Celebration of students returning to school

This week commenced the return of all students back to school. Staff have ensured the classrooms have the right conditions to create predictable, supportive and safe environments. Our Positive Behaviour for Learning Team have been supporting staff with professional development around the important practices and routines to encourage and reward our students for positive behaviour.

I have extracted a powerful statement from our PBL Mission Statement. This encapsulates what we value and believe in this space for our students here at BSS. “Bowen State School is committed to providing a safe, respectful and disciplined learning environment for students and staff, where students have opportunities to engage in quality learning experiences and acquire values supportive of their lifelong wellbeing.”

Classroom social skill lessons have been tailored around social and emotional skills to support our students “Mindfulness and Wellbeing”. Although we are all back at school there are still restrictions around large gatherings, sporting events and parades. As restrictions ease, we will communicate these changes with families. We are looking forward to soon enjoying all our events we hold close to us here at Bowen State School.

Prep transition for 2021

Last week we featured our Prep for 2021 launch in the local paper and sharing information out to the local kindies and childcare centres. If you have a prep school aged child for 2021 please like our 2021 Prep Transition Face book Page. This will include information, videos, regular catch ups and a timetable for our face to face visits later in the year. What we have learnt from research and Professional Learning that as a school is vital we form relationships and communicate with our future children and their families to ensure a smoother transition into school. Another great initiative is our playgroup, which is now up, and running again every week. Come, enjoy a free coffee this Friday, and meet our wonderful hosts. Our playgroup is run by our Head of Special Education teacher Ann Jay Sibley, Early Years Coach Karen Weekes and Teacher Aid Lara Southern. I also visit regularly. A great catch up for parents and children in our community. We meet in the library 9am-11am

ARD visit

Next Monday we welcome the second catch up with Graham Foster our Assistant Regional Director for the term. This visit will be face to face at our school and we are looking forward to sharing with Graham all the hard work teachers have been preparing for the return of our students. We will be visiting all the classrooms and talking to students about the learning. As a leadership team, we will be talking to Graham about our exit from COVID plan and where we are going with the teaching and learning. It is great to able to once again talk about our Explicit Improvement Agenda and recommence the goals around reading and maths. Graham will provide our school with feedback and the next steps for our team.

Looking forward to sharing more great stories happening in our school over the next fortnight. Until then have a wonderful couple of weeks.

I believe in: Hard Work Honesty Transparency

Christien Payne

Principal