Boneo Buzz: 5th May

Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope this message finds you well. I am excited to announce that we are continuing to revamp our school gardens, including the vegetable garden, to create an even more engaging and sustainable outdoor learning space for our students.

The vegetable garden will be expanded, and we have incorporated new features such as a composting area, rainwater collection system, and garden beds to promote biodiversity and sustainability.

Furthermore, I am pleased to inform you that we will be starting construction of the new Ninja Playground on May 9th. This project is set to be completed in time for our school’s 150th anniversary celebration, and we are thrilled to offer our students a new and exciting way to stay active and engaged during recess.

We are confident that these new developments will create a fun and stimulating learning environment for our students. Thank you for your continued support with fundraising to make our school a great place to learn and grow.

Celebrating 150 Years of Excellence

I hope families have saved the date and invited extended family to the celebrations on May 23rd from 5 pm until 7:30 pm. The school has arranged for food vans that will offer a variety of food including pizza, fish and chips, Mexican, twisty potato, ice cream and coffee.

During the event, families will have the opportunity to explore the exhibitions put together by the children, connect with one another, and enjoy performances. It is going to be a great way to celebrate the school’s history and create a sense of community among the current and previous families and staff. If you know of any members of the community who had strong connections with the school please invite them to join the celebrations.

Student Attitude to School Survey

We value student voice as a means to improving student engagement, wellbeing and quality instruction and are conducting the 2023 Student Attitudes to School Survey (AtoSS), to find out what our students think of our school.

The AtoSS is an annual student survey offered by the Department of Education to assist schools to gain an understanding of students’ perceptions and experience of school. Students in Years 4, 5 and 6 will be asked about their thoughts and feelings in relation to our school, their learning, peer relationships, resilience, bullying, health and wellbeing, physical activity, and life in general.

This year, the AtoSS will be conducted at our school over the next two weeks.

The questions are selected from validated survey instruments used in Australia and around the world, are strength-based, and tailored for each year level group.

Our school will share the results of the survey with parents, in documents such as the School Annual Report.

A copy of the survey that we are asking our children to complete is available from the Office.

Kitchen Garden Program

As some of our community would be aware, Boneo Primary School is fortunate to be part of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation (SAKGF). A program that aims to introduce primary school children to the pleasures of preparing, cooking and eating a variety of foods they have grown and harvested themselves.

We are very excited to get the vegetable garden back up and thriving this year so our children can be actively involved in the processes of growing their food.

Our wonderful outside kitchen, picnic tables and gardens have been created to allow children gather and share in the joy of food!

You may have noticed the vegetable garden has been given a big overhaul over the holidays. We are excited to see students planting winter crops in the coming weeks!

We want our community to be part of the long-term vision of this program and are seeking volunteers to care for the garden and others to assist with food preparation and cooking during classes. The success of this unique and exciting project relies on the support of volunteers.

If you are interested in being involved in the program, learning more or joining the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden team as a community member, please contact Rowena Sykes (Rowena.Sykes@education.vic.gov.au)

Let’s keep this vison growing!

The SAKG team, Sally, Lu, Grace, Liz & Rowena

STEM –  Year 5

Pixel art has been a hit this term with the whole school jumping on the computers to create their design on Minecraft and Google Slides. The Grade 5s built us some brand new computers to be set up very soon. Watch this space! 

Miss Scandizzo and Kieran

SAKG – Year 3

Children in Year 3 have travelled back in time to the flour dusted kitchens of our great grandparent’s era; the 1940s and 1950s. 

Foods with simple ingredients to nourish and comfort; ANZAC biscuits with their golden crunch to remind the troops of home, scones with jam and cream for afternoon tea…humble flour, salt, butter and milk -during times of food rations- producing light airy cakes, served still warm with lashings of cream and sweetened with homemade preserves. 

The children were fascinated with the effort that it took the average cook to hand-beat the cream, without the luxury of electric mixers, and the sentiment and resourcefulness of the people of this time.

Focus during reading had been on historical fiction, stories set during real events, or that might really have been the way of life of that time. Writing has explored the role of the verb and adverb in recipes and how they support the understanding for the reader, and how to build strong characters through use of adjectives. 

If you too would like to step back in time and support our children in their immersive cooking experience on the even weeks in term (Wednesday 11-1, Thursday 11-1) or guide them in the kitchen garden revamp & replant, please contact Rowena Sykes.