Nerae Preece Principal

From the Principal

Yesterday I had a really interesting conversation with one of our fabulous grade 6 students and Andy Moore. The student was making a poster to share around the school around equality for girls and being treated with respect. Our grade 6 student talked of a time that she played cricket and how the boys asked her why did she play, and that sports like cricket weren’t for girls. This determined human kept playing in spite of these harsh words, and by the end of the season, when the team had to be broken into 2, she had developed a team of boys around her that said that they would rather play in her team, because she was a good team mate.

This is one story of many that we had in that conversation, but one that really stuck in my mind. When did play ever come down to whether you were a boy or a girl? I just figured that it was good to learn how to be a good friend.

As a mum and friend, it really makes me think about what kind of space I want my kids to be a part of. It is not one where we ignore comments like “they hit you, they must be trying to tell you that they like you” or “you run/hit like a girl”. As a community we all need to call out the comments we hear. Make it the space where we show how to be good community members for each other and our kids.

We haven’t visited our school expectations (also known as rules) much this year, but now seems to be a great time to start. They are be Safe, be respectful and be responsible.

If you witness or hear something that doesn’t sit well, ask the person, are you being safe? Are you being respectful? Are you being responsible? By asking these questions it makes people reflect on their behaviour, and hopefully adjust the behaviour. 3 simple questions that are non-confrontational and a great way to call out inappropriate behaviour.

In line with this we have Bodysafe coming out to talk to our prep students about protective behaviours and consent on Monday. We are offering an online parent information session on Monday night at around 7pm to share this learning with parents. It will be on Webex. We will have the link emailed out to you on Monday afternoon.

Our School Council

We had a great school council meeting this week. We would like to thank Angela Mortyn for her contributions over her past 2 terms as she leaves our council, and we would like to welcome Sharon Sheals (formally back on the council), Jackie Matters, Eloise Wallace and Rohan Anderson.

Our council have allocated roles and responsibilities…

President- Christian Clarke Executive Officer- Nerae Preece

Treasurer- Eloise Wallace

Secretary- Jackie Matters

Community Liaison/Project Control Group- Mark Morris

We also have Rohan Anderson, Erin Murphy and Janet Miller as Staff representatives and Carl deWacht, Sharon Sheals and Steve Smith as parent representatives.

They are here to listen to your concerns around the governance of the school, and we are very excited about the work we can do to continue to help Badger Creek Primary School be a Sanctuary for Learning.

End of term details

Just a gentle reminder that school finishes at 2:30pm on Thursday the 1^st of April. CIRE will be available for child care if you need, please make sure you make contact with Tristan or Amanda for a booking.

We will also be having an assembly that will start at around 1:30 to recognise students who have been working on learning growth. There will be a few other things to share that I know the students will really enjoy!

Toilets

Over the past few weeks Ashley our cleaner has been letting me know that there has been quite a bit of damage being done, particularly in our boys toilets (two toilet roll holders broken as well as different objects thrown in the toilets which block and flood the toilets) as you can imagine, we are monitoring closely as we can, but it is very challenging to find the people that are responsible.

We have discussed with students what goes in the toilets and what doesn’t and we are now appealing to you to help us.

We are hoping you can remind your child about the following simple rules about using the toilets:

Be Safe- Use the toilets to do your business, and then leave. We do not play in the toilets and we definitely do not eat in the toilets. We also wash our hands after.

Be Respectful- We should always aim to leave the toilet cleaner than how we found it. Check the rim of the seat after you use it to make sure you haven’t left any surprises. We also flush! We do not put foreign objects down the toilet. It causes blockages and costs us extra money!

Be Responsible- Sometimes we may have an accident. That’s okay, but you need to come and let us know. Great people to come and report accidents to are Brogan and Mel.

With your help, we are hoping that the children will remember how to use the toilets to keep our school a Sanctuary for Learning. Thank you for your anticipated support.

That’s about it for this week… Have a great weekend.

