Welcome to Term 3

I hope everyone had a wonderful winter holiday break, with the kids recharged and ready to get into another term of learning and enjoyment.

As always, there’s quite a bit planned for the term so here’s a quick preview of what’s to come:

• School Disco is on tonight in the gym. See Compass Events post for all the details.
• Prep students are celebrating 100 Days of School on July 30. This is an exciting achievement as they remember how much they’ve learned in their first 100 days of school!
• We are learning about and celebrating the Olympic Games in Paris by having multi-age activities on Friday afternoons each fortnight. The activity next Friday is an Opening Ceremony with the kids dressing in colours of their group’s chosen country. This will be a fun and memorable event for the kids. Parents and friends are most welcome to join us for the afternoon.
• The Year 2 students are off to the MCG Sports Museum for an excursion on 6^th August
• Jackson Taylor MP is visiting on 8^th August to officially open the Inclusive Play Space.
• Year 6 students will have their German Celebration Day on 15^th August. This is a special event just for Year 6’s where they participate in German themed activities, watch a Bavarian Oompah Band and enjoy eating some yummy German food.
• Book Week is celebrated in the week beginning 19^th August. The highlight of the week is our Book Week Dress Up Parade along with the Book Fair in the Library.
• Other incursions & excursions include the Year 5 Immigration for a Better Life incursion, Year 4s have a History incursion, and the Year 1s experiencing a day out at the Melbourne Museum.
• Year 5 students are off to camp this term, visiting Sovereign Hill in Ballarat from Monday 2^nd September to Wednesday 4^th September.
• For those students rehearsing for the State Schools Spectacular, their big performance day is on Saturday 14^th September at John Cain Arena.
• Finally, we will finish off the term on Friday 20^th September with a Footy Dress Up Day. This year, the JSC are asking for donations to support the My Room Children’s Cancer Charity.

All of these events are additional to the educational experiences our kids receive every day in their classroom, which are just as significant as the extra-curricula activities that happen throughout the year.

Beanies

It’s lovely to see all the new BHPS Beanies popping up on kids heads throughout the school. These seem to be very popular uniform items and I’m pleased the community got behind the idea. We’ve certainly had some cold and wet weather recently, so anything to keep the kids warm is bound to help.

Parent Opinion Survey is Coming

Our school is conducting the annual Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey offered by the Department of Education and is seeking your feedback. The survey is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behaviour, and student engagement. The survey is optional, but we encourage and appreciate your participation.

Our school will use the survey results to assist in identifying areas for improvement and professional development needs in the school, to target school planning and improvement strategies.

The Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey will be open online from Monday 29 July to Friday 30 August 2024.

All families are invited to participate in the survey.

The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time on desktop computers, laptops, tablets or smartphones.

The online survey will be available in English and 10 other languages including Arabic, Greek, Hakha Chin, Hindi, Japanese, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Turkish, and Vietnamese. Resources are also available in additional languages to assist parents / caregivers / guardians who speak a language other than English at home. Please reach out to your child’s teacher, or the school directly for survey guides in your language.

Last year we used the survey results to assist in the School Review process, which then informs our plans for the next four years.

Please reach out to a member of the administration team if you would like more information.

Prep building and Library

Sadly, in the last week of school we had an incident in the BER Building resulting from a small electrical fire. Thankfully, the situation was handled promptly and bravely by a few staff members who were in the building at the time. It was their quick action that prevented a much larger fire from taking hold. We immediately enacted our emergency management plan, evacuated everyone to the netball court at the front of the school and contacted emergency services. The fire brigade attended and deemed the area safe within 20 minutes, allowing us to return to classrooms. Unfortunately, the building was smoke affected and couldn’t be used until it was thoroughly cleaned.

Over the holidays, cleaners have been in the building cleaning every book, pencil and Unifix block. They have scrubbed walls and doors, steam cleaned furniture and replaced permanent fixtures (carpet tiles, sections of ceiling and bench tops) that were most affected by smoke damage. As you can imagine, this is painstaking work which has taken nearly four weeks to complete.

The Preps have been working in other classrooms during this time. German and STEAM classes have taken place in home rooms, and instrumental music lessons have been run out of our meeting rooms. I’ve been listening to kids practice guitar in the room behind my office for the last two weeks, and I must say they’re pretty good too!

This has caused quite a lot of disruption to normal routines. The kids and staff have been amazingly resilient, and I appreciate their flexibility and determination. You’ll be pleased to know that things will be returning to normal very soon. The hygienist has given us the “all clear” so we can start putting furniture in rooms and making them look pretty again.

There’s a lot of work to be done to get the rooms back to the way they were, so we may put a call out on Compass asking for volunteers. If we do need some help, you are available and can offer any amount of time, we would be very appreciative.

