Nerae Preece Principal
From the Principal’s Desk
Thank you! I want to start my message today by saying thank you to all the families for your efforts to make learning happen for your children. It’s not easy, but I am so grateful for your efforts and your determination to keep our community safe. We look forward to being out of the lockdown so we can catch up again soon. I also want to give a shout out to the family businesses who are keeping us fed and watered at lunchtime at the moment. We are so glad that you are there for us!
Compass
Well we have brought it forward! We were not expecting to, but we have plunged straight into the Compass pool, and already we are finding things so much easier to navigate. We are still finalising some paperwork with Compass to organise the online payment system, but we are not too far away from having that sorted so you can pay for excursions and other payments through Compass.
Many of you have reached out for support in gaining access to Compass. If you are having a bit of trouble still, please do not hesitate to contact Brogan and she will help you through the process.
At the moment you can look at attendance, communication, school reports (we have all reports that BCPS have written for your child), events and excursions. At times learning plans will be visible and we are also working towards sharing the green chronicle system (where we share positive moments in your child’s learning), we will mention these things as we go along.
Thank you for your patience with our roll out. We already have 40 families who are using the App! We will make mistakes along the way, but we are okay with that, because we are learning along the way ourselves. Already this system is making our communication much easier, and we hope you find it easier too.
Remote learning
You will notice over the next part of remote learning that there will be an increase in synchronous learning. These lessons have been carefully planned to ensure teachers are able to gain formative assessment from the work that your students are doing with them online. This information helps teachers work out what to plan next to support your child’s learning. We really hope that this as well as the tasks on the blog help keep your child engaged in their learning.
Our wellbeing checks have also started again, families that we haven’t seen in a while online will just receive a little check in phone call to make sure everyone is okay. We want to make sure everyone is safe and able to get the support they need. It’s lockdown 5.0 and to be honest I’m imagining for many of us our resilience and determination is not as strong as it once was. Sometimes it’s nice to know that someone has time to listen, that’s what we are hoping we can offer.
Bunning BBQ
We were supposed to have the Bunnings BBQ last Sunday and the PFA team did a great job of getting the event organised, and also a great job to sell the sausages that were made for the event. I think we only have 3 kg left!
Thanks to the Duff family (The Beef Joint) for their generosity with providing their delicious BBQ sausages at a discounted price for the BBQ. We are so glad that they have not gone to waste.
I also want to give a big shout out to Julie and Chrissy and the other parents who volunteered, for offering their time. Hopefully we can have the BBQ later in the year.
Term 3 goals for Badger Creek
As you may be aware we use an Annual Implementation Plan (AIP) to help us track goals for our school. Every term the leadership team/School Improvement Team (SIT) reflect on how we are travelling. We have just completed our mid-year review which means that we are setting up some strategies to help us achieve our goals. Here they are for you…
Goal 1- Learning Catch up- In term 3 we are working on looking at the question “How can explicit teaching impact on learning growth?” We will be looking at how our Tutor learning program and response to intervention are helping our students learn.
Goal 2- Happy Healthy kids- In preparation for 2022 we are looking to see how we can use the Healesville Sanctuary in our everyday teaching. We will also be working towards ensuring that we continue to build a reciprocal relationship with our fabulous neighbours.
Goal 3- Connected Schools- In this goal we are focusing our term 3 on the Compass rollout. Our goal is to have 98% of families using Compass by the end of term. We need your help with this goal!
Goal 4- Understanding data and the PLC process- This goal has been our goal for 2 years now. Since last year I am excited to say that we have been working hard on documenting and looking to ensure our recording of learning is thorough. We have been focussing on the importance of formative assessment in helping us understand how our students learn. It has also meant that we have grown as collaborators. I am excited to say that this goal is really gaining some traction.
That’s the news for this week. Once again thank you for your support with learning.
Take care
Nerae
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
AROUND THE GROUNDS
This week in Art…
Welcome back to another week of art in remote learning. Our students are doing so well at engaging in our online art classes and I really enjoy receiving so much of their fabulous artwork.
This week students focused on the art element of line and how artists use different types of line to create their artwork.
