Dear Parents and Carers,

As you may have read or seen in the Media consent education is now mandatory in all Victorian schools.  Badger Creek Primary was already fulfilling the expectations as we have the two recommended programs to do this already embedded in our curriculum and have for the past four years. These programs are Respectful Relationships and Catching on Early.  These programs are accessible for anyone to read on the Department of Education Website.

This term there will be a whole school focus on consent education, gender and identity and positive gender relationships.  If you have any queries about this please do not hesitate to call Nerae Preece or Edwina Whiteside for more information.

The Education department policy states “Students will learn that consent must be given for all types of intimate contact, including kissing, hugging, and touching of more private areas of the body, as well as sexual activity. They will learn that sexual assault is a crime, and that it includes any form of unwanted or forced sexual behaviour, including unwanted kissing, touching, and sharing of sexual images and text.”  This will obviously be taught at age appropriate levels throughout the school.

Personal Boundaries: why they’re important for children

Personal boundaries are limits and rules about how we behave around others and how other people behave around us. Your personal boundaries might reflect how you feel about touching other people, what you feel comfortable saying to other people about yourself, and so on.

When children learn about their own and other people’s personal boundaries, it helps them understand how to behave in different social situations.

An understanding of personal boundaries also helps children recognise inappropriate behaviour. And this can help them stay safe. 

Teach your child it’s OK to say no to a friend. If your child doesn’t want to go to a playdate or sleepover, this can be a chance for your child to practise saying no kindly. For example, ‘It’s OK not to sleep over at Sam’s place. We could suggest a 9 pm pick-up instead’.

Respect your child’s feelings if they want privacy when they’re undressing or using the bathroom.

When the physical changes of puberty start for your child, avoid making comments about your child’s body. You might also need to ask relatives and friends not to comment.

If your child gets a social media account, talk with them about sharing images. If your child wants to share images of other people, they always need to ask first. Likewise, your child can expect other people to ask for permission before sharing your child’s image. And your child should feel free to say no.

Talk about your child’s friends and friendships. You could ask your child about the qualities they value in friends and the signs that friends care for and respect them. This can be a way to introduce the idea of respectful relationships.

IMPORTANT SCHOOL DATES

Important school dates to remember:

Grade 5/6 Aussie sports expo – Postponed until Term 3 or 4 (Date to be confirmed)

Whole School Assembly: Online (in person if possible) Friday 23rd July

School Council Update

On behalf of the School Council I would like to thank Nerae for continuing to do a brilliant job in leading and supporting the school, its students, staff and community. During the holidays, while I hope we all had a good break, Nerae had the additional task of re-applying for the role of principal. Officially our previous principal Scott Crawford holds this position until 2025. This means each year we need to align the timing of Scott’s ongoing secondment elsewhere in the department and Nerae’s position at Badger Creek. The process went smoothly I want to thank Nerae for her extra effort during this process and for continuing to be our stable, caring and home-grown principal at Badger Creek Primary School.

Greetings in lockdown once again!

Music has been great fun this week. From grades 1 to 6, we have been starting to think about making our own music compositions. Grade 1 and 2 students have been learning about writing and recording their own soundscapes. Grades 3 and 4 are beginning a unit on the Blues and will eventually write and record their own blues song using garage band. The grade 5 and 6 students are increasing their skills on garage band and will create their own compositions later in the term.

Our grade prep musicians are learning about contrasts in music, this week is was fast and slow music. We made our own music to accompany the story of The Tortoise and the Hare using the xylophones.

We have again had an influx of students wanting to learn an in instrument at school, which is fantastic.  We currently have a small waiting list for piano lessons, which is not ideal. If this situation continues, we will look at alternatives to provide piano lessons sooner.

Have a great week. I hope you get a bit of peace and quiet.

Jenny Legg

Music Teacher

A big and exciting sporting event is happening in a weeks time. The 2021 summer olympics are commencing in Tokyo, Japan. There will be footage of the exciting opening ceremony and many sporting events on television. The students may like to tune in and watch some of them. They will see the athletes using some of the skills they are leaning in PE lessons.

In grade 1/2 we have been learning how to strike the ball with our foot and kicking balls all over the gym. Hopefully we get some nice weather and we can go outside and kick them with a bit more space.

Grade 1/2s have Physical Education every Tuesday with me, Miss Hunter. I would love if all students could come with suitable shoes for lots of running, kicking and jumping!

Here’s a glimpse of the magic that happened in prep during our first week back:

We re-established our good reading and writing habits in literacy by reflecting on our reading goals and updating our writing goals.

In maths, we had so much fun learning about ordinal numbers! We had all sorts of races, including a teacher race. It was no surprise when Mrs. C won… But most of all, we loved creating car races and awarding the 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th places.

PMP has always been our favourite kind of learning. This week we proved, once again, that we’re all so skilled in areas like targeted throwing, jumping, crawling, balancing and bowling!

Another magical piece of learning from this week is our zones of regulation. We have harnessed all our knowledge of feelings and began thinking about how we can control our moods and move between the four zones: blue, green, yellow and red. Ask your child what zone they are in. They may respond to you with finger signals. Ask them to teach you the 4 different finger signals.

One last reminder from us, our 100 days of prep celebration will be Friday the 30^{th of}  July. Please find the attachment within the newsletter that outlines how we plan to acknowledge this exciting day! The preps already have a few fabulous ideas about what 100 things they can squeeze into the ziplock bag. (Sorry Prep B kiddos, silly Mrs. C forgot to hand out your bags yesterday. You will receive yours when you’re back at school).

We look forward to jumping back into our learning online Monday!

It’s great to be back! Our Students appear well rested and ready for learning 😊

We have been extremely impressed with the way students have approached this week in such a calm and organised way. It’s been lovely to see routines are now firmly established and our students are taking greater ownership with their learning. It makes for a fabulous start to term three which we know is when learning is at its best!

This week, our reading focus is based around asking questions to ourselves before, during and after reading. Asking questions about the books we read deepens our understanding of the text.

In writing, we have taken great care to create beautiful non-fiction posters displaying learned facts, from last term. We know that writers can present writing in many different forms. We look forward to sharing these wonderful posters with you next week.

Can you recall all the features found on Australian coins? When added together, what is the total value of the 6 Australian coins? Students have explored money in maths this week, identifying features, including size, shape and value of each Australian coin. Students have worked to explore different ways to make $1, $2 etc and have used addition and subtraction skills during play-based shopping opportunities.

Next week’s learning focus includes:

Reading Comprehension– Author’s purpose ( to entertain, to persuade or to inform)

Writing- Persuasive texts- persuasive text types, structure of texts and language

Maths- Time – Analogue clock features and reading time to O’clock, half past, quarter past, quarter to, minutes, hours, second.

We love sharing the love of reading with our classroom novels. 1/2CD have begun reading Fantastic Mr Fox.

In 1/2AB, we finally finished our class novel, Charlotte’s Web. What a classic story.

Hi Everyone

This week I sent home the latest book club issue 5. The printers made an error in the date but it is for 2021.

Please return your orders before 02/08/2021 to ensure they get in on time.

The school receives ‘reward point’ from purchases that I use to select books for students assembly awards throughout the year.

Thank you

Janet Miller

(Library office)

Bunnings sausage sizzle reschedule … 

We just want to let everyone know the Bunnings Sausage sizzle now has a new date.

Sunday 18th July

We are asking for volunteers to help with this fundraising event.

If you can help on this day please contact the office.

Who doesn’t love a yummy Bunnings sausage!