Kind regards,

Mat Anderton
Principal

CARE Ticket Winners

Care Award Winners – Term 3 – Respect

Library News

Book Week Celebrations are coming – August 19^th – 23rd

On Monday 19^th August, we will start with our Book Character Dress up day. Students can come dressed as their favourite Book Character and we will hold a whole school parade at 9.15am. We welcome our school community to come along and have some fun with us as we share our costumes. You may like to decorate a hat, decorate a t-shirt or use any items you have at home to represent your book character.

On Thursday 22^nd August we have an incredible incursion with a live production, Maybe a Miracle! Perform Education will provide us with an educational musical adventure linked to this year’s Book Week theme, Reading is Magic. The production will run two sessions, Prep – 2, aimed at junior students and a 3-6 production for senior primary students. This incursion has been booked with an early bird fee for families of $8.10 per student. More information will be sent home soon.

Our annual Book Fair will begin on Monday 19th of August and finish Friday 23^rd of August. The Book Fair will be open to students during their Library session where students can bring cash in a named envelope to purchase new, fantastic quality and popular books. Junior and senior fiction books, activity packs, journals, picture story books and non-fiction books will all be available for as little as $2 and up to $30. Book Fair will also be open to families between 3.30pm and 4pm each day, in the Library. In order to run a smooth and successful Book Fair we are asking for parent volunteers to help us out after school each day, for half an hour. If you are available and able to support us as a cashier, supervising and supporting queries, can you please fill in the form below and return it to the school office or email me at leanne.bentley@education.vic.gov.au Your time and support is always greatly appreciated.

Cash sales and EFTPOS will be available at the Book Fair.

________________________________________________________________________________

I can help out at the Book Fair on these days (please tick the days you are available):

Name:                                                                                                  Contact number:

Happy Reading!

Leanne Bentley

State School Spectacular

Science Week 2024

Mountain Highway Intersection Upgrade Update

We’re hard at work continuing the Mountain Highway, Colchester Road, and Albert Avenue intersection Upgrade in Boronia to improve traffic flow and safety.

The project will remove the existing roundabout into a signalized intersection with new lanes and better crossings for everyone. We’ll commence the next stage of our works from next week, here’s all you need to know:

What’s Happening:

• When: Night works from 8 PM to 6 AM, Sunday, August 4 to Friday, August 16 (No work on August 9 and 10).
• What: Removing the roundabout and traffic islands, laying temporary pavement, and setting up new traffic arrangements.

What to Expect:

• Noise & Lights: Expect some noise and lights while we work.
• Traffic: There may be delays and detours. Please follow signs and traffic controllers’ instructions.
• Pedestrian detours in some areas: Our traffic controllers will be on site to safely guide students around any temporary footpath closures
• Busses: There will be no impact to the 690/967 Bus route

Detours:

• Stage 1: Closure on Albert Avenue south of the intersection.

• Stage 2: Closure on Colchester Road north of the intersection.

Daytime Traffic: Normal traffic flow will resume during the day.

Contact Us: If you have questions, call or text 0400 400 091 or email Alchestercommunity@bild.group. For more details, visit VicRoads’ website and search for the Alchester Village Intersection Upgrade.

Bild Group

Olympic Presenters

Last Friday the Year 3-6 students were lucky enough to get a visit from VIS and Paralympian hopeful Emma Mickle. Emma shared her incredible story from the drastic life changes that occurred from her unfortunate accident (and recovery from 20 broken bones), to being told that she would never walk again, to now being on the verge of competing in the 2024 Paralympics just 4 years after her accident. Her story and message of resilience, determination, hard work but also gratitude was a wonderful take-away for anyone who heard her speech. We’re hoping that she’ll be announced in Australia’s Paralympic cycling team shortly so that we can cheer her on in Paris!

In addition to Emma, we were also visited by Liselle Paris (thank you Holly Paris for organising this!) who was an Olympic torch runner during the 2000 Sydney Olympic games. Emma brought her torch in and the students were able to hear about the importance of the torch and Olympic flame, as well as the symbolism behind the design. We were incredibly lucky to get both presenters come in to our school. Bring on the Olympics, go Aussies!!

Shae Warren
Physical Education Teacher and Sport Co-ordinator

Chocolate Drive

Thank you so much to the families who have returned the money for their chocolate box so promptly.

The due date for all money is by Friday 26th July

School Disco

We hope the kids have an amazing time at tonights School Disco. Thanks so much to all the parent helpers.

Twilight Market

Our Twilight Market is locked in for the 25th October 2024. Click here to follow the event page on Facebook. If you know a business who would be keen to sponsor the event, please contact us on 9729-2614.

The Entertainment Book