Jumbunna 25th June 2020

02


A Message from Ken and Lisa

End of Term 2 dismissal

We would like to thank all our families for your support throughout this very unusual and challenging term. We hope that all students and families get an opportunity to relax and recharge during the break and we look forward to seeing you all back on Monday 13th July for the Start of Term 3.

A reminder that we will be having an early dismissal this Friday for the end of term. This will also be staggered. Students with a last name beginning A-L, will be dismissed at 2:15pm and students with a last name beginning M-Z, will be dismissed at 2:30pm. 

Term 3 – start and finish times

We will be beginning Term 3 continuing with the same start and finish times and drop off/pick up arrangements that we currently have in place. This will continue until we receive updated advice from the department stating that we are no longer required to stagger drop off and pick up. We anticipate that this plan will be in place for most of Term 3.

A reminder that the start time for students with a surname beginning A-L, is between 8:45-9:00am and they are dismissed at 3:15pm. Students with a surname beginning M-Z, start between 9:00am-9:15am and are dismissed at 3:30pm.

N.B. Although the vast majority of parents are doing the right thing by dropping their children at the gates and waiting on the oval or at the entrances for their children at pick up, there have been a very small number who are actually entering the school buildings to walk their children in. For obvious safety reasons, this is not permitted.  Please, for everyone’s safety, do the right thing!

Students should not be arriving in the yard prior to 8:45am as the yard will not be supervised and teachers will not be on duty in their classrooms. Classrooms will be supervised and open for students from 8:45am, not earlier. Students are not permitted to enter classrooms without staff present. If your child makes their own way to school in their morning (walking, riding etc), we ask that you assist them with timing when to leave home in the morning so they do not arrive to school too early.

New Building

                    

Class room area                         Toilet area              Corridor/open learning        

It has been a little while since our last update on the progress of the new building works. Covid19 restrictions have slowed down the works somewhat but we are on track to move into the new Learning Centre late August. The new Preschool will be finished later and looks to be ready to move into in October. The plasterers are busy finishing the walls and ceilings in there now.

The painters have started in the Learning Centre and the outside cladding is almost finished. Services are in place and the electricity supply will be connected in the holidays. The rooms inside are light and spacious and will provide a much better environment for learning.

We are very excited to get to this stage and look forward to seeing what progress occurs over the holidays.

Updated Policies

The following school policies have been updated and approved by School Council. Please click on the policy to read or visit or school website. All of the below policies contain important updates, therefore we encourage all parents to make themselves aware of these policies.

 
Raising resilient problem solvers

by Michael Grose

Personal problem-solving is an under-rated skill shared by resilient children and adults. First, identified alongside independence, social connection and optimism by early resilience-researchers in the US, the ability to solve your own problems is the basis of a child’s autonomy and self-efficacy.

When parents solve all children’s problems we not only increase their dependency on adults, we also teach kids to be afraid of making mistakes and to blame themselves for not being good enough. As I noted in my book Anxious Kids, this is fertile ground for anxiousness and depressive illness.

So how can we raise kids to be courageous problem-solvers rather than self-critical, low risk-takers?  Here are six practical ideas to get you started:

Turn requests for help into problems for kids to solve

Kids get used to bringing their problems to parents to solve.  If you keep solving them, they’ll keep bringing them. “Mum, Sarah’s annoying me” “Dad, can you ask my teacher to pick me for the team?” “Hey, I can’t find my socks!”  It’s tempting if you are in a time-poor family to simply jump in and help kids out. Alternatively, you can take a problem-solving approach, cuing them to resolve their own problems and take responsibility for their concerns. “What can you do to make her stop annoying you?” “What’s the best approach to take with your teacher?” “Socks, smocks! Where might they be?”

Ask good questions to prompt problem-solving

A problem-solving approach relies on asking good questions, which can be challenging if you are used to solving your child’s problems. The first question when a child brings you a problem should be: “Can you handle this on your own?” Next should be, “What do you want me to do to help you solve the problem?” These questions are not meant to deter children from coming to you. Rather to encourage and teach them to start working through their own concerns themselves.

Coach them through problems and concerns

Imagine your child feels they were unfairly left out of a school sports team by a teacher and asks you get involved. The easiest solution may be to meet with the teacher and find out what’s going on. You may or not resolve the problem but in doing so you are teaching a child to become dependent on you.  Alternatively, you could coach your child to speak to the teacher themself and find out why they were left out.  Obviously, there are times when children need their parents to be advocates for them such as when they are being bullied, but we need to make the most of the opportunities for children to speak for themselves. Better to help your children find the right words to use and discuss the best way to approach another person when they have problems. These are great skills to take into adulthood.

