Boneo Buzz 21st August

Dear Parents and Carers,

I am incredibly proud of the work our staff have been doing over the past 6-12 months to strengthen teaching and learning across our school and, in turn, improve our NAPLAN results.

What has been particularly pleasing is the strong sense of collective responsibility across our staff. Our NAPLAN data belongs to all of us. Every staff member has played a role in supporting our students to achieve, celebrating their successes and identifying where we can continue to improve. This shared commitment to our students is something we should be very proud of.

NAPLAN achievement is reported across four proficiency levels:

Exceeding

Strong

Developing

Needs Additional Support

A key priority is to reduce the number of students in the Developing and Needs Additional Support categories, while increasing the number of students achieving at Strong and Exceeding levels across the cohorts.

We are therefore very excited to share that, across the 10 NAPLAN assessments undertaken by Boneo PS students in 2026, we have outperformed the State in 9 out of 10 assessments. This is an outstanding achievement and reflects the strength of the programs, teaching practices and collective approach that our staff have worked hard to develop across the school.

What is equally pleasing is that across Years 3 and 5, we have outperformed Similar Schools and Network Schools in 8 out of 10 assessments.

Of course, data is not simply about celebrating where we have done well; it also helps us identify where we need to focus our efforts. Year 5 Writing remains a key focus, and significant time, energy and resources are already being invested in strengthening writing across the whole school. Relative Growth from Year 3 to Year 5, particularly in Numeracy, is another important area of focus as we continue to look closely at how we can maximise learning growth for every student.

These results don’t happen by accident. They are the result of the consistent, deliberate and collective work of our teachers, education support staff and leaders, alongside the hard work of our students and the support of our families.

Celebrating a Symphony of Stories

Our annual Book Week Costume Parade will be held on Friday 28 August at 9am and we look forward to seeing everyone dressed up as their favourite book character at our special assembly.

This year’s Children’s Book Week theme, “Symphony of Stories,” celebrates the way every story, character and reader comes together to create something truly special.

Please join us for the wonderful celebration of reading!

Celebrating David Greening at the World Masters Athletics Championships

We are incredibly excited to share that one of our own Boneo staff members, David Greening, is heading to Daegu, South Korea, to compete in the World Masters Athletics Championships!

The Championships officially get underway with the Opening Ceremony tonight, with the event running for the next two weeks. Our very own athlete will be competing in the Decathlon across Thursday 27 and Friday 28 August.

For anyone who would like to follow along, there is a live stream from the main stadium, where the events are being held:

https://www.youtube.com/@WMAC2026

Thursday 27 August – Melbourne time

9:00am – 100m
10:00am – Long Jump
11:30am – Shot Put
12:40pm – High Jump
3:20pm – 400m

Friday 28 August – Melbourne time

9:20am – 110m Hurdles
10:50am – Discus
11:35am – Pole Vault
1:30pm – Javelin
3:15pm – 1500m

We wish David the very best of luck! What an incredible achievement to represent Australia on the world stage. We’ll certainly be cheering him on!

Fundraising Making a Difference

Our fundraising efforts continue to make a real difference for our students. Thanks to the incredible support of our school community, we have been able to purchase a range of new, high-engagement reading materials for our classrooms, with even more on the way! These resources will help foster a love of reading and ensure our students have access to books that capture their interests and encourage them to read more.

These improvements are a wonderful reminder that every donation, contribution and helping hand at our fundraising events such as the Boneo Community market, contributes directly to making our school an even better place for our students.

Our Junior School Council is also working hard to help with fundraising and invite our students to come to school with Crazy Hair and/or their Pyjamas on September 3rd.

Thank you to our amazing Boneo community for your ongoing support!

Going Gaga for fun!

A huge thank you to our families for your ongoing support of our fundraising efforts. Your generosity and involvement have helped make it possible for us to purchase two new GaGa Pits for our students to enjoy.

Over the coming days, our teachers will be introducing and teaching students how to play GaGa, with a focus on learning the rules, playing fairly and, most importantly, having fun together.

We are also excited that the junior GaGa Pit is next in line to be developed, giving our younger students their own space to enjoy the game.

These are wonderful additions to our school and another example of what we can achieve when our school community works together.

SAKG Program Donation

A big thank you to local Mornington Peninsula business, Clyde’s Compost! Owners Vince and Andrea, we really appreciate your incredibly generous donation of 80 bags of premium organic compost.

