Heights Happenings – 2023 – Term 3, Week 7

Book Week

I can remember my early primary school years quite vividly, especially the books I read at school and with my mum and dad. I grew up with a so many amazing Australian picture story books that still hold a place in my heart to this day. Books like “Possum Magic” by Mem Fox, “Wombat Stew” by Marcia K. Vaughn and “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle are etched in my memory and always remind me of my childhood, growing up with books around me. That’s what good books do – they evoke memories of places, people and times in our lives where we can escape to other worlds and embody characters that have extraordinary experiences. As I got older, I found my love of reading expand into books written by Roald Dahl, Paul Jennings, J. K. Rowling, R. L. Stine, J. R. R. Tolkien and eventually (in my teenage years), Stephen King. Right now, there is a Stephen King novel sitting on my beside table which I always read before going to sleep.

The reason I love Book Week every year is because it celebrates the love of books and all things literature. The theme for this year is, ”Read, Grow, Inspire” and I think it’s perfect for what makes reading for me so enjoyable. At Boronia Heights, our library technician Leanne Bentley ensures we have a very well resourced and managed school library that contains new release books and classics. She has recently purchased CBCA Book of the Year award winning books such as “Runt” by Craig Silvey, “The Raven’s Song” by Zara Fraillon & Bren MacDibble, “Where the Lyrebird Lives” by Vikki Conley & Max Hamilton (ill.) , and “Wild Australian Life” by Leonard Cronin & Chris Nixon (ill.).

I’d like to thank Mrs Bentley for all her work in preparing for Book Week celebrations, including the parade and Book Fair. She also organised the visit by author Ailsa Wild who ran a workshop with the kids on Friday so they can become enthusiastic writers and story tellers. Ailsa is the author of many books whose audience includes young children with the picture story book “Zobi and the Zoox”, junior fiction with the “Squishy Taylor” series, young adult fiction with the graphic novel “The Invisible War”, and her most recent, an adult non-fiction book called “You’ll be a Wonderful Dad”. I’d like to thank Ailsa Wild for visiting our school and imparting her expertise to teachers and students.

Also, a very special mention to our amazing parent volunteers who have helped in the Lamont Book Fair this week. We are very thankful for their time and support to our school. We couldn’t do it without them!

Year 5 Camp to Sovereign Hill

The Year 5 kids and staff had a wonderful time at the Sovereign Hill Camp in Ballarat earlier this week. The feedback I received from the teachers was the kids were engaged, polite to members of the public and other schools, extremely well behaved and, importantly, respectful to others at all times. They enjoyed panning for gold, candle making, learning about life as a prospector in the 1800s, and eating toffee apples! I’m sure this camp will be a memorable experience for everyone.

Little Angler Kits for Grade 5 students

The Victorian Government is investing $1.5 million from the Recreational Fishing Licence Trust Fund to provide up to 95,000 Little Angler Kits to primary school aged children in Victoria.

The free kits provide a wonderful school holiday activity for children with their families and help ease the cost of living, providing a fun activity close to home.

Grade 5 students at all Victorian schools, including ours, will be offered the opportunity to receive a FREE Little Angler Kit. Grade 5 students have been selected based on the Victorian Curriculum focus, movement and motor development, and safety considerations.

The program is entirely voluntary. Schools were provided with the option to opt out of the program. Our school has opted to stay in the program so that parents can decide whether they want their child(ren) to receive a free fishing kit.

Parents of Grade 5 students can advise the school if they do not wish their child(ren) to participate for any reason whatsoever. We support parents in making decisions that align with their family values and beliefs.

The roll out of kits will occur through the second half of 2023 (16 October – 4 December) so that all participating children will have a kit in time for the summer school holidays.

The kits include a rod, reel with line, tackle tray, some tackle and information on how to use them to catch a fish. Please note that the tackle tray includes fishing hooks. The tackle tray will be wrapped in cardboard and placed inside a pocket inside the fishing kit bag, which will be sealed with a cable tie to discourage students from opening their kits until they are with a parent or carer.

