The Hubsters

This saying is never truer in that it describes our wonderful Community Hub!!

What are the Hubsters and what do they do? Boronia Heights Primary School Community Hub is a group of parents/carers who meet regularly and help the school in a variety of ways including contributing to the wellbeing of students, staff and school community members, raising funds to enhance the school and promoting interaction between members of the school community.

Our Community Hub is always keen to welcome new members.

The Hubsters are a very active group of parents who usually meet twice a term and have an active Facebook group for brainstorming!

What did the Hubsters do in 2022? They had a very busy year and helped organise events and fundraising including:

• Easter Raffle
• Colour Run
• Election Day BBQ and Cake Stall
• Mother’s and Father’s Day Stall
• Bunnings BBQ
• Christmas Raffle
• Twilight Market Night
• Tea Towel fundraiser
• Chocolate fundraiser
• School Disco
• Sticky Beak lunch packs
• Entertainment Books
• Coffee Cards

What are the Hubsters planning for this year?

They have some fantastic things planned for 2023! To give you an idea, for Term 1 they will be running the Easter Raffle which will be organised later in the term, and they had Sticky Beaks fundraiser earlier this term. Both of these activities have been hugely successful.

If you would like to get involved in the running of events and activities, support and drive positive school culture and connect with others, please reach out via the school email or the Hub Facebook page “BHPS Community Hub “

The Hubsters have many supportive parents and individuals who volunteer their time for events and activities but are not official members. If you would like to help in a ‘non official’ capacity please also reach out by email or look out for an event or volunteering notifications on Facebook and the newsletter.

Our Community Hub welcome new members. The group meets in the PD room on Tuesday afternoons at 2:00pm and finishes at 3:30pm. For working parents that cannot come to meetings you can still be involved by assisting with the many activities our Hub organise throughout the year.

Meeting dates for The Hub this year are:

• 21st March
• 27th April
• 23rd May
• 18th July
• 22nd August
• 17th October
• 21st Nov

Please come along and join us if you can!

Division Swimming

Next Friday 5 of our students will be representing the school in the Division Swimming Carnival held at a venue to be confirmed. I know that they will represent the school with pride and we look forward to sharing their results in the coming week. Congratulations and all the best to:  Emily A, Sophie D, Sophie W, Olivia B and Lani M. Best of luck to the team!

The National Day of Bullying and Violence

The National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence will be held on Friday 18^th March.  The national Day against Bullying and Violence connects schools and communities to find workable solutions to prevent bullying. This day highlights steps taken to create inclusive school communities that are safe from bulling.  Students have the opportunity to share how they take action and empower students, young people, staff families and the community to be part of the solution. It gives the students the ability to send a clear message that bulling is not accepted within the school gates and beyond. This day is now a regular on our school calendar and a wonderful reminder to everyone to be kind and considerate and say NO WAY!

Information Night Videos

Thank you to our community for working together to support your child’s education and success this year by watching and discussing the information videos that were sent home recently.

These information nights provide a timely opportunity for our teaching staff to form an effective partnership with each child’s family. Working in partnership and having consistent expectations between home and school leads to better outcomes for our students. I appreciate those families that contacted me expressing their gratitude with the information shared and valued the information sent home.

Working with Children Checks (WWCC)

We encourage and value parental and community support at Boronia Heights Primary School. There are many ways that parents, grandparents and friends can assist at our school. We encourage all parents to obtain a Working with Children’s Check that will allow you to be very involved in your child’s education. These checks are free for volunteers and will allow you to be involved as many school events as you require. Once you have your WWCC, please add your WWCC details to the Code of Conduct google form. Click here to access this form via Compass. This can be resubmitted at any time.

Year 5/6Playground

The timeline for this project is first of all the tender to go out on the 9^th March following this they will start construction in and around September with the project hopefully completed in early November.  I will keep the community informed of the latest updates as any other news comes to light.

Introducing our 2023 School Captains

Charlotte T

Guten tag BHPS community! I am Charlotte T and I am bursting at the seams to be your school captain for 2023. My favourite thing to do is dancing and I take lessons five times a week. I am a Hufflepuff and love to write poetry. In this years production, The Amazing Adventures of Superstan. I am playing Dr What and I hope you are as excited as I am. I’d like to give a special thanks to our Principal, Mrs Jennings and our Vice Principals, Mrs Foster and Mrs Hodgson, for running this school to perfection and giving love and care to all students. I hope you have an exceptional year and don’t forget to try your best at everything you do. See you round, grey hound! ?

Avril T

Guten tag BHPS! Welcome to another fantastic year at BHPS. My name is Avril T and I’m your Vice Captain for 2023. I can’t wait to be leading our amazing community. A little look in to me: my personality is kind, caring and funny. I love spending my days outside, either playing basketball or playing with my pets. I also take dancing lessons twice a week. I play two instruments which are piano and clarinet. I hope everyone is super excited for our production this year called The Amazing Adventure of SuperStan which I’m playing Private Masters in. I’d just like to say a special thank you to our Assistant Principals and Principal for running our school to perfection. Thank you also to our amazing staff. Later BHPS Crew!

