Beaconsfield Primary School Newsletter
Latest news from Beacy!
DATES TO REMEMBER:
Monday 19th Demember – Gr 6 Funfields excursion
Tuesday 20th December – Last day of Term 4, 1:30pm finish
Monday 30th January – Term 1 begins for Gr 1-6
Tuesday 31st January – Term 1 begins for Prep students
Wednesday 1st February – No preps at school
Wednesday 1st February – First canteen day for 2023
We would like to wish all of our families a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Have a lovely holiday and we look forward to seeing you all in 2023.
We have come to the end of year and our last newsletter. I hope you have had an enjoyable 2022 and lots to celebrate. I know at school it has been a great year with lots of amazing experiences for everyone.
Teachers and classes for 2023
Here is the staffing for next year.
| Area | Teachers |
| Prep – 5 grades | Sophie Abel (PA), Briony Batchelor (PB), Felica Brown (PF), Laura Griffiths (PG) and Carolyn Hall (PH) |
| Grade 1 – 5 grades | Layla Baker (1B), Claire Frith (1F), Mandy Harvey (1H), Amanda Mollard (1M) and Meaghan Ryan/Jodie King (1RK) |
| Grade 2 – 4 grades | Amanda Hermon/Kat Audsley (2H), Lisa Kidd (2K), Sonya Nori (2N) and Yen Nguyen (2Y) |
| Grade 3 – 4 grades | Qui Clayton (3C), Suzanne Humphries/Kat Audsley (3H), Bianca Katsiavos (3K) and Charlotte Nilsson (3N) |
| Grade 4 – 3 grades | Rhys Buckingham (4B), Danielle Crossman (4C) and Nat Cayford (4N) |
| Grade 5 – 4 grades | James Burke (5B), Shoana Carey (5C), Chris Jeffries (5J) and Madi Percival (5P) |
| Grade 6 – 4 grades | Tom O’Brien (6B), Hayley Dimitrakas (6D) and Candice Triffitt (6T) |
| Specialists | Tara Costello (DigiTech) Alyssa Clinnick (Languages – German) Irene Carroll and Vicky Fisher (Performing Arts) Anthony Cole and Vicky Fisher (Physical Education) Anita Jacobsen and Vicky Fisher (Science) Danielle Gittins and Emma Jennion (Visual Arts) Sarah Campbell, Midge Meixner, Julie Taylor and Cara Trott (Tutoring/Intervention) Renae Suliaman (Wellbeing) – 2 days a week |
It is exciting that we are able to offer additional specialist subjects next year. Currently students have Performing Arts, Physical Education, Science and Visual Arts all year. Next year we will be introducing Langauges – German and DigiTech for six months.
We are farewelling four wonderful staff members this year. Stacey Grindy (grade 3), Hannah Spratt (grade 6), Liz Kay (wellbeing) and Sarah Jennings (office) are all heading off for exciting new adventures. Whilst we are so happy for them, we will be sad to see them leave Beaconsfield Primary School. Stacey will be working closer to home. Hannah will be traveling next year but we will still see her at the start of the year, helping out. Liz will be taking some leave and then retiring. Sarah will be working at Beaconsfield Upper Primary School as their business manager.
Students and sport
On Friday 2nd December, Ollie M (grade 5) represented our school in the State Championship in golf. Ollie had previously competed in Regional Finals, where he came first. Ollie had a great round and finished 14th in the State. Well done, Ollie on an amazing achievement.
This weekend, we have Kai C (grade 4) representing our school in the Aquathon (mixed 13 – 17 years). We wish him all the best.
Time to acknowledge some of the amazing people at Beacy
Parents & Friends Committee
We have a wonderful team of parents who come together to provide experiences and fundraising events for our school. The most memorable event this year was our Family Movie Night. Thank you to Allison and the wonderful team.
Thank you to all our families and businesses who have supported P&Fs by donating to our raffles over the year. We received amazing donations that were enjoyed by all our many winners.
School council
We would like to thank our School Council, for their support for our students, staff, and community. Peter and the team have done a fabulous job. This year we welcomed some new members to council and it was lovely to have been able to offer a hybrid model of meetings onsite and virtual. They have showed such great support to our teachers and community.
Over the holidays you will see that our new playground will be installed – ready for day one!
Parents
We would like to acknowledge our parent community for their amazing effort over the year. Thank you to all the parents who volunteer their time to support our students in the classroom, on excursions, sports day and camps. We also appreciate the support we receive as a school and this was evident when we need to make last minute changes to our concert this week. It is nice to know that you work with a community who treat us with respect and understanding. To our parents, enjoy the holidays with your family.