Prepare kids for problems and contingencies

You may coach your child to be independent – walk to school, spend some time alone at home (when old enough), catch a train with friends – but do they know what to do in an emergency? What happens if they come home after school and the house is locked? Who do they go to? Discuss different scenarios with children whenever they enter new or potentially risky situations so that they won’t fall apart when things don’t go their way. Remember, the Boy Scouts motto – “”Be Prepared!

Show a little faith

Sometimes you’ve got to show faith in children. We can easily trip them up with our negative expectations such as saying “Don’t spill it!” to a child who is carrying a glass filled with water. Of course, your child doesn’t want to spill it but you’ve just conveyed your expectations with that statement. We need to be careful that we don’t sabotage children’s efforts to be independent problem-solvers with comments such as, “Now don’t stuff it up!”, “You’ll be okay, won’t you?” , “You’re not very good at looking after yourself!”

Applaud mistakes and stuff ups

Would a child who accidentally breaks a plate in your family while emptying the dishwasher be met with a ‘that’s really annoying, you can be clumsy sometimes’ response or a ‘it doesn’t matter, thanks for your help’ type of response? Hopefully it won’t be the first response, because nothing shuts down a child’s natural tendencies to extend themselves quicker than an adult who can’t abide mistakes. If you have a low risk-taking, perfectionist child, consider throwing a little party rather than making a fuss when they make errors so they can learn that mistakes don’t reflect on them personally, and that the sun will still shine even if they break a plate, tell a joke that falls flat or doesn’t get a perfect exam score.

As I’ve often said your job as a parent is to make yourself redundant (which is different to being irrelevant) at the earliest possible age. The ability to sort and solve your own problems, rather than step back and expect others to resolve them, is usually developed in childhood. With repetition and practice problem-solving becomes a valuable life-pattern, to be used in the workplace, in the community and in family relationships.

Regards,

Ken and Lisa

 

 

 



A Message from the PE Department Term 2

With term 2 coming to a close, not a lot of sport at school or around the world has happened in the past 3 months. Unfortunately, we had to cancel our house cross country, grade 5/6 inter-school sport Lightning Premiership, and postpone the grade 1/2 swimming lessons. We are still hopeful swimming will go ahead at a later date (possible term 4). Cross Country has been cancelled at district and regional level for this year, so there will be no makeup date for this.

Term 3 is usually the busiest term in regards to school sporting events with; house and district athletics day, prep and grade 3/4 swimming and the grade 5/6 inter-school sport competition. At this stage, with  uncertainty still around restrictions, some of these events will look different or be postponed. Nothing is cancelled at the moment.

Athletics: Next term, our house athletics day was scheduled for Thursday August 6th and was to be held at Ballam Park Athletics Track. We won’t be going to the track this year; instead we will hold an athletics carnival at school for all year levels. Prep-grade 2 will rotate around in mini Olympics stations, and grade 3-6 will compete in traditional events, with this being used as try outs to make the district team.

At this stage the district athletics day will still be going ahead at Ballam Park on Friday 28th August. 

Swimming lessons: Just like the grade 1/2 lessons that were scheduled for this term, grade 3/4 swimming will be postponed. The current advice from the department is that external swimming lessons should not go ahead at this stage.

Prep swimming which is scheduled to take place in week 9 of term 3, at this stage will remain as is. A decision on it proceeding will be made early next term. If it goes ahead, a Compass notice for permission and payment will be made available next term. All school swimming lessons are optional for students.     

Inter-school sport: At this stage, there are no dates or rounds for the grade 5/6 inter-school sport competition. We are hopeful of getting games and a possible catch up Lightning Premiership next term. Once more information comes to light, it will be communicated to students at school and parents via Compass.     

Not a lot of good news, but also not all doom and gloom. As fun as it was filming glow stick dances and Mr Mac challenges, it was very pleasing seeing all students back in PE classes after remote learning, with smiles on their faces and playing games as a class.     

Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

– Wayne Gretzky

Cheers,
Mr Mac.
Physical Education Teacher.



Dates to remember

Term 2

Fri 26/6    Last day of Term 2. Students dismissed at 2:15pm (with surname beginning A-L) and 2:30pm (with surname beginning M-Z)

Term 3
Thurs 16/7     Education Sub Committee Meeting 5:00pm
Wed 22/7     School Council Meeting 6pm
Thurs 6/8     House Athletics Day
Thurs 13/8     Education Sub Committee Meeting 5:00pm
Thurs 13/8     Year 3/4 Swimming Lessons
Wed 19/8     School Council Meeting 6pm
Fri 28/8     District Athletics
Mon 7/9     Prep Swimming Lessons
Tues 8/9     Prep Swimming Lessons
Wed 9/9     Prep Swimming Lessons
Thurs 10/9     Prep Swimming Lessons
Thurs 10/9     Education Sub Committee Meeting 5:00pm
Fri 11/9     Prep Swimming Lessons
Mon 14/9     Prep Swimming Lessons
Tues 15/9     Prep Swimming Lessons
Wed 16/9     Prep Swimming Lessons
Wed 16/9     School Council Meeting 6pm

