Welcome to week 8 of Term 4.  Can you believe there is only 3 weeks left of the school year?

As always, we have been busy behind the scenes here at school with students completing portfolio tasks and assessments, teachers are writing reports and the leadership team and I have been working on plans for next year, writing our Annual Implementation Plan and finalizing staffing and grade structures. Phew!  It has been a busy but productive term so far.

We have a few staffing changes going into next year.  Mr Mangs will be leaving Bayswater Primary School after 8 years with us.  He and his lovely wife Claire, have built a house on the Bass Coast and will be moving down that way at the end of this year. As such, we have employed a new teacher, Matthew Hill, to fill this vacancy. Our Chaplain Jacqui will also be finishing up with us this year as she goes on to pursue other career pathways. At this stage we have not yet appointed a replacement Chaplain but will keep you informed.  Ms Arico will be returning from family leave at the start of next year. Mrs Tavenor will be working full time and will return to the classroom.  Mrs Calamante will be teaching PE and will also be teaching in the Prep classroom on Fridays.  Mrs Drijfhout will also be leaving at the end of the year as she will be taking on additional responsibilities at her other school.

Below is the grade structure and staffing for next year as it currently stands.

Prep – Mrs Shrimpton (Mon-Thur) / Mrs Calamante (Fri)

Grade 1 – Miss Marshall

Grade 2 – Mr Alavanja

Grade 3/4 - Mr Hill

Grade 4/5 – Mrs Tavenor

Grade 6 – Mr Baroni

Science – Ms Arico

Art – Mrs Hadley

PE – Mrs Calamante

Student Wellbeing Coordinator – Mrs Roberts

Integration Staff – Mrs Goodman, Mrs Moran, Mrs Ingwersen and Mrs Hall

Business Manager - Mrs Clark

We are also in the process of securing two tutors for the recently announced Tutor program.  The Victorian Government is deploying more than 4,100 tutors across the state to ensure no student is left behind in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. These tutors will provide our students with the extra individual support to catch up with learning they may have missed as a result of remote/flexible learning. When these arrangements are confirmed, I will be able to share the details with you.

As COVID restrictions are beginning to ease, we are waiting to hear if restrictions around visitors and parents onsite will be changing.  At this stage we are still unable to have parents onsite but as of next Monday, we will be allowing students to enter the school gates from 8:45 am each morning. 

Staff will no longer be supervising each entrance to the school but there will of course be a staff member on duty in the yard from 8:45 am each morning.

If you are dropping your child off at the Birch Street kinder carpark, please supervise them carefully as they cross the carpark as we have had a number of concerns raised around student safety and a couple of near misses with cars as they enter and exit the car park.  If you are driving into this carpark, please continue to take great care as you drive in and out and park.  This carpark can get very busy and we ask that you take care when using it.

We are starting to make plans for our end of term celebrations and events.  We will put details out as soon as they are available.  Have a great week.

Brooke Cross

How old is old enough?

Most sites have an age restriction of 13+ years due to COPPA (Children Online Privacy Protection Act).

Social media sites collect and markets user data. As parents, your children’s data being collected and on sold is the often the least of our concerns. Social media is a phenomenon, there is no other word for it – Australia as of April 2015 had 14,000,000 steady users on Facebook.

In fact, Facebook has the world’s largest population and this is only one example of social media!

Recently there was an article from the Victorian Principals Association titled, ‘Social Media, Defamation and Schools.’

This article really brought home how careful we need to be when posting on social media – to remember that nothing is truly private, that we need to think twice before posting, that if we post or even re-post something defamatory we can be legally liable, we lose control of whatever is posted, it can never be totally recalled, our post has no tone of voice or body language attached so it can be easily misinterpreted, what might be a funny comment to us, can easily be mis-read, what was intended as a letting off of steam can all too quickly reach an audience far beyond that which it was intended…. The list goes on!

So if these are only part of a greater list of things we need to consider when engaging in social media, how can we possibly expect our children to manage it responsibly? The short answer is invariably they can’t. Or at least not without vigilant monitoring and support from parents.

If your child/children are using social media here are the top 5 tips to lessen the risk

1. Get them or keep them off – if you feel unable to do this then…

2. Set up an account that you have control over – you get to see everything! Ensure privacy settings are at their highest and give greatest control over who sees the content & who can respond to the content

3. Talk with your child about what is and isn’t appropriate to post – not just in terms of offensive, embarrassing etc content, but are they revealing too much personal information that may identify them?

4. Help them to deal with any negative feedback/comments. This may involve blocking and/or reporting to the social media site

5. Check in regularly to make sure they are behaving in a smart, safe & responsible manner

This site from Common Sense Media https://www.commonsensemedia.org/learningwith-technology/is-it-ok-for-my-kid-to-start-her-own-youtube-channel has some helpful tips for parents on YouTube, but these can be applied to other forms of social media.

As always the eSafety government site has excellent help guides for the most popular forms of social media and can assist with privacy settings and reporting - https://www.esafety.gov.au/esafety-information/games-apps-and-social-networking

Your feedback is important and welcome, with your help, together we can help to prepare our children to be eSmart – smart, safe & responsible users of digital technologies.

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