Thank you for your support and understanding during this unprecedented time for all of us. We want to reassure you that alongside the teaching and learning of our students, their wellbeing and mental health is at the heart of everything we do. As part of the BBPS community, we will continue to offer you all ongoing support in the event that our school closes and your child moves into learning from home. Julie Podbury, the president of the Australian Principal’s Federation could not have stated it more plainly…
For the rest of our lives we will remember what we are going through at present. As you can appreciate, there is no historical precedent for the management of a pandemic in schools and preschools and this is currently being reflected in the policy responses and advice being announced daily. These times are unprecedented as we are at war with an invisible enemy. As we ramp up our response to defend and protect ourselves and the members of our communities, we are being guided by DET, who in turn is being guided by the State Chief Health Officer, Dr Brett Sutton.
Thankfully the community spirit at BBPS is typically shining through as we face this challenge together.
For some of our students school did not quite finish on Monday. Whilst most staff have been working from home this week to prepare our Continuity of Learning Plan, members of the school leadership team have been at school planning as well and providing a care and supervision program for students have continued to come to school.
Given a State of Emergency has been declared, supervision and care arrangements for essential services workers’ of primary school aged children and vulnerable students continues to be made available to those who need it each day this week, including on Friday 27 March.
Still at school
SHARING some stand-outs… including tackling Rube Goldberg challenges and being able to draw while eating. See some of their specifics….
Luca: Playing…Hide and seek, Down Ball 4 Square and Dodgeball.
Tilly: Having the whole playground to yourself!
Struan: Having different teachers and choosing what to do.
Chloe: Being in the veggie garden.
Deveron: The Thousand piece jig-saw puzzle
Charlie: Mini puzzles
Reading Fun with THE LORAX - Dr Seuss
Despite being written in 1971 this story has relevance for all ages and the meaning deepens for readers as you can make more text-to-world connections. Typically children of all ages respond to Dr Seuss.
For our intrepid little band of learners pictured they were focused on completing a directed drawing task – drawing the Lorax. Read some of their responses:
Chloe: When you are just following the instructions I can just kind of keep up.
Tilly: I could work out what was going to happen next. And Mr Bolger got the book so we could check who the other animal characters were.
Struan: It was tricky to get the same shape.
Deveron: It was good when Mrs Coutts paused it.
Charlie: It was tricky!
BBPS 2020 Spelling Bee Challenge IS ON!
Who will improve enough to topple our 2019 Champion Speller – Steffi Paulin
Due to the sudden end to Term One the 2020 Spelling Bee will be open to all to participate.
See what some of our 2019 competitors had to say about it.
Once I made it through to the final round (the second round) I had around one week to practice. On the day I was extremely nervous. But I was relieved when it was over. I was also excited but mostly relived that there was no longer the pressure of getting the words right. I was proud of myself. Madison Kwok 6B
On the day of the spelling bee I was excited to compete. I hadn’t really practised the words that much I had only quickly looked over them so that made me a bit nervous. I thought that it was a great experience to practise spelling and overall I really enjoyed it. Lauren 5C
The spelling bee was fantastic! This year BBPS was trialling something new. We were going to have a spelling bee. All of year 3-6 were included. The way it worked was that each classroom in year 3-6 would have a mini spelling bee and the person who got the most words right in each house would get to go to the real spelling bee! Then all the year 3 house winners from the classroom would verse each other in the finals. Then the 4’s, then 5’s so on, and the winner of each year level would get a $10 canteen voucher and the runner up of each year level would get a $5 canteen voucher. It was an amazing experience and heaps of fun. The words were very hard and if you didn’t make the finals it was still extremely fun to watch the finalists, but the finalists were so very nervous up on the stage. Nonetheless I’m sure everyone had a blast! Ramon 6C.
So come on all you champion spellers sharpen your skills during the holidays when you are sitting round the dinner table or travelling in the car. Get ready for the BBPS 2020 Super Spelling Spectacular! Here’s some to try…
Ornithorhynchus loquacious herpetologist
fettuccine barramundi ancestor serviceable
Finally…some words of wisdom
Georgie Hellier (Year 3RH and our Art teacher also mother of three) shared something from a post she was reading… What children need right now is to feel comforted and loved and to feel like it’s all going to be ok. Please don’t worry about them regressing in their learning. Every single student is in this boat and they will all be ok. When school resumes and we are back in the classroom, we will meet them where they are at and build from there. Teachers are experts at this!
We hope that you can enjoy some quality family time over the school holidays and Easter break.
Please note what follows is a summary of the work that we’ve been doing this week should schools need to activate learning from home.
Bev, Kim and the brilliant BBPS Team.