Term 4
Thurs 15/10     Education Sub Committee Meeting 5:00pm
Wed 21/10     School Council Meeting 6pm
Mon 2/11     Curriculum Day –student free day
Thurs 12/11     Education Sub Committee Meeting 5:00pm
Wed 18/11     School Council Meeting 6pm
Wed 9/12     School Council Meeting 6pm

Statistics and Probability Awards- Prep-Two

Congratulations to the following students:

For outstanding reasoning. –Harry W

For creative topic choice and use of technology. - Mia D

For outstanding use of technology in creating graphs to show his reasoning. - Kye M

For creative topic choice and outstanding data presentation.- Poppy W

For outstanding data representation. –Eve B

For excellent recording of data results. Asher M

The presentation of these awards will be coming soon as well as the students showcasing their projects.

Years 3-6 this might inspire you to participate in the challenge, it is not too late. Entries for this age group will close on Friday 17th July. It would be greatly appreciated if you could send your presentations to me through Google Drive (kate.murray@bonbeachps.vic.edu.au)

 



ICAS Assessments

Dear Parents/Guardians,

Bonbeach Primary School are once again offering students the opportunity to participate in the ICAS Assessments. ICAS is developed by UNSW Global, a wholly owned subsidiary of the University of New South Wales. Learn more about ICAS here: https://www.unswglobal.unsw.edu.au/

Each assessment celebrates students’ accomplishments by providing opportunities for recognition. Every student will receive a certificate and an online result report. Top performers will be eligible for medals and are invited to attend special award ceremonies to have their academic excellence publicly recognised.

The assessments are suitable for students wishing to extend themselves academically, and take up the personal challenge of competing in an international assessment. Participation in ICAS is optional for students in grades 3-6. This year, students will have the opportunity to participate in the following assessments: English, Mathematics, Science, Spelling and Digital Technologies. The cost for each assessment is $15.95.

Payment and registration for your child to participate in ICAS this year can be completed online through UNSW Global. Please visit the online Parent Payment System to make a direct payment to UNSW Global. Online payments will close on Friday 31st July, 2020.

Please use the link below to access the parent payment system and the access code below for Bonbeach Primary School:

Visit:  https://shop.unswglobal.com.au/pages/pps

Access Code: WHT408

*It is not a requirement when you register to put in a Student ID number for your child. All of the details you complete online will be automatically provided to the school. Assessments will occur during a sitting window from Monday 18th August and Friday 4th September, 2020.The sitting dates at our school, will be determined once we have all registrations. 

If you have any questions about ICAS, please do not hesitate to contact the school.

Kind regards,

Nikki McCallum

ICAS Coordinator

 

 



Thank you for supporting Beyond Blue

'A big thank you to everyone for their generous donations on Pyjama Day. We raised a massive $523 for Beyond Blue, which will help them support people battling anxiety and depression.'

The JSC Team.



Please name your child's school uniform and bags, lunch boxes and drink bottles....

It is most important that all uniform and personal articles be clearly labelled with the child’s full name

Lost property, such as clothing, hats, drink bottles and lunch boxes can be found in a crate in each building. Jewellery items and watches will be held at the school office and may be collected before or after during school. At the end of each term, unnamed clothing is sold as second hand uniform or forwarded to a charitable organisation.

Please take the time over the holidays to name your child's school uniform and bag, drink bottles and lunch boxes.

We would really appreciate your assistance.
Thank you



Community Announcements

 



A Message from Kingston City Council

Kingston Libraries are hosting two children’s authors over the upcoming school holidays and I’m hoping you can promote these free events to your school community. Both events will be online and include tips on creative writing.

George Ivanoff will be online on Wednesday 1 July at 11am, while Jane Godwin will be online on Thursday 9 July at 11:15am. Both events are free but require bookings so that we can send out the Zoom link to join the sessions.

https://www.kingston.vic.gov.au/library/Lists/Events-Listing/George-Ivanoff-Author-Event

https://www.kingston.vic.gov.au/library/Lists/Events-Listing/Jane-Godwin-author-event

This is a great opportunity for your students to engage with an author, to ask questions and learn some tips for creative writing and how a book comes to life.

There are heaps more events in our school holiday program too. You will find details here - https://www.kingston.vic.gov.au/library/Kids-Place/Kids-Activities-2#SchoolHolidayProgram

Have a lovely winter break!