Dear Families,

One of our main goals is to create a positive school environment for our school community.  We are committed to working with families to build positive relationships, support parent and student involvement, celebrate achievement and encourage positive behaviours.  We take opportunities to reinforce our school expectations and our school values of Respect, Responsibility, Courage, Growth and Connection.

One of the ways in which we seek to partner with our families and our wider community is through our Brighton Primary School Association.

On Monday our School Association held their Annual General Meeting.  Prior to this we had called for nominations from parents, guardians and school staff to fill vacancies on our School Association Committee.  We had the exact number of nominations required, so we did not need to go to elections.

All parents and guardians who have a child enrolled at our school, and school staff members (including the principal,) are automatically members of the school association and community members can apply to join.  We welcome family members to our general meetings. 

The school association committee is an elected group of school association members who take on office bearer roles and decision making as a representative group of the school association.

Our School Association Committee until our next Annual General Meeting in March next year is:

-Parent representatives:  Rebecca Hardy, Tameka Dias, Melissa Smith,

Tori Stevens and Kirk Frawley.

-Staff representatives:  Belinda Harback, Stacey Jenkins, Natalie Hedington

-Community representatives:  Barbara Curran, Jenny Blackburn.

-Principal

The Committee were eager to share their enthusiasm for working together to support our school.

Some of the work that our school association does for our school includes:

- developing school policies

- contributing to and reviewing our school’s improvement plan

- having an overview of our school budget

- giving ideas and suggestions for improving our school environment

-working together to raise funds for the benefit of school and determining how these funds will be spent

Please see inside today’s newsletter for information about our School Association’s Easter Raffle and upcoming free dress days to support this raffle.

The next General Meeting of our School Association will be held on Monday 5th  May at 4pm in the School Office Block.  We look forward to seeing you there!

Progress Reports

Students will next week receive their Term 1 Progress Report.   This will give information about how your child has settled into their 2025 class and learning routines.   Progress reports will be sent home for Kinder students on Wednesday 26^th March and for Prep – Year Six students on Friday 28^th March.  

New Fence on Jubilee Avenue

If you’ve travelled along Jubilee Avenue over the last few days you may have noticed workers have been busy installing our new boundary fence at the top of the school oval.  A child safe gate has been installed at the entrance path and students will use this when going to and from buses.    The gate will be open from 8am of a school morning and closed by 3.30pm.   If you wish to access school grounds after these hours, please enter via Downie Street.

Years 3 – 6 Athletics Carnival

It was great to see so many students dressed in their house colours and everyone participating and having a go at our recent Athletics Carnival.  We were so lucky to have such great weather!  Thanks to families for coming in and supporting all of our students.  Well done to our sports house captains for the motivation and encouragement that they gave to other students on the day.  Special thanks to our groundsman Brad for marking out our running track, to Miss Pullen for being our DJ and making sure the tunes kept coming throughout the day and to Mr Daft for organising the event.    

Selected students from our carnival will take part in Inter-primary Athletics in our A and B teams during the next two weeks.   Students will shortly know who will be in these teams. 

1-2 Assembly

Students who are regularly displaying our school values are acknowledged at our sector assemblies.  This is a great opportunity for families to come in, support their child and take part in our celebration.

Congratulations to the following students who were awarded Values Certificates at this week’s Year 1 and 2 Assembly:

Respect: Hannah B 1M, Isla B 1M, Camilla 1S, Thomas 2H

Growth:  Aylah O 1S, Bertie C 1W, Hudson C 2G

Courage: Charlie L 2G, Amelia S 2H

Responsibility: Matilda C 1W

Congratulations to the following students who were successful in this week’s Golden Ticket Draw:  Allie 1W, Abbie 1S and Miley 2G

Launching into Learning and pre-Kinder

We were pleased to welcome many families with young children to our Launching into Learning (LIL) program yesterday.  Our welcoming staff Deb and Belinda are now running a number of sessions during the week.  These free sessions are a great way to connect with other families and where you and your child can get to know our school and your local community.  Please contact our School Office for more information.

Working with you for a positive school community,

Sonya Plunkett-Smith

Principal

Could all Validation forms, Minor Major Excursion Forms & Dental Forms be returned to the school office as soon as possible.  The Grade 6 order forms for the Leavers Hoodie and Polo Top need to be returned with the money, by the 11th of April.  Thank you for your assistance.

In 6 Griffiths-Lee, we have been working on multiplying and dividing decimals by ten and one hundred. To help us with our calculations and to visualise what it means to make a number ten or one hundred times bigger or smaller, we have been using these sliders. We can’t wait to share our learning about this as part of our Numeracy Evidence of Learning for this term. Keep an eye out on See-saw for these in the coming weeks!

Exploring Decimals in Grade ¾ Mika !

This week in our classroom, we dove into the world of decimals! We introduced the concept of place value to tenths and hundredths, which can be a tricky idea at first. However, the students showed great resilience and determination, challenging themselves to recognize and apply their understanding of place value in new ways.

We practiced writing decimal numbers and explored how they connect to what we already know about whole numbers. It was fantastic to see the students' enthusiasm and confidence grow as they tackled this new learning! Check out some snapshots of our learning in action.

My name is Tony Hasty and I am delighted to be the new music teacher at Brighton Primary  School this year. 

We are providing classroom music from Kinder to grade 6.  Students have the opportunity to experience a wide variety of musical styles and genres from nursery rhymes to Australian classics, right through to rock and roll and songs from musical theatre. 

Students will have the opportunity to make and create their own music, as throughout the year, they will be gradually introduced to a variety of instruments including ukelele, guitar, percussion, xylophone and marimba. 

We have already established a choir with over 50 enthusiastic students and we are almost ready for our first assembly performance so the choir members are very much looking forward to that!

Also on the agenda is the establishment of a marimba elective for interested students to be arranged at a later stage.  We are lucky to have a very well-equipped music department with a good stock of acoustic guitars, electric guitars and amplifiers.  It is my intention to also establish a beginner rock group for enthusiastic students who have an interest in that aspect of performance.   So, stay tuned!

Tony Hasty

Music Teacher

Anyone who has walked past our beautiful School Garden recently would be amazed at the abundance and variety of different vegetables, herbs and fruits we have

– all grown and cultivated by our Grade 3 and 4 students and our wonderful Garden Specialist Evyn.   

Every time the groups of students come into the garden they look to see what is new and what has changed. They are really taking ownership and learning what needs to be done on a regular basis.

 Other grade teachers have started bringing classes on different days to use the garden and space for other learning opportunities, such as Science and Art. Kinder Beechey had their first visit to the garden and loved collecting fruit and vegetables which they later drew with chalky pastels.   

It has been so great to watch the Grade 3 and 4 students trying all the different vegetables and making dishes that they have loved and want to keep eating. Tomatoes have been in abundance and Kristie has managed to keep finding new ways to use them in her kitchen classes. Some students didn’t know how much they loved their veggies  until they tried the fritters. Vegetable soup and damper and spaghetti bolognaise are always a hit and this week they have all given the tomato salsa a huge thumbs up.  

Thank you to Evyn and Kristie for looking after our Kitchen Garden space so beautifully and giving our students such wonderful experiences and learning for life.  Yesterday we had a visit from the 24 Carrot/Mona leadership group (Sponsors/Mentors) and they had nothing but praise for what they could see happening at Brighton Primary. “The Garden and the Kitchen Program are second to none and you should all be very proud of what you have achieved!”

Dorothy Raymond

AP and 3/4 Sector Head