Students
We would like to thank the students. They are amazing people and we feel so privileged to work with them every day. This year we introduced the Beacy Spirit award to showcase how we value all our students at Beaconsfield Primary School. They are all unique people who have so much to give.
At our assembly on Monday we farewelled our 2022 School Captains and announced our 2023 School Captains. We wish them all the best in their new role and I am looking forward to working with them next year to make our school an even better place for students to learn and grow.
We wish our grade 6 students all the best for next year and beyond and we are looking forward to welcoming our new Preps for 2023.
To our students, enjoy the holidays and keep reading and exploring our world.
Staff
Lastly, I need to acknowledge our staff. As you would be aware, there are shortages in all employment sectors. In the education sector, there has been limited teachers to fill positions and replace teachers on leave. At Beaconsfield Primary School we have been so blessed to have a pool of teachers who work for us. This pool consists of our part-time staff picking up additional days, staff on family leave who have come in to help us and casual replacement staff. This has ensured that we have been able to cover all our classes with a teacher. We have not had to cancel our specialist program and our tutoring program was only slightly impacted. We have also been able to successfully fill all our positions for 2023.
I would like to say a big ‘thank you’ to the team who have helped us all year – Danielle G, Meaghan R, Felicia B, Alyssa C, Hayley D, Renae, S, Kat A, Jac Z, Jodie K, Meg T, Emma J, Molly D, Julie T, Bethany H, Charlotte N, Jenny A, Gill H, Paula S, Loren S, Tara K, Emma S and Bethany P.
Thank you to all the staff at Beaconsfield Primary School. We are so privileged to have people working at this school that go ‘above and beyond’ to ensure fantastic learning and experiences for all our students. They work tirelessly to make sure your child is supported in their learning, as well as socially and their wellbeing. Enjoy your break!
This week our staff have participated in basketball, netball and footy games with our grade 6 students to make their last weeks at our school that bit more special. The students won the basketball game and the teachers and parents won the netball and football game.
Enjoy your holidays – hopefully the summer weather will arrive for us all to get out and about. Looking forward to seeing you in the new year.
Heidi Inglis
Well it’s been a huge year! The Parents and friends have raised over $23,000.00 this year!
Recently our movie night was a great way for all of us to come together as a community to see the smiles on all the kids faces, this is why we do it, even high on sugar! Just one of the many events that bring our school community together and help raise funds for our kids.
I would like to thank all of our volunteers including the members of our P & F, without you events like this could not happen. Thank you to everybody that came and supported our movie night, although we did have some technical issues we did manage to get it all going. To all our students, thank you for your help, your time and your lovely smiles.
We hope you have all managed to see the newly finished bike shed with new floor and stands, don’t forget to watch out for all the newly painted, brightly coloured paint on the ground, it looks awesome! This is why we work so hard to fundraise. Wait till you see what is coming next year, cross your fingers it’s finished in time for the New Year so keep your eyes open!
Thank you again to all our generous families and businesses that made contributions to the school this year, without the community’s support our kids would miss out, so thank you all!
And we are already looking forward to next year. Elections for a new committee will be held in February 2023, information will come out on Sentral.
We would also like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a safe holiday and see you all back next year.
Please don’t forget to support the companies that paid for advertising at the movie night:
Please also support these companies that have donated to our Christmas raffle:
Alison Wilkinson-Beards
President
Parents and Friends
Here we are in December! I hope as the year is coming to an end, it has been a great 2022 for you – lots of fun times with the family, lots of adventures, lots of smiles and laughter.
Writing Competition
During Term 3, we held a writing competition at our school. Students from each year level, were welcomed to enter a piece of their writing. There was no topic and any type of writing could be entered so students were able to showcase their strengths. Last week’s assembly we announced the winners of the Beaconsfield Writing Competition. Each winner was awarded with their very own copy of their published writing. We have also placed a copy in our library for everyone to read. Congratulations to all those who entered into the competition.
The winning entries:
Assemblies
With only a few weeks to go, we have a couple of assemblies left to acknowledge our students. Next week we have our regular fortnightly assembly where we give out our Beacy Spirit awards, specialist awards and make announcements.
On Monday 12th December, we will have our final assembly for the year. At this assembly we will announce our grade 6 captains for 2023, acknowledge our students who reached 300 nights of reading, announce the winners of the Christmas raffle, say our ‘goodbyes’ and lots more. This assembly starts around 2:45pm in the shed. I hope you are able to come along and celebrate with us.