Nerae Preece

IMPORTANT SCHOOL DATES

Whole school dates to remember:

Thursday April 1st – Last day of Term 1 – Students finish at 2.30pm

Tuesday 20th April – Grade 1-Grade 6 excursion – Charlie and the War Against Grannies

Update from School Council this week.

School Council met on Wednesday night and discussed the following things:

We welcomed three new Councillors – parent reps Eloise Wallace and Jacki Mathers and staff rep Rohan Anderson
Nerae presented the 2020 Annual Report reflecting the huge effort of the school, staff, students and families in maintaining learning during an extremely challenging year to say the least
We elected positions for the 2021 Council
- President Christian Clark
- Treasurer Eloise Wallace
- Secretary Jackie Matters
Nerae provided the Principal’s Report on the last month of activity
Rohan provided an update on the Junior School Council (great to have student voice at the meeting and we look forward to student reps attending future meetings)
We reviewed the finance report produced by Mel and approved necessary items
We discussed the capital works, Nerae introduced the chosen architect Musk and sort input for her decision to appoint members to project control group. We discussed different ways we could have on going community consultation in the project.

The next meeting is Wednesday 21 April at 7pm at school. All parents and carers are welcome to attend.

IN P.E THIS WEEK

PE Update from Ms Hunter

The grade one and two students have been focusing on running and catching this term. They enjoy coming to the gym to play a range of games to learn and consolidate these skills. They have been practicing catching with a range of objects, their favourite being the rubber chicken. The children might like to play some catching games at home with you, using the hand nets to help catch the ball!

AROUND THE GROUNDS

This week in Prep…

In Prep this week we were so lucky to receives a visit from the illustrator Craig Smith.

We all learnt a lot about how to create an image and had lots of fun! Many thanks to Rotary and ‘Books in Schools’ for their kind donation of two books for every Prep child at Badger Creek Primary.

Our Preps have been reading lots this week. We have been using the strategy of looking at the picture clues and the initial sounds to decode the words. We have also been having lots of fun with rhyming words.

REMINDERS:

BODY SAFE form to be returned ASAP, it is happening next MONDAY. Families who showed an interest in the Parent Information Session will receive a hard copy booklet and WebEx login detail prior to Monday night’s session.

Stay tuned for a Sanctuary Visit notice – P-2 are visiting the Sanctuary on the last day of term – it is a FREE excursion and we simply need a signed permission form. We can’t wait to read to the koala’s!

Unfortunately, we have also had a few toys go missing from bags. Please DO NOT bring anything precious to school. However, can we please have a look and a chat with our kids for 3 missing little dolls similar to the image below. If we can find them we will definitely bring a smile to one of our Preppies who is quite upset. Thank you for your assistance in this matter.

We can’t believe that it is nearly the end of Term 1!

Have a great week,

The Prep Team 🙂

This week in Grade 3 / 4…

In 3/4 this week we have been excited to explore schema, students “scooped” schema and investigated how it helps us connect with the text and media we are reading/viewing! In Maths we have begun a unit in pattern and algebra, which means an exciting investigation into shapes, sequences. We hope that the students will delve into the patterns in our environment in the coming week.

Upcoming excursions

Bake sale containers

We would like to thank everyone who brought delicious goodies to the bake sale.

If you brought a container or plate for the bake sale they are now ready for collection in the office.

Thank you again.

Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund (CSEF)

We are currently taking applications for CSEF.

Please find below information in regards to the funding and if you could be eligible.

If you do have any queries or questions if you may be eligible please do not hesitate to contact the office.

Vacation Care Program

School uniform orders:

Please find below the link for the school uniform orders.

http://www.aplusschoolwear.com.au/SearchResult.aspx?Labels=BADGER%20CREEK

All orders are to be completed through the website

Hats:

Please remember during term 1 hats will be required when playing outside.

Rubbish in the yard

The Grade 6s did a school yard rubbish clean up during their leadership session this week. They want to remind everyone to nude their food before going out to play and to aim for rubbish free lunches to help keep our environment clean!