It has been a privilege to be part of our Burnie Primary School community! Over the past two weeks I have witnessed the high level of parent and community involvement that sends a collective message to all students that we all really care about them and we want to see them learn and achieve at their true potential in a collaborative, creative and innovative learning community.

A reminder to book for your first term face to face meeting between parent/carer and the teacher in two weeks’ time.  This will provide a great opportunity to discuss your child’s learning direction for the year and how they are settling into school.  These parent/teacher conversations will be held in the last week of this term.

We value parent input into our school community here at Burnie Primary School. The School Association and Parents and Friends groups provide avenues for being involved in the running of the school. Tonight is the first meeting of these groups for the year. School Association starts at 6pm and P&F at 7pm. All are welcome to both meetings! Our School Association will be discussing issues such as our Major Works submission, reporting to parents, ICT user agreements and playground upgrades.

With technology use comes responsibility and managing such a responsibility is challenging for young people. At Burnie Primary School, all mobile devices are to be handed into the front office at the beginning of the school day, and are returned at the end of the school day.  As parents, we have the responsibility to manage online use alongside our children and what a difficult task this can be at times. Monitoring use of phones and devices at home can be easily controlled by not allowing them in children’s bedrooms. This helps parents monitor what content is accessed, how long children use devices and also supports children in getting a good night’s rest. When not at home, it can be harder to manage your child’s use of devices, however setting parental controls is an important step in reducing access to inappropriate content. The site below from the Australian Government eSafety commissioner has lots of great information for parents, with videos and guides.

https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents

Students' final day for Term 1 is Thursday 11th April. The following day Friday 12th April is a State-wide Moderation Day for teachers to work together in assessing student work. The focus for Moderation Day is gaining consistency in the way we assess students against the Australian Curriculum. Moderation days are crucial in maintaining consistency across the State. Teachers from Burnie Primary will be joining teachers from Ridgley, Romaine Park, Somerset and Havenview Primaries to moderate student work in Maths and English.

A reminder that it is Department of Education policy that dogs are not allowed on school sites during the school day. Please respect this, as it is as much protection for your dog as it is for students.

Andrew Starick