School Concert
I am sure you have heard from your child how they are getting ready for the concert (or are they trying really hard to keep their performance a surprise for you?).
On Wednesday 14th December we have two concerts.
We all know that these events will be well attended so make sure you give yourself lots of time to park, walk to our school and get seated. We will open up the school gates on Lyle ave at 12:10pm for families to access our school. We will open the gate closest to the shed area.
There will be clearly designated areas for people sitting on rugs and where you can sit if you have brought a chair. As a school, we will provide limited seating for elderly or those with special needs. If on the afternoon, you need additional support, please see a staff member.
It will be a very exciting and busy afternoon for everyone. Please remember that your child is at school and in the care of their teacher, so we need them to stay with their grade at all times.
You were sent a very informative brochure regarding all the details of the concert. Please make sure you are familiar with it.
It is a timely reminder about our ‘Photographing, Filming and Recording Students’ policy.
Beaconsfield Primary school requests that parents/carers, students and invited guests who photograph, film or record school activities only do so for their own personal use and do not publish the images in any form, including on social media, without the prior consent of persons whose children also appear in the images.
We will also be recording our school concert and grade 6 graduation for DVD sales, and if your child participates, they may appear in these recordings which will be available to the whole school community.
Road safety around school
As pedestrians around our school, can I please encourage you to use our school crossings where applicable. If you are walking across Lyle ave, rather than crossing close to the highway on the corner, where cars are coming from a number of directions, please walk up to school crossing. This is a safer place to cross.
There are some roads that are unavoidable so we need to ensure we model safe behaviours and if your children are of an age to be walking by themselves, you have discussed road safety. Roads such as crossing at Goff St, the pedestrian crossing on Glismann road, the roundabout on Lyle ave and Mahon ave all present their own issues.
As drivers, can you please ensure that we are more cautious and aware when driving around the school when students are being dismissed. They are such precious little people and sometimes do not have the same reasoning and judgements as we do as adults. Thank you for being a positive role model for our students.
Thank you
Recently we sold poppies and badges for Remembrance Day. Our school raised $1101.75 for the Pakenham RSL Sub Branch. We had the highest money raised for all the schools. Thank you to our community for their support for this great cause.
Congratulations
James Burke welcomed a beautiful baby girl last month. Sophie arrived safely to the delight of her parents and big brother. Everyone is doing well and having lots of fun getting to know each other and looking forward to Christmas. James will return in 2023 but we did get to have a quick visit on Wednesday.
2023
On Wednesday we moved into our grades for 2023 for a visit. Your child spent some time in their new grade – meeting their teachers and classmates. They will have come home with a letter from their teacher. We will hold one more session for your child to become familiar with their new teacher and classmates, and to learn about and ask questions around next year.
Dress Up Day – What I want to be when I grow up!
Our SRC would like to finish up with a fun dress up day. There is no donation required – just your imagination and fun.
Remember when dressing up that we still need to be SunSmart – shoulders need to be covered. If you child is going to wear a singlet, make sure they have a t-shirt underneath. Also, costume details can be important but please make sure they have sensible footwear for playing in a school ground. Runners are always preferred when outside.
I am looking forward to seeing what ideas our students come up with. I am sure we will see lots of sports people and maybe some future scientists, teachers, astronauts, electricians, etc. Our world is endless with possibilities of future careers. They might even like to dress up as a parent who inspires them!
With only a couple of weeks to go, there is still so much to happen. I have started to have some parents let me know that they are heading off a bit earlier this year. This school year is a funny one, with us finishing up on a Tuesday. If you are planning on leaving us a bit early, just let your teacher know or enter it on Sentral. This will make sure that your child does not miss out on getting everything sent home.
For those following the Socceroos, I hope they have a win on Sunday morning. What an exciting World Cup it has been for the team!
Heidi Inglis
DATES TO REMEMBER:
Friday 2nd December – Blast Cricket (Selected students)
Friday 2nd December – PERMISSION DUE – Students vs Parents/Teachers
Saturday 3rd December – Gr 6 2023 Uniform to be ordered by today
Monday 5th December – PAYMENT & PERMISSION DUE – Gr 6 Funfields excursion
Tuesday 6th December – Gr 6 Jubilee Garden Opening
Friday 9th December – Last day of Canteen for 2022
Friday 9th December – Beacy Fun Fair
Wednesday 14th December – End of year Celebration Concert. Juniors 12:30pm, Seniors 2:00pm
Thursday 15th December – Grade 6 Graduation
Friday 16th December – Dress up Day ‘What do you want to be when you grow up’ theme
Monday 19th December – Gr 6 Funfields excursion
Tuesday 20th December – End of Term 4, 1:30pm finish
Monday 30th January – Term 1 begins for Gr 1 – 6
Tuesday 31st January – Term 1 begins for Prep
Wednesday 1st February – No Preps at school
Energy Breakthrough, Maryborough 2022
What an adventure this turned out to be!!!!