Kits will be handed out to students to take home with them as soon as the school receives them. Teachers will tell students not to open the kits until they are safely at home with a parent or carer, however parents can contact the school and request to collect their kit from the school themselves if they prefer.

The Victorian Fisheries Authority will create a Little Angler hub on their website, which will be live when the kits start being distributed. It will have useful information, instructional videos and online resources about where and how to fish linking to existing resources from Fishcare and new resources to be produced just for the Little Angler Kits program.

This initiative aims to grow recreational fishing participation in Victoria by actively encouraging primary school aged children to learn how to fish, as well as learning more about marine life and the natural environment.

School Assemblies and Multi-age activities in Term 4

Throughout the course of the school review process, we have listened to feedback from students, staff and the school community. One aspect of the school that people wanted to see changed was to bring back face to face assemblies. So, in response to feedback, from Term 4 onwards school assemblies will take place each fortnight in the gymnasium. There will no longer be Virtual Assemblies posted to YouTube – all assemblies will be face to face on Friday afternoons at 2:40pm with parents and community members welcome to attend.

On the Friday afternoons of non-assembly weeks, we are introducing a new multi-age activity sessions where kids will be re-grouped with children from other year levels, with a focus on student wellbeing and connectedness. These will be fun sessions organised by the Wellbeing Curriculum Action Team. We are very keen to see the impact this will have on student voice and agency so that kids enjoy being at school.

Have a great week.

Mat Anderton
Acting Principal

Quality Buddy Time!

The Preps and their Grade 4 buddies love spending time together every fortnight. There are always lots of smiles, hugs and memorable moments during Buddies sessions. In our last Buddies session, the Grade 4’s invited the Preps to visit them in order to share an information report on an animal which was presented with a special 3D habitat effect. A special moment during this session was when two Year 4 students received an envelope with an invitation to their Prep buddy’s birthday party … such a kind gesture!

Claudia O’Neill

Year 4 Team Leader

National Child Protection Week

September 3 – 9 is National Child Protection Week. This week is set aside each year to promote a safe and supported life for every child, now and into the future. The overarching message for the week is ‘Every child in every community needs a fair go’ with this year’s theme being ‘where we start matters’.

There is a booklet full of activities for you to do with your child to show us how we can build the safest communities possible for our children. You can find it on the NAPCAN website https://www.napcan.org.au/get-involved-2023/  Can I encourage you to spend time over the following weeks talking through these activities with your child as they suggest websites, organisations and practical ways to ensure our kids are safe or know what to do when they are not feeling safe.

Maggie Dent, an Australian parenting guru, speaks about National Child Protection Week in this short video about how all parents can be connecting with their kids and looking out for each other:

https://youtu.be/4x4hNOLLWOE

It is vital that we reach out to others as we care for our kids. As the saying goes, it takes a village to bring up a child and we do not need to do it alone. There is no shame in asking for help. We are very fortunate here in Melbourne as well as in Knox Council area to have many organisations that can offer help and support to us during our parenting journey. The Orange Door, Knox Infolink, Parentline, the Raising Children website, the esafety website, the Childhood Foundation, Kids Helpline, 1800 Respect, Relationships Australia, Anglicare ParentZone to name but a few. If you would like any further information about these supports please look them up online or get in touch with me at school.

Sarah McIntosh
Student Welfare

Year 5 Artist Incursion

Local artist Andrea McLaughlin hosted two workshops with the Year 5 students during art lessons this term. Andrea is an accomplished artist working across a broad range of mediums; students had a chance to learn about her life as an artist and view a collection of her artwork.

Andrea demonstrated many sketching and painting techniques during these sessions and helped guide students to create their own artwork of an animal. Students found an animal photograph as inspiration for their artwork and learnt how to use grid lines to enlarge their drawing, as well as how to paint a range of textures to bring their animal to life.

We were lucky enough to see Andrea in action as she sketched and painted an artwork of a fox! Students were able to see behind the scenes how an artwork is created and learn valuable skills to apply in their own artwork.

