Bentleigh West Primary School

Lap - A -Thon and Fundraising

Thank you to the P&F and school community for organising and supporting the Lap - A - Thon along
with all of our other fundraising events this year. The money raised will go towards the sound
treatment of our rooms.

We have had a plan to treat our areas of most need, being the Learning Houses and upstairs in the
Grade 6 area, and we can continue with this work. The large space in between the Grade 6
classrooms and one other classroom upstairs have already been treated making a huge difference.

We also had our new Art Room treated via the building project and it is so much better.
I admit sound treatment in rooms probably doesn’t ignite the hearts and minds of most, but it has a
huge impact on our learning environments. Sound treatment contributes to a calm and orderly
environment, conducive to concentration. Being able to hear the teacher without the sound
bouncing around can make a big difference, as students are not ‘filtering’ as much and making
subconscious decisions of what to pay attention to. This frees cognitive resource for more beneficial
work.

It allows our students to have group conversations without the noise level becoming too high and
disrupting others in the room and adjoining classrooms.

Sound treatment also save our teachers’ voices and energy, as they feel more in control of the noise level in the class and don’t have to speak over their own echo. This allows our teachers to perform at their best for longer.

There is lots of evidence in the cognitive science literature to suggest acoustics does make a difference and we are always striving to make BWPS the best learning environment we can. We couldn’t do it to the same level without the P&F and our wonderful, wider school community support. Thank you for your help in moving us toward achieving our goal to have more rooms sound treated.

PISA Results

There has been much scrutiny in the media around the recent three yearly results of the Program for
International Student Assessment conducted in English, Science and Mathematics. Australia’s
performance in mathematics has come under fire with quotes in the media highlighting the average
Australian student being up to 3 and a half years behind the top performing nations.

The nation’s results were the worst we have had since 2000 which brings scrutiny to the education
system. Victoria sits above the national average and has historically performed quite well compared
to other states when looking at NAPLAN.

Bentleigh West Primary School performance in mathematics has been excellent due to reviewing the
mathematics teaching and curriculum and to lift the standards of maths. Our Grade 3 to 5 high
growth is at a whopping 63% and the last two years have seen our highest mathematics results in
year 3 and 5. Our normed results using ACER testing show our students norming more than three
years above the national norm of the same year level! More importantly students report
mathematics as one of their favourite subjects.

So many of the solutions pointed out in the media by politicians and commentators have already been implemented at BWPS. Our community can rest easy that our students are learning mathematics to a very high level to enable them the choices and skills to benefit them in later life.

Leadership Positions

We have completed the agonisingly hard job of selecting our 2020 student leadership group. The leaders will be announced, by our current 2019 leadership group, at our final assembly on Wednesday, commencing at 12.30pm.

We will notify parents of the students receiving leadership positions, so they can make arrangements to be at the assembly if their commitments permit.

I would like to congratulate all of the students that went through the leadership process we are tremendously proud of all of you.

Have a great week.
Steven Capp

Congratulations to the following students for receiving award certificates at assembly this week:

• Paige T 1A - Persistence

• Chloe S 1H - Resilience

• Alex K 2A - Persistence

• Sophie K-S 2S - Responsibility

• Charlize O 2W - Positivity

• Jack M 4A - Persistence

• Rylee B 4A - Persistence

• Charles N 6W - Responsibility

• Mia L 6W - Care

Congratulations to Ruby K of 6H who received aCertificate of Appreciation from Impact, an organisation helping women and children fleeing extreme violence at home.

Sofie Butler is a great example of “The Aussie of the Month” which recognises students that display
respect, mateship, humour, positivity, a sense of a fair go for all, hard work and effort, enthusiasm
for life and a preparedness to give everything a go. These are all qualities that Sophie demonstrates
every day at school.

Some of her teachers wrote:

• Sophie is an exemplary student who has achieved excellent results in all academic areas. She always tries her hardest and all of her work is presented in a beautiful and well organised manner.

• Sophie’s sporting achievements are also outstanding. This year she has successfully represented the school in aerobics, AFL football, rounders and cricket. She also competed at District level in cross country running and athletics. Sophie always demonstrates good sportsmanship and she is committed to training where she practises at 100%.

• Sophie’s leadership skills are well developed. This year Sophie volunteered to work in the canteen and assist with the organising and running of the whole school World Environment day activity. During Buddy activities and whole school special event days Sophie always engages, cares for and encourages the younger students. Her planning and innovative ideas ensure excellent results for all participants.

• Sophie displays each of our school values in all areas of school life. Her excellent academic, sporting and leadership skills constantly embed each value. Once Sophie commits to an activity she will participate in a very positive manner to ensure the success of the activity.

• Sophie is a dedicated student who makes the most of all learning opportunities. It is too hard to say she has a particular talent in one area of the curriculum as she achieves outstanding results in all she does. She can always be relied upon to be respectful, responsible and reliable, exactly what teachers appreciate! I believe she is an extremely worthy recipient of Aussie of the Month.

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Sophie is an excellent choice for this month’s Aussie of the Month Award. Congratulations Sophie.

The Yearbook is finally here! Watch out for the delivery early next week. The yearbook team would like to give big thanks to all involved this year and to all those who have contributed - writers, photographers and artists.  Creating a publication such as this is a yearlong labour of love for a very small group of organisers. We have endeavoured to cover as much of our busy school year as we can and include as many students as possible. 

This year the yearbook monitors were lucky enough to have several career incursions and we would like to personally thank Stephanie Ferrier from the ABC, Karen Wilson from Karen Wilson Photography and Simon Telfer from Created by South for giving us an insight into in some amazing careers to think about for the future.

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A special mention to our creative and enthusiastic monitors this year and Patricia Livis for giving up her lunchtimes and classroom so we could have our brainstorming session. A big thank you to Sharron and Tanya in the office, Sarah Asome and to all of the BWPS teachers for helping us collect content along the way.

Finally, thank you to our amazing designer Simon Telfer for his patience, dedication and creativity. Thank you for taking a number weeks out of your busy business to volunteer your skills for our fabulous yearbook.

The Yearbook Team Linda Andonopoulos, Eva Krassaris, Vas Dede and Jenny Collins