A massive thank you to everyone who helped make it possible, the preparation for this event started weeks before the 3 days in Maryborough. No matter how big or small your contribution THANK YOU!!! Well done to all the students involved for your fantastic Beacy spirt and accepting all the changes that came our way with the right attitude. Now the story of what happened.
The Try Athlon competition was made up of 5 activities for points adding up to 100 points over 3 days, 2 presentations and 3 riding events. Beaconsfield Primary School had 3 teams entered event under our name in the Try Athlon. A primary school team competing in ‘Wasp’ made up of four girls and three boys from Beaconsfield Primary School. An all-girls team in ‘Storm’ in the secondary school class consisting of current and former students. Lastly an all-boys team racing ‘Gotta Catch’em All’ in the open class made up of former students and Mr Cole’s two sons. Riders currently at Beaconsfield PS were Erin S, Elyssa T, Eleanor C, Emma C, Scarlett C, Max M, Kristian D and Mathijs C.
Most families arrived in camp Wednesday evening, not on our usual nice green oval at the track but a 10 minute walk down the road in the Salvation Army paddock due to the rain that had occurred on the lead up to the event. We were still able to make ourselves a comfortable base of operation.
Thursday the 2 presentations took place and there were 40 points for grabs. Display and presentation was a poster presentation and had the students speaking to judges about the training they had done to prepare for the event, how the school tries to be environmentally friendly, heathy eating, the history of the program and the sponsors and friends that had made it possible to compete. Design and construction was where the riders spoke about their vehicle, safety features and the race rules.
Friday we hit the track nice and early with a 7:15am start for practice on the endurance track which also doubled as qualification grid positions the next day. Over the remainder of the day the 3 teams split up to compete in 2 sprint events, the obstacle course and the time trail. Both events required riders to complete 1 lap of the track them, a pit stop to change to the next rider, the rider change overs being the key to these events. Depending on the class the races were 8 or 16 laps in length. The obstacle course tested the rider’s control of the vehicle and the time trial their speed.
The real adventure started on a beautifully sunny Friday afternoon when team managers were called to an urgent meeting, pausing the races, to let us know that the weather was not going to be as kind the next day for the 8 hour endurance race. Heavy rain, thunder and lightning were on the way. A whole team meeting was held at camp that evening and all families decided to stay and race.
Saturday morning had us packing up the camp site in preparation for the afternoon storm and making our way to the track ready for eight hours of racing. Final preparation of the vehicles for wet weather racing was required due to light rain making the track wet. Our pit area needed to be set up and once again we found ourselves standing in muddy puddles.
The eight hour endurance race started with a parade lap at 2:00pm. About 4:30pm team managers were again called to an urgent meet and this time we were told the race would not be finishing at 10:00pm as planned but in 30 minutes time, 5:00pm. Our racing had been cut from eight hours to three hours. We would have about an hour to pack everything away before the storm arrived. With GREAT teamwork this was achieved.
Dinner was pizza back at the camp site before we all went our separate ways home through what had become heavy rain. Everyone making it safely home eventually, some of us having some extra adventures along the way, Saturday night or Sunday morning. Results came through over the next week:
· ‘Wasp’ in the primary school class 15th
· ‘Storm’ in the secondary school class – 3rd
· ‘Gotta Catch’em All’ in the open class – 1st
Thank you again to everyone who made this a successful event.
Mr Cole
Joshua R, Tayla B, Sophia Z, Flynn D, Jackson K, Georgia M, Jax T, Flynn W, Kian R, Axl F, Izach P, Macie G, Sophie R, Eve C, Isla C, Jack A, Ted B, Axel A, Cadence B, Ruby M, Theo Y, Ryan P, Emmie R, Archer T, Breeana W, Ezekial P, Holly K, Keishaani T, Hamish M, Madeline D, Kristian D, Bella T, Ophelia C, Anabel N, Poppy H, Ebony B, Indigo E, Stella S, Matilda W, Millie E & Blake A.