Messages from Mrs Inglis
Hello everyone,
As you are reading this, I have just returned from being at camp with the grade 5 students. All students and staff were having a fantastic time. How wonderful to be able to provide these opportunities and experiences for our students. I am very appreciative of the amazing parent helpers and staff that we have, that left their families and lives for three days for our students. We have grade 3 and 4 camp next – so a big thank you to all the parents helpers and staff.
Last week our staff received their Professional Practice day. In the past, staff were able to be released onsite to receive their entitlement but as we have a staff shortage of available casual relief teachers across the State, the Department of Education and Training has allowed us to take a common day. Thank you for your support.
On this day the staff undertake many tasks such as:
- Working with the Victorian curriculum to plan learning sequences for the cohort,
- Reviewing assessments and student work to determine what students know and where they need to go next with their learning.
- Consulting current research and initiatives to determine what practices will support our students to obtain new knowledge, concepts and skills.
- Planning engaging tasks and experiences to ‘hook’ our students into the learning.
- Administration tasks such as entering data, camps, excursions, transitions, etc.
- Professional learning that is required as part of our role – child safe standards, mandatory reporting
At Beaconsfield Primary School, these days are so valuable to ensure we are supporting all our staff to ensure that they are working on their practice and craft of the teaching and learning of our young people.
Child safety and wellbeing at Beaconsfield Priamry School: information for families and the school community
The Victorian Government has announced new Child Safe Standards to further strengthen child safety across organisations, including schools. The new standards recognise the critical importance of families and the broader school community in maintaining and promoting child safety and wellbeing.
Beaconsfield Primary School is committed to providing a child safe and child friendly environment, where students are safe and feel safe.
Beaconsfield Primary School has reviewed and updated our child safety policies and procedures to ensure they meet the requirements of the new standards. These are available to view on our school’s website (beaconsfield.vic.edu.au) and at the school’s front office.
We are committed to continuous improvement in our approach to child safety and wellbeing and have worked with members of our school community such as school council, students and staff on ways we can further strengthen our child safety policies, procedures and practices.
Our child safety and wellbeing policies outline the measures and strategies we have in place to support, promote and maintain the safety and wellbeing of our students:
- Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy
- Child Safety Code of Conduct
- Child safety Responding and Reporting Obligations Policy and Procedure
- Student Wellbeing and Engagement Policy
- Bullying Prevention Policy
- Volunteers Policy
- Digital Learning Policy
If you have any comments or questions, please contact myself, Linda Amos or Tyson Buckingham.
Please note, one of our safe guards we have for volunteers or parent helpers at our school is to ensure that they have a Working With Children’s Check registered to our school. If you think that you may like to help out, please ensure that you have completed this procedure as it can take time. Feel free to contact the office if you have any questions.
Buildings and Grounds
I thought I would just give an update on what is happening around our grounds. We are always looking at ways to improve our grounds and maintain them.
- The bike shed now has a concrete floor and bike and scooter racks are on their way.
- Seating at ‘Kiss’n’Go’ for students and parents as they wait at the end of the day.
- New garden beds near the gym – let’s hope our students stay out of them as they are establishing.
Still to come:
- A rubber surface at the pirate ship – we are waiting for dry weather for it to be laid.
- Retaining walls with seating around our junior and senior playground – to keep mulch off the paths and provide seating.
- Widening the concrete path at the grade 5 portables.
- A new playground alongside what we call ‘the driveway’ – across from the gym. We have put forward the students’ recommendations and we have two playground companies putting together designs.
Book Week
Well done to all the students who came to school on Thursday dressed as a character from a story. The wind challenged us in the morning – costumes being blown away, but it just added to the fun of the day. Whilst some students are a bit anxious for dressing up, hopefully everyone loved being part of it and seeing all the creative costumes.
In the classroom, there were lots of activities to promote reading and exposing students to the world of literature. The leaders of our school (principals and school captains) read a story to the school that we hoped everyone enjoyed – ‘Danny in the Toybox’. This was a fun activity to be part of and one that you could do at home with your family. Record yourselves reading a story and send it to family and friends to listen to. The activity did require that we could read the story but also practices our fluency – reading the story at an appropriate rate and using expression.
Thank you to the families that donated to MS Read-a-thon. We appreciate your support.
Splash and Dash
Thank you to everyone who has donated already to this fun event. The date is Friday 9th September. On this day, families are invited to come onsite to help us ‘wet’ our students when they are doing the ‘Splash and Dash’. Please join us on the oval when your child’s school house is participating in this event. The times that you can join us are as follow:
- Morgan – 9:10 – 10am
- Lohan – 10 – 10:50am
- Rankin – 11:45am – 12:35pm
- Cooper – 12:35 – 1:25pm
Students can wear their house colours on the day. When they participate in the ‘Splash and Dash’ rotation, students are encouraged to change into a white t-shirt so that by the time they have finished their shirt will be colourful. Please send your child to school with a towel and bag to place their wet clothes in.
We will have water guns for parents to use but if you have a reliable water gun at home, feel free to bring it. We only have a limited supply and we found last time, some water guns stopped working as the day went along.
Have a great weekend.
Heidi Inglis