Our Juniors explored photography this week, looking around their backyards and inside their houses for inspiration. They took a series of four photographs that showed different types of lines (curved, straight, diagonal etc) found in both nature and the built environment.
The National Gallery of Victoria offers some wonderful artmaking activities that link directly to artworks they have in their collection. This week our senior students completed one of these activities and explored how artists Laith McGregor and John Olsen use the art element of line to communicate ideas and emotions in their work.
See you back at school soon!
Vanessa Imberger
Art Teacher
This week in Prep…
We are so proud of the efforts of all of our Preps this week!
It has been great to see everyone in our morning check-in’s and participating in SMART spelling!
Earlier in the week we created Vege People, check out some of the wonderful creations.
We are looking forward to celebrating our 100 days of Prep and will be definitely be making our t-shirts when we return to school.
Once again, thank you to all of our families for your continuing support!
The Prep Team
This week in Grade 1 / 2…
This week grade 1/2’s settled back into remote learning. We were super impressed to see students sharing their Smart Spelling with their families and finding new words with the split digraph i-e. In writing, students put their knowledge of different text types to the test and created a variety of texts including: stories, recipes, how-tos, and information reports. In maths, we continued our work on money with students getting hands-on practical exposure through creating their own shops.
This week in Grade 3 / 4…
What a week of remote learning we have had! It’s been such a delight to see so many smiling faces each morning in our WebEx check-in sessions. The children are growing in confidence speaking to the group each morning, sharing all of the interesting things they have been up to, as well as their feelings towards the current situation. The glass half-full approach that our children adopt certainly shows how resilient they truly are.
SMART Spelling is something new to the senior school this term. As teachers, we are just dipping our toes into this program for the first time, so we are learning just as much as the children. And haven’t they hit the ground running! This week we have been exploring the digraph ‘oy’, with children choosing eight good-fit words to practise this spelling pattern.
Our reading tasks on the blog have seen students using their prior knowledge and clues found in a text to make inferences. Children have been exposed to several text types throughout the week, including a book, an image and a short video clip.
Writing tasks have been exploring the ways we can use language to paint a picture of the setting in the minds of our reader. We used the book Magic Beach by Alison Lester as a mentor text for this, and these skills will feed into our personal narrative writing sessions when we return to school.
Lastly, in maths we have completed a range of interactive tasks that explore addition, time and measurement of both perimeter and area.
Hopefully we’re reunited back at school soon so that we can continue this learning, but in the meantime…take care and we’ll see you next week back on WebEx!
This week in Grade 5 / 6…
Hello to all our Fantastic Families!
We hope you’ve all been well over the past week, and are staying safe and secure whilst looking after one another through all the up and down moments.
Unsurprisingly, we’ve seen all our Grade Five and Six students exhibiting their remarkable levels of emotional resiliency and determination as they’ve tackled another round of remote learning tasks with their usual levels of humour, open mindedness and willingness to give their best efforts.
For reading this week, students have been honing in on the key elements of various fiction texts, as well as analysing the impact of events on the outlook and development of the key characters in different stories. For writing, we’ve been developing our understanding of conjunctions, and how to use them in our writing to create both complex and compound sentences, which has enabled students to really demonstrate both their creative flair and sense of humour in their work.
In numeracy, students have been working in various guided groups to help best meet their individual needs, and have been focusing on various strategies to help them develop more efficient ways to solve mathematical problems using different approaches in addition.
Students have also continued their focus in Inquiry through researching the different levels of government in Australia, and have started improving their understanding of the various roles of each level, and how they connect as a whole.
We hope that all remains well for you all, and are very much looking forward to seeing our students back on-site in the near future.
Warmest Regards
The Grade Five & Six Teaching Team
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)
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
EGGS
Here at Badger Creek we are lucky enough to have our very own chickens, chickens which have been busy laying lots of eggs.
Eggs are available for purchase at the office at $5 a carton.
Eggsellent news for all you egg lovers.
DRINK BOTTLES
Please ensure drink bottles are being brought to school each day.
There are facilities to refill drink bottles when required.
Community News
JOKE OF THE WEEK
What do you call two octopuses that look exactly the same?
A: Itenticle!