Mitchell W

Hi everyone my name is Mitchell and I am in 6A, with Ms Wheeler. I am one of your school captains this year. I enjoy bike riding and swimming. I have two dogs. I would like to give a big thank you to all the staff and especially Ms Jennings. I also like to game and drive my RC cars on the weekends. Have a great year everyone!

Jackson W

Hello BHPS I am Jackson, one of your Vice Captains; I am so excited to be a captain of this wonderful school. I am in 6B, Mr. Blennerhassett’s class.  I have been playing basketball for 6 years. I have 7 pets, 1 dog, 1 cat,4 fish, and 1 snail.  I like to play video games; my favourite games are single player. I would like to give a special thank you to my parents for helping me get this far and I would also like to thank everyone at this school.  I hope you all have an amazing year.

New proficiency standards for NAPLAN

The 2023 National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests will be administered to students in Years 3, 5, 7, and 9 from Wednesday 15th March to Monday 27th March 2023.

New proficiency standards for NAPLAN will include four levels of achievement that will replace the numerical NAPLAN bands.

From this year, parents and carers will get earlier, simpler, and clearer information about their child’s academic achievements based on rigorous new proficiency standards for NAPLAN.

Education ministers have agreed to change the way NAPLAN results are reported to parents and carers, now that all students are taking the tests online, and with the move to an earlier NAPLAN in March.

The standard for proficiency is set at a challenging but reasonable level. If your child is in the Strong or Exceeding category, it means they have demonstrated proficiency and that their literacy or numeracy skills are where they should be at this stage of their schooling.

If your child has not yet achieved proficiency, then they will either be in the Developing category or the Needs Additional Support category.

More meaningful reporting to parents and carers

The proficiency standards represent a reasonable expectation of student achievement at the time of testing, with questions in NAPLAN tests based mostly on the literacy and numeracy skills students have learnt from previous years of schooling.

The new standard will support higher expectations for student achievement and ensure students are gaining the important literacy and numeracy skills they will need throughout their lives.

Resetting the measurement scale and restarting the time series once all schools are online was a recommendation of the 2020 Independent Review of NAPLAN.

New achievement levels set using expert panel

For national reporting, 2023 will mark the start of a new time series, now that all students are online, and the tests are being held in March instead of May. The earlier timing of NAPLAN in March rather than May means students will have two months less learning time before NAPLAN testing than in previous years.

NAPLAN continues to measure student achievement in numeracy, reading, writing, spelling, grammar, and punctuation. The new proficiency standard will be included on all NAPLAN reporting including the National Report, the My School website, the reports received by schools and the Individual Student Reports (ISRs) received by parents and carers.

NAPLAN individual student report

The numerical NAPLAN bands and the national minimum standard will be replaced by the following four levels of achievement:

• Exceeding
• Strong
• Developing
• Needs Additional Support.

The descriptors for each category will make it clear to parents what their child’s literacy and numeracy skills are at the time of NAPLAN testing, and support discussions with us on their child’s progress.

Student reports will continue to show the national average and the range of achievement for the middle 60 per cent of students in their year level, allowing comparison of a child’s achievement against these measures. Detailed information on the knowledge and skills being measured in each NAPLAN assessment will be made available on the NAP website.

 Labour Day Holiday

Just a reminder to our community that the school will be closed on Monday the 13^{th of} March for Labour Day Holiday.

Have a great weekend and enjoy the upcoming long weekend for Labour Day.

Leanne Jennings
Principal

Friendship Flowers

To start our year in Year 2, students created their own Friendship Flower. Once they had added in their photo and decorated their flowers, their peers were able to walk around and add in a compliment to one of their petals.

It was a wonderful way to fill each other’s buckets and start our year off with kindness. Some of our Friendship Flowers can be found on the Grade 2 windows, so feel free to come and look at all the wonderful compliments.

Allanah Searles
Year 2 Team Leader

District Swimming

A huge congratulations to all 15 students who attended and swam in the Wantirna District Swimming Championships. Overall, we won 10 ribbons which was a huge effort by everyone! A big thank you to Jackie and Jannina for helping me on the day – the events cannot run without the support from helpers, so thank you very much for your assistance on the day.

Well done to the following students for receiving ribbons on the day:

Lani M – 2^nd Breaststroke, 2^nd Backstroke

Olivia B – 2^nd, Breaststroke, 2^nd 12yr old Girls Freestyle relay

Sophie W – 1^st Backstroke, 2^nd 12yr old Girls Freestyle relay

Zoe E – 2^nd Freestyle

Sophie D – 1^st Backstroke, 2^nd 12yr old Girls Freestyle relay

Emily A – 2^nd 12yr old Girls Freestyle relay

On Friday March 10^th we will see; Lani, Olivia, Sophie.W, Sophie.D and Emily represent BHPS at the Knox Division Finals. I look forward to hearing how you all go! GO BHPS!

