Welcome Back
Welcome back to Term 2. We hope you had a wonderful holiday break. Thank you to parliamentarians who attended the ANZAC Ceremony at EBP RSL Club to lay a wreath on our behalf. They represented our school with pride.
I would also like to thank the P&C members who organised the Welcome BBQ at the end of last term. It was a great way to come together, connect and celebrate a great first term of learning and collaborating.
We have had a great start to the term with our classes straight back into their learning. On School Development Day this term, our staff joined with all other public schools across NSW to carry out professional learning focused on Aboriginal education. School development days are used by schools to build on the knowledge and skills of our teachers, school leaders and school administrative support staff through a targeted professional learning program. The professional learning was planned around the unique needs of our school community and will help to sustain positive change and improve both educational outcomes and wellbeing for all learners.
Staffing
It is with both sadness and excitement that I inform the school community that our Assistant Principal and Learning Support Coordinator Lauren Davis has been successful in applying for an Assistant Principal, Curriculum and Instruction position at McCallums Hill Public School for the rest of this year. While we will miss Lauren here at Bexley North, we are excited about the knowledge and expertise she will be able to provide to the staff, students and community at McCallums Hill.
Mrs Anita Alexander and Mrs Mandolinic will take on some of the Learning and Support teacher role for the rest of the year.
BASC Hub
Yesterday we had the BASC Hub delivered and it looks great. We are very excited to have a nice big space for our students at Before and After School Care. It will still take a few more weeks to connect services and ensure safe access.
Care Continuum
At our parent session before Meet The Teacher afternoon and at a P&C meeting in Term 1, we presented the first draft of our Care Continuum to parents. The Care Continuum facilitates the implementation of a whole-school, prevention-focused, and positive approach to behaviour support to meet the needs of all students. Students may require different types of intervention delivered in different ways along a continuum of care - from prevention to intensive individual support to best meet their needs. We have created some guidelines for how we may use the Care Continuum to support positive behaviour at BNPS. You can view these on our website under the Wellbeing tab. There is also a link for you to provide feedback about the continuum. Please keep in mind that these are guidelines and suggestions. Each child is an individual and teachers will determine what intervention will suit students based on their knowledge of the student’s needs.
Lunch Trial
We have had some mixed feedback about the change in eating time lunchtime trial. The change involved moving eating time from 10 minutes at the beginning of lunch time to 15 minutes at the end of lunchtime. The idea behind the change was that it would give students a time to regulate after a busy play time so that they were ready for learning.
Although we had a couple of teething problems at the beginning, we have ironed these out and will be continuing the trial for another two weeks. We hope this will allow us to get some quality feedback from students and teachers about the impact of this change.
Some of the feedback so far includes the following:
Positives
- Children report eating more of their lunch because they are not rushing to finish so they can go out to play.
- Teachers of the younger grades report that students are much more settled when it is time for learning.
- Office staff report fewer students reporting to sick bay at the end of play time.
- Currently, we have had significantly fewer behaviour issues on the playground.
Negatives:
- Some students report feeling hungry before eating time. Please be advised that students may take out a snack or their lunch at play time if they would like.
- A parent has expressed concern that students are filling up on snacks at the canteen so may not eat their lunch.
At the end of the two week trial, we will communicate the feedback from students and staff.
