What a sensational term 1!

What a sensational term 1! 

Well done to all our students (and families). Students began their year engaging enthusiastically in establishing strong routines for literacy and numeracy within our learning spaces.

Later in the term, our students have enjoyed the opportunity to engage beyond our core curriculum, such as celebrating visitors from Japan through our cultural immersion program and launching our STEM program for 2025 with a level-based STEM day. Check out what each grade got up to for STEM Day in BBPS Life and our 'End of Term wrap up' from our Community Captains in the Leadership section of our newsletter.

Many thanks to the committed team of volunteers who joined us for our Kitchen Garden Working Bee – a successful session that helped us prepare the space for the next instalment of garden beds – as supported by our 2023 Parent Association fundraising.

 Congratulations to this term’s merit award recipients – two academic and two values awards were given from each class to students who have excelled in this area for Term 1. 

It was also fantastic to celebrate our Student Representative Council, many thanks to Madi Kwok (former BBPS year 6 Leader and now school captain of Caulfield Grammar) for coming to speak to our students about the important role of being a leader in a school. 

Our SRC will begin weekly sessions as part of our Enrichment at BBPS program, more on this to come next term. 

BBPS had St Kilda FC fever this week with a visit from some of their playing team for our Grade 3-6s. Students had the opporutunity to ask some great questions and learn more about the hard work that goes into an athletes daily routine. Thanks to Mr A for organising. 

Ongoing teacher professional learning is crucial to support the effective implementation of teaching practice, based on the latest research-based evidence. Our staff engage in weekly professional learning sessions, led by colleagues and linked to our year’s focus. Additional opportunities to engage in external PD often take place in semester one, to support teachers to create successful learning conditions for the year. 

Some of our external PD has included:

*F-2 Reading Approaches – our junior team have attended a series of sessions to further inform our synthetic phonics approach.

*Berry Street Model – our Specialist team have attended several sessions to further understand how we can support students to co-regulate and engage in learning.

*Teachers across the school have visited network schools to share practice and observe structured literacy blocks to further inform the rigour of our own curriculum.

*Our leadership team have engaged in an ongoing PD series focussed on building a knowledge rich curriculum

*Members of our team have additionally attended sessions unpacking effective behaviour management and catering for high-ability learning.

We are fortunate to have a consistent team of teachers on staff to replace our class teachers in these instances- Sue Curtis, Mark Harrison, Jo Bingham and Deidre Hennigan, in particular, are wonderful educators that you may have seen in our learning spaces. We thank them for working so closely with our teaching teams to ensure continuity for our students.

We wish you all a wonderful holiday break, and thank each of you for your ongoing support and partnership. 

Below: Happy Easter from our Preps, who made these fabulous easter creations in visual arts.

Thanks to our wonderful PA (largely Prep and Grade 1s) for their organisation of tomorrow's Easter Raffle, and the annual giving of our Easter Hampers to Hamble Court Nursing Home. Well done to Haris and Zoe, who delivered these gifts today.

Please check Important Dates in our newsletter for details re our return to school in Term 2, as previously shared in Compass Comms.