Welcome back to school for the final term of 2025! I hope everyone had a great school holiday break.
Congratulations to Miss Turcinovic
I am very pleased to announce to the school community that Miss Elly Turcinovic has given birth to a baby boy, Hayes Renato. Mum and baby are doing very well, and we can’t wait to meet them sometime soon.
2026 Enrolments
With planning and preparation well underway for next year, it is important that we know about enrolment changes for next year. If your child/children will not be attending Boronia Heights Primary School in 2026, please let your child’s teacher and the office staff know as soon as possible. This helps us greatly when allocating children to classes.
Class Placements for 2026
Over the coming weeks our teaching staff are meeting to place students in classes for next year. A lot of thought and time goes into this process. Teachers look at academic data to ensure an even spread of students, discuss social relationships and individual student needs to ensure that we provide the best learning opportunities for all our students.
If you have any information about your child’s academic, behavioural, physical or social factors which you would like us to consider when deciding class placements please put any requests in writing to me by emailing Mathew.anderton@education.vic.gov.au. All requests must be received by Friday 31st October.
Your requests will be shared with the teachers to assist them to develop the class lists. If you have particular concerns that you do not wish to be shared with the teachers, please make contact with me.
iPad Program in Years 3-6
Yesterday’s announcement by the Minister for Education, Ben Carroll, about restricting the purchasing of digital devices by parents and limiting the amount of screen time in classrooms, means we are going to make changes to the way we use digital devices in our school. While the change doesn’t come into effect until 2027, I am using this announcement as a way to reflect on our current BYOD iPad Program and how we can move forward.
The information session planned for Thursday 23rd October at 5:30pm with Justin North and I has been postponed until we learn more about the impact of these changes. We will inform parents about the BYOD iPad Program once we have made a decision. Please keep an eye out on Compass for messages related to the iPad program.
While I’m on the topic of digital learning, I’d like to reinforce a few cyber safety messages to help our students can stay safe online at school and at home. We teach the children the importance of not sharing personal information online with people they don’t know. This includes information like name, photos, family members, phone numbers, email and home addresses and the school they attend. I’ve recently heard of video messaging websites that allow you to connect with random people from anywhere in the world. Understandably this has some quite considerable child safety concerns. I have checked with the Department’s IT team, and they have assured me that these sites are not accessible within the school’s network. However, there is a risk of children having access to them when at home.
While these may appear fun or harmless to children, they carry serious risks, including exposure to inappropriate content, contact from adults posing as students and sharing of personal information.
Here are some key points I’d like to share with you to help protect your children at home:
- Be aware of what these platforms are. Apps like Monkey and the now-defunct Omegle match people with strangers for video chats. There is little to no moderation, meaning children can be exposed to explicit or unsafe material within seconds of joining.
- Have regular conversations about what your child does online. Ask them which apps they use, what they enjoy about them, and who they talk to.
- Set clear boundaries and family rules about which apps and websites are appropriate. Encourage your child, as we do, to only connect with people they know in real life and to keep accounts private.
- Use parental controls and monitoring tools which are available on Apple and Android devices, built-in settings can block adult content and limit app downloads by age rating.
- Children learn from what they see, so show them how you manage your own screen time and privacy settings responsibly.
- Watch for changes in mood, secrecy about online activity, or withdrawal. These can be signs your child has had an uncomfortable experience online.
- Encourage reporting and blocking. If your child encounters inappropriate behaviour or content, help them block and report the user immediately. Let them know they’ll never be in trouble for telling you.
We want our students to use digital technologies safely and responsibly. Whether we agree with it or not, digital tools are a reality of our world so it’s our job to teach children what’s OK and not OK. Please reach out to us if you need some support in reinforcing safe online behaviours at home.
Rotary Skills Shed and Westfield Knox Local Hero
The Rotary Club of Boronia have been partnering with the school for more than a year to deliver a Youth Skills Shed program to select children at Boronia Heights and neighbouring schools. This program teaches children the basic skills of carpentry, concreting, electrical work, sign writing and other trade-based techniques. It is delivered by qualified trades people working alongside Rotary mentors, many of whom are retirees and wanting to teach a new generation worthwhile skills for future employment.
I was thrilled to hear earlier this week that the man who had the vision to bring this to life, Mr Ray Siegersma, was awarded the Westfield Knox Local Hero Award. This is a thoroughly deserved award in recognition of all the work Ray and his team have done to get the project off the ground and running it so successfully. Ray is using the $20,000 grant reward to invest back into the program and expand it to other schools who can benefit from a similar program. We are very thankful to Ray and The Rotary Club for developing such a strong partnership with BHPS.
Thank you and enjoy your weekend.
Mat Anderton