because they read more carefully this time.
2. If they have misread a word for the second time, go back and ask them to have a close look at it. If they recognise their mistake, read the sentence again with the correct word.
3. If they cannot read the word, help them to break it up using the strategies above.
4. If they still have trouble, provide the word and move on and make a note of the word.

After reading you could talk about the meaning of the word. It may be a new word for them, there may be an unfamiliar part of the word, or they don’t know how to pronounce it.

If you would like more tips or strategies to use at home, please speak to your classroom teacher.

Happy Reading,         

Mrs Trott