Principal’s Report
Student Leaders in 2025
Last week I was lucky to hear from twelve year 5 students who presented for school captain in 2025. They all did such an amazing job and I, along with the year 5 teachers, specialist teachers and APs, were extremely proud of their bravery in putting themselves forward for a leadership role. We have now finalised our process for selecting our 2025 Student Leaders. It was a very comprehensive process, and I would like to congratulate all the students who were involved. It was wonderful to see the students standing up in front of their peers, teachers and leadership delivering well-prepared and rehearsed speeches. The hard part was selecting the students for the positions as the calibre of students who applied was so high – we could easily have given school captain roles to all twelve kids. These children are a credit to themselves, their families and the staff at our school.
It gives me great pleasure to announce that our 2025 Student Leaders are:
Christmas Concert night and Raffle
Just another reminder to say that we are looking forward to welcoming our school community to our Christmas concert on the Tuesday 3rd of December. The evening will begin at 6pm and should go through to around 7:30pm. Our very talented students will be performing on the night in grade items. You are most welcome to bring a picnic dinner on the night, however, please note that NO ALCOHOL is allowed to be brought into and consumed at the school. In the interest of keeping our school clean, we ask that all rubbish be taken home with you at the end of the night.
The Community Hub will have once again organised a Christmas Raffle, with all tickets selling for $1 each. This raffle will be drawn at our Christmas Concert night. This is our final fundraiser for the year, and we thank you in advance for your continued support of our school.
School Council update
As the year draws to a close, I want to express my sincere gratitude to our School Council members for their exceptional contributions to our school community. Their dedication, passion, and tireless efforts have truly made a positive impact on the school and our community.
I would also like to extend a special thank you to the school council members whose terms are expiring in 2025: Kerrie Bibby, Alex Barnes, Stephen Geddes and Jakes Barnes. Their commitment and valuable insights are appreciated not only by me, but the entire council. I look forward to them nominating for school council again next year.
Communication with School Staff policy
Effective communication is a very important part of what we do. We want our teachers and leadership to be responsive to enquiries from parents and carers in a timely manner. In saying this, it’s also important that our staff have a work-life balance and not feel like they are “on the clock” all the time.
On August 26 this year, the Fair Work Act 2009 was amended to include the right of Department employees to disconnect from communications after work hours. According to the Act, an employee can now “refuse to monitor, read, listen to or respond to contact unless this refusal is considered unreasonable.”
What this looks like at BHPS is that if you contact a staff member outside of work hours, we will do our best to respond to you during work hours within two days for a general query or 24 hours if it is more urgent. Also, due to classroom commitments, teachers will most likely respond before 9am and after 3:30pm. There is some flexibility with this as it depends on a teacher’s non face-to-face time.
I am currently developing a Communications with School Staff policy which will explain to parents and carers who they should contact at the school for common questions, and the timelines and processes about how we will respond. I will share this with School Council and update the community once it has been developed.
Have a great week.
Mat Anderton
Principal