The Year 5’s will continue to work on their painting over the coming art lessons and I look forward to putting them on display when they are complete!

Tara Henstock

Visual Arts Teacher

Weeding Bees

Premier’s Reading Challenge

20 days to go!! Time to enter all the books you’ve read this year, if you haven’t already. Every student who completes the Reading challenge will receive a certificate. Our top 10 readers who have read the most books this year will receive a certificate, a PRC pin and a book. Certificates will be given out during term 4. The winning class of the pizza lunch will be announced once the challenge is closed and they will enjoy their yummy lunch during term 4. It’s a real battle between 2B and 2D!

Here are the details on how to login and add books at home.

Logging in with a Challenge passcode

Your teacher will give you a Challenge username and passcode. Keep them in a safe place.

If you lose or forget your Challenge passcode, ask your Challenge coordinator (Mrs Bentley) to generate a new one for you.Go to the Challenge application. https://www.vic.gov.au/premiers-reading-challenge?Redirect=1

1. Select the Login links then School/Student button.
2. Select the VPRC login option.
3. Enter your username and password.
4. Select Login.

Adding books to your reading list

1. Select Search Books in the side menu.
2. Enter the book’s name, author, series name or ISBN number in the search field.
3. Select the Search button.
4. Find th-e book you want from the search results and select the book title. This will open the book details.
5. Select the +Add book button.
6. Return to your Dashboard from the menu, click on Finish underneath each book you have added.
7. The books you have finished will then be verified by Mrs Bentley

The books will appear in your reading list on your dashboard.

Students can log into Accessit (our Library system) from home, to view the books they have borrowed in Library and add them to the Premier’s Reading Challenge too. Once logged in, click on your name and select my borrowing details, then borrowing history.

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

Happy Reading!

Leanne Bentley
Librarian

Sports Payments

We have a number of sporting events coming up this Term. Please make sure that consent and payment is completed by the closing date or before. This ensures that your child attends the event. Reminders to those who have yet to pay, and consent will be emailed to families weekly as well as the day before consent and payment closes. Thank you ?

Interschool Sports Helpers Needed (Grade 5 & 6)

We are still looking for helpers for the upcoming Summer Interschool Sports days on the 29/8 and 14/9. If you are interested in helping out, please send an email to Taylah.Smith3@education.vic.gov.au. You must have a current WWCC and have signed the school code of conduct (this needs to be completed annually).

Hooptime Tryouts

Training schedules for Senior Future Stars and Rookies as well as all Junior teams have been placed on the Gym door, please remind your children to check this so they don’t miss out on training. Students are expected to be at all training sessions unless they are away.

Junior Hooptime Day – 6/9 Dandenong Stadium

Senior Future Stars/Rookies Day – 7/9 Dandenong Stadium

Congratulations!

A big well done to Emily.A, Kayla.C & Olivia.B who won their Grand Final in the Under 12 Girls Premiers for the Basin Bears.

Another Congratulations is in order for another one of our Grade 6’s. Ruby.S for winning best and fairest at her footy club this week.

We are very proud of you all!

Thank you!

We would like to say a huge thank you to Tennis Australia who donated 6 new hot shot nets to BHPS this week! We are so incredibly grateful for your generosity to our school. The kids are going to have a blast using them next week at Interschool Sports.

Taylah Smith
Physical Education Teacher and Sport Co-ordinator

COMPASS – How to Fill Out the Code of Conduct

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.

CARE Ticket Winners

Student of the Week

Father’s Day Stall

BHPS Market Night is a great night!

The Hubsters will be running another Market night this October and we are looking for Market Committee Members who can help bring it together.

With such a success last year, this year is going to be BIG!!

BHPS School Disco

We are still looking for volunteers.  Please text Rachel on 0401 524 999 to volunteer for the Junior Disco and text Shirani on 0433296786 to volunteer for Senior Disco. All parent helpers MUST have a current working with children’s check and have signed the code of conduct.

Chocolate Drive