Taylah Smith
Health & Physical Education Teacher and Sport Co-ordinator

Welcome to our BHPS Library 2023   

CONGRATULATIONS to Sophia and Amber on becoming our 2023 Library Leaders!

Every student deserves a well-resourced and easily accessible library. The tie between libraries and academic success is well documented. Accessit helps to engage students in our school library catalogue, supporting them in their reading and discovery.

Our BHPS Library uses the management system Accessit. You can find the link to Accessit at the top of our school website (Quick Links) or you can save the following link:

https://au.accessit.online/BRN10/#!dashboard

Students and families can access our Library from home or school on any device to search through our Library catalogue or put a book on hold. By clicking on Guest in the top righthand corner in Accessit, the login menu will drop down.

Student’s log in details are their Compass ID/CASES ID (eg. BEN0099) and password school for Prep to Grade 2 and Boronia for grade 3 – 6.

Once logged in using your child’s log in details, a dashboard will appear with lots of information on our school Library, a clip on how to use the webapp, new books or series to explore and a Library timetable. When you click on your child’s name you will find your child’s borrowing history and importantly when current loans are due. This main page will be updated regularly so be sure to check in often!

Overdue notices will be emailed directly to Parent A (listed on student enrolments), on a weekly basis. We appreciate books being returned promptly and if a book is lost, a $10 fee will be charged to help cover the cost of a replacement.

Prep students can borrow 1 Library book for a 1 week loan

Year 1 and 2 can borrow up to 2 books for 2 weeks

Year 3 to 6 can borrow up to 4 books for 4 weeks

All students must have a Library Bag to bring books home.

I look forward to a wonderful year of Library events including our Scholastic Book Clubs each term, Book Week and Book Character dress up day, National Simultaneous Storytime and a special author visit.

If you have any questions or would like some assistance with Accessit, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Happy Reading!

Leanne Bentley

New Staff Profile

Name: Jake Blennerhassett

Grade: 6B

Previous School: Wantirna South Primary

Birthday (NOT year!): 26^th August

Family: Mum, Dad and brother

Pets: Dog- 5 year old American Staffy, her name is Josie

Hobbies: Cricket and rock climbing

AFL Footy team: Collingwood

Favourite Food: Nachos or pasta

Favourite Book or Movie: Captain underpants

Favourite Colour: Blue

CARE Ticket Winners

Student of the Week

*Student consent to publish not received.

Table Tennis Tables

We have some table tennis tables available. Table only with no nets. They are heavy solid tables. Please email us at boronia.heights.ps@education.vic.gov.au if you would like to have one of these free tables. First in best dressed. Pick up only.

2023 Parent Payment & Excursion Levy

2023 Parent Payments are still being accepted either via Compass (under Course Confirmation/Payments) or at the office. Click here to view a digital copy.  Also many have still not paid the annual Excursion Levy. This can be paid on Compass (under events) or the office.

Do you have a Health Care Card?

The Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund (CSEF) helps eligible families to cover the costs of school trips, camps and sporting activities.

If you have a valid means-tested concession card, such as a Veterans Affairs Gold Card, Centrelink Health Care Card or Pensioner Concession Card, or are a temporary foster parent, you may be eligible. There is also a special consideration category for asylum seeker and refugee families.

Payment amounts this year are $125 for eligible primary school. Payments are made direct to the school to use towards expenses relating to camps, excursions and sporting activities for the benefit of your child.

You can download the form here.

Check with the school office if you are unsure, and please return completed forms to the school office as soon as possible.

Secondhand Uniform

We have tubs of secondhand school uniform available outside the Chaplain’s Office.

Name Your Belongings

We know you treasure your uniform and books. Please remember to label all uniform, books and belongings coming to school. Like most years, we have had an incredible amount of lost property through the year. The majority was unnamed, along with illegible tags. We would love lost items to boomerang back to your kids.

Have you heard??? ?

                  The Hubsters need YOU!!!

Who are the Hubsters? 

The Hubsters are the members of the BHPS Community Hub and we are the Fundraising and Events group for the school. We are Parents, Guardians and Staff who volunteer our time to organise the many events throughout the school year to help raise funds for equipment around the school.

We are currently raising money for NEW Playgrounds including the Year 5/6 and Year 3/4 areas. But we cannot do this without the support of the school community and that means YOU.

The events we organise need many volunteers and co-ordinators to ensure success.

Come join our meetings, meet new people and enjoy hot drinks, cake and nibbles – and find out how you can help Bring the Unity to our Community. 

Would you like more information on what the Hubsters do, or how you can help? Contact Leia Barrett via the BHPS Community Hub Facebook Page.

Get Ready……

The BHPS Easter Raffle 2023 is COMING!!!!!!

The Hubsters