To the School Community,
Since my last blog post I have had the opportunity to be part of a Regional Review Process which analysed the performance of public schools in our region, South West Victoria Region, which spans from Western suburbs Melbourne through to Ballarat/Central Highlands and Geelong/Surf Coast as far as Lavers Hill. While at this Regional Review I was able to hear about the successes and challenges that have been experienced by public schools in our region.
Some of the themes that stood out to me were:
- How do we maintain the success and growth of our highest performing students?
- What do we do to tackle the experiences of bullying that seems to be on the minds of many students in our system?
- How do we support our students at the most risk of not learning and bridging the gap between the lowest and highest achieving students?
- How Student Voice and Agency will continue to be a system-wide focus.
There was a direct reference to the success we experienced this year with our year 3-5 NAPLAN growth during this review and I was proud to hear that the way we have approached student growth over the last 18 months has been recognised as an exemplar, the students and staff should be proud of their efforts to engage in learning and improve. Moving forward we will be supporting other schools via a network model in working in similar ways, this will also help us fine tune. Our year 5/6 team has been successful in using a workshop model that responds to specific needs of their students which directly relates to the success highlighted in the Regional Review.
Management of Bullying
Since my arrival at BHPS we have continued to make sure that the management of bullying is a priority as we want all students to be safe, confident and ready to learn. The most effective way that we can respond to any instances where people feel bullied is really a staged response that starts with preventative measures.
Our Preventative measures about our behaviours, dispositions and Positive Behaviour Model. I am 100% confident that the 99% of our students 99% of the time meet the standards that we set around the Pos Ed Model. We have a set of POS Ed Statements that set the tone of the school they can be found on our website www.bhps.education/students/pos-ed/ . I draw your attention to this as supporting students to live up to these statements is the best response to managing Bullying Behaviours.
We all know that from time to time for a range of different reasons people don’t demonstrate behaviours that we expect them to or don’t know how to resolve an issue after experiencing negative behaviours towards them. The first step in supporting the students is being able to identify that there is an issue to resolve. Most of the time the staff at our school notice things that are happening and respond in a timely manner supporting the students to resolve any incidents and most of the time they do not occur again. We record incidents on a management system to ensure tracking of repeated behaviours.
Unfortunately in some instances bullying does occur, we rely on your communication to support the resolution of Bullying. We have a clear process to follow developed earlier this year that is important to publicise. This can be found in the policies section of our Website using this link BHPS Responding to Inappropriate behaviour
I am proud of the students at our school who are fantastic and also the concern and effort that the teachers at our school show when the going is tough for our students.
Next week I will share further info about processes we have in place to support all students.
School Fair
The Fair Committee has been ramping up the planning for the event – you should start receiving information about how you can be involved and support the event. The best way to do this is to visit the home page of our informative website and click the Christmas Fair tab to see what your child’s year level is doing to help. I would like to thank all of those involved for their ability to work together so harmoniously and effectively to organise such a complex event.
School Dates
Last week the team in the office sent home with the eldest child in each family a list of dates on an orange sheet of paper. If you didn’t receive that please check your child’s bag or pop into the office to collect a copy. All dates listed are also on the Compass and Website calendars.
Enjoy the rest of the week, remember that our door is always open and feel free to contact me anytime if you need to discuss anything about your child’s experience at school.
IMPORTANT UPCOMING DATES:
Monday 29th October:
- Year 5/6 Cricket ( Selected Students only)
Wednesday 31st October:
- Year 5 Camp
Thursday November 1st:
- Grade 6 Region Volleyball (Selected students)
November 5th November:
- Curriculum Day
Previous Bulletins can be found on the blog pages of the website.