Vince and Andrea are passionate about supporting local community groups and helping children learn how to grow and cook healthy, fresh food.

Boneo’s Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program will be using this wonderful compost to plant out our lovely spring vegetable crops in the coming months.

Thanks again!

Boneo Book Fair – Celebrate Book Week 2026!

We are excited to celebrate Book Week 2026, taking place from Monday 24th to Friday 28th August, with our very own Boneo Book Fair!

Come along and discover a wonderful selection of books to enjoy at home, share with your family, or give as a special gift. It’s a fantastic opportunity to celebrate our love of reading and encourage our children to discover the joy of books.

Book Fair Times

Location: Intervention Room
Entrance: Please enter via the corridor and exit through the courtyard.

Monday 24th August – Wednesday 26th August: 3:30pm – 4:00pm
Thursday 27th August morning: 8:15am – 8:35am

Please note: For safety and space reasons, no school bags are permitted inside the Book Fair.

Every Purchase Makes a Difference

Every dollar spent at our Book Fair helps support resources for our school, meaning your purchases directly contribute to enriching learning opportunities for our students.

So, bring along your love of reading and help us make Book Week 2026 a wonderful celebration of books, reading and our school community!

Snapshot of Learning

Science Week at Boneo

A big thank you to Melinda Jones for helping us celebrate the wonder and beauty of Science Week by sharing some exciting experiments with our students.

Students had the opportunity to see dry ice in action, sparking curiosity, excitement and plenty of questions! Experiences like these remind us of the joy of discovery and the importance of giving our students opportunities to explore science in action.

Thank you, Melinda, for bringing the magic of science to life for our students!

Year 3-6 Athletics Carnival

Last Thursday (13th August), saw our year 3-6 students head to the Mornington Athletics Track for our annual school House Athletics Carnival, where there were lots of house points and plenty of places in the school athletics team up for grabs.

The students rotated through 8 events (discus, shot put, long jump, triple jump, 100m 80m hurdles, 200m and 800m), before finishing the day with our track finals for the 80m hurdles, 200m and 100m for the students who had qualified from the heats earlier in the day.

The venue is excellent and the day itself was a huge success. The staff and parent helpers who attended helped to run a great day for the students and thankfully the weather stayed dry.

This week (Tuesday), we held the 1500m on our school oval with a number of ribbons, house points and six more places in our school athletics team decided.

Over 40 of our students have made the school athletics team and will head to Districts on Wednesday 9th September where we wish them the best of luck.

Well done to all those who took part in our athletics carnival and special mention to our amazing parent helpers on the day for doing such an awesome job. Your help was so greatly appreciated by all of our staff and students; Tim H, Thea S, Noemi VQ, Madi C, Sue O, Sarah C, Kristen M, Ashlee F, Amanda C, Daniel F and Caitlin M.

Our house athletics results which were taken from both our junior (Term 1) and senior (Term 3) house athletics carnivals, high jump and 1500m competitions were as follows with our 2026 house athletics winners, presented with the trophy at assembly earlier today:

1st Yellow 316

2nd Green 311

3rd Red 226

4th Blue 158

Reminders

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Book Week

From Monday 24th August

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School Council

Monday 24th August

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Lockdown Drill

Wednesday 26th August

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Ngawak Biik Junior Ranger Program

Wednesday 26th August

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Book Week: Dress up Day / Share the Joy of Learning

Friday 28th August at 9am

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Snow Camp

Sunday 30th August – Friday 4th September

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Prep - Yr 3 Lunch Time Movie

Monday 31st August

Toy Story (Rated G)

$5 per student includes popcorn

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Yr 1 Hawkes Farm Visit (rescheduled)

Monday 31st August

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Father's Day Stall

Thursday 3rd September

Details to follow

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Wild Trails Rock Cimbing

Friday 4th September

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Boneo Barn Dance

Saturday 5th September 7pm

Tickets $30 available to purchase from the office

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Yr 6 Musical Tech Day

Monday 7th September

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Yr 6 Musical Performance Day

Tuesday 8th September

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District Athletics Day

Wednesday 9th September

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Yr 3 IMAX/ Melbourne Museum Excursion

Friday 11th September

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Sausage Sizzle

Monday 14th September

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Regional Chess Championship

Tuesday 15th September

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House Footy Day

Friday 18th September

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End of Term 3