Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to Term 3. We have had a wonderful start to the term with students returning full of smiles and joy.  

We are looking forward to holding our Student Led Conferences during Weeks 3 and 4 of this term. These conferences are a valuable opportunity for students to share their learning progress, reflect on their goals and celebrate their achievements with families whilst also planning future learning goals to ensure progression and ongoing growth.

Families will also have the option to book a time with our Specialist Teachers and Nicky Schwabegger (Tutor Learning). Please note that these conferences may look slightly different to the classroom conferences and are designed to provide insight into your child’s experiences in specialist areas and intervention support.

To reduce disruption to student learning, conferences will run at the following times:  

-Wednesday 6 August 3.30pm to 6.30pm

-Tuesday 12 August 3.30pm to 4.30pm

-Wednesday 13 August 3.30pm – 4.30pm.

All bookings can be made through Compass, and we encourage families to take part in this important opportunity to engage with their child’s learning journey. Alternative times will be arranged and communicated directly via Compass for families of students whose classroom teachers are on leave.

Promoting multicultural diversity and inclusion

At Boneo Primary School we value, the diversity of culture, ethnicity, and faith of all our students. We are proud of our diversity, and everyone is welcome at our school. Celebrating the diversity of our community makes us stronger, kinder and more innovative. We are committed to making sure that students from all backgrounds feel accepted, supported and able to learn. We teach all students according to our school values and teach the respectful relationships framework. This includes education around diversity and inclusion. To achieve our values and aims, everyone at Boneo Primary School plays an important role.

We consistently remind students of our values of Respect, Empathy and Determination and the importance of demonstrating these in everything we do.

To help us make Boneo Primary School a place where everyone feels welcome, respected and supported, we encourage you to also speak to your child about these values, as well as the importance of:

• understanding that we celebrate diversity and multicultural inclusion
• understanding the importance of everyone at school being treated with respect.

We also expect families to display our school values when dealing with other members of our school community.

For more information, please see Racism: talking with children and teens, Raising Children Network.

Update on suspension and expulsion powers

Our school is committed to providing a safe, respectful and inclusive environment for all students and staff. You may be aware of recent changes announced to suspension and expulsion powers that became available to Victorian principals from day one of Term 3, (Monday 21 July 2025).

We know that students’ behaviour outside of school, particularly online, can sometimes impact the safety of students and staff at school.

In exceptional circumstances, principals of Victorian government schools will be able suspend or expel students for behaviour that occurs outside of school grounds and/or hours including online, if it poses a significant danger to the safety and wellbeing of students or staff.

These powers apply only to serious incidents where there is a clear and close connection to the school and the behaviour of a student outside of school unreasonably impacts the safety and wellbeing of students or staff at school, and their ability to learn or work.

Please note: 

• They do not apply to behaviours unrelated to the school or school community.
• They only apply to behaviour which occurs from Monday 21 July 2025 onwards.

Suspension and expulsion will remain measures of last resort – our primary approach continues to focus on proactive and positive behaviour support, including working with you to teach students the behaviours we expect of them, in school and in life.

Thank you for your continued support as we work in partnership to educate and support our young people.

Volunteer training – Child Safety Standards

A gentle reminder that all volunteers must complete Child Safety training and induction prior to volunteering. Moving forward, we will run Child Safe Volunteer Induction Training a few times each term to ensure all volunteers are well-prepared and supported. If you’re planning to assist with an excursion, incursion, cooking program or camp, please book into a session via Compass. The training only needs to be completed once per year, during which time you will need to provide a copy of your current Working with Children Check. Prior to the short onsite induction session, please ensure you review the Child Safe presentation on our website. Bookings for Child Safe induction are available on Compass.

Book Week is Coming!

We’re excited to celebrate Book Week in Week 5, with our special Book Week Parade taking place during assembly on Friday 22 August.

The theme for Book Week 2025 in Australia, which runs from August 16th to 23rd, is “Book an Adventure!”. This theme is a celebration of the 80th anniversary of Children’s Book Week and encourages children to explore new worlds through stories. During book week, we will also be running Book Fair in the library from Monday, 18th August to Thursday, 21st August.  Students will have the opportunity to preview the Book Fair on Monday and complete wish lists. 

All students are encouraged to join the fun by dressing up as their favourite literary character. We can’t wait to see the creativity and love of reading shine through!

Before school drop off

I am kindly reminding families that any students arriving at school before 8.30am must be supervised by an adult, as staff are not on yard duty until that time.

We appreciate your support in keeping all students safe and cared for.

.

Year 2 Forces Incursion

On Wednesday, the Year 2 cohort participated in a science incursion run by Taskworks, linked to their Unit of Inquiry Big Idea: The size and shape of an object affects how it moves. Students explored key scientific concepts including gravity, friction, push, pull, air resistance, and magnetism through a range of hands-on mechanical activities. The incursion allowed students to investigate how the movement of objects can change depending on their size, shape, and the forces acting upon them.

Year 3 Literature Launch Party

Throughout Term 3 the Year 3 students have been working through the phases of writing from planning to publishing. They created a narrative and we had the pleasure of sharing the stories with the school community yesterday at our Literature Launch Party.