Ho Ho Ho and Merry Christmas everyone. I would like to send my very best wishes to the Balnarring Primary School community and express my gratitude to our wonderful students, staff and families for a fantastic school year.

As I write this newsletter submission, I am excitedly looking forward to our Christmas Carols afternoon. I know that students have been doing lots of rehearsing in preparation for their performance. I would like to thank our Performing Art Teacher Mr Ben Cornall who has worked with all of our students throughout the year and does an amazing job giving our student the opportunity engage in and learn about a range of performing arts experiences. It has been amazing to see our students making their own music, writing scripts, performing using green screens, singing and much more. Thank you Mr Cornall for coordinating this afternoons performance, it is sure to be a highlight for our school community.

On Friday Lacey, Tom, Kate our Science Teacher and I participated in a live radio broadcast of from RPP local radio. We had the opportunity to speak about our school, the wetlands and the 30 Year Celebration of our wetlands that is being planned for next year. What a great experience for Tom, Lacey, Kate and I to share.

Our beautiful baby goats Coco and Snowy are graduating from Balnarring Primary School this week. Many students and staff joined together to form a guard of honour to give them a great send off. I would like to send our gratitude to Main Ridge Dairy who entrust us with the responsibility of caring for a pair of their young goats each year. Our students have been involved in bottle feeding them and ensuring that they were well cared for during their time with us. I would also like to thank Jenny who oversees our partnership with Main Ridge Dairy and works closely with our students to educate them on how to provide care for our animals.

With the year coming to a close, there are some facilities updates in the pipeline that I want to make you aware of.

In about April/May of 2025 the relocatable classrooms that currently have our Foundation students in will be removed from our site. This will mean that we will not be setting up classes to be running in these spaces for the beginning of next year.

One of the two newer relocatable classrooms (near the basketball court) will be removed from our site also in around April/May of 2025. The remaining relocatable classroom will be moved from its current location to the location where the current Foundation relocatable classroom is being removed from. The newer relocatable classrooms were provided to us on loan from the Department of Education as emergency stock during the time when classrooms were being remediated. As we are having one older relocatable building removed from site, one newer one will remain to replace this but the other newer building will be returned to the Department to be used for the next school who may need temporary classrooms in the event of a flood, fire or other circumstances. This will mean that our 2025 Year 3 students start the year set up in their newer relocatable classroom and will have a planned move during the school year when their relocatable classroom is moved from near the basketball courts to where the current Foundation classrooms are.

We also have some major investigation happening with regard to drainage on our site. I am still waiting for further information on this which I will share when it becomes available. While these investigations are still taking place, it does mean we will need to hold off on progressing major projects to update our grounds, for example the living project until the investigations are complete and any outcomes are finalised. Thank you for your patience and understanding with this.

Thanks to Community Bank Balnarring & District, Landcare Victoria and community fundraising, the school is revamping its artworks, grounds and entrances, and preparing to celebrate the special 30 years anniversary of the Balbirooroo Wetlands.

We have engaged an award winning Taungurung artist, Iluka Sax Williams to design a Bundjil and Waa sculpture for the main school entrance near the office. We have also commissioned local artist Ron Roach to design a set of three wooden poles to represent the Balnarring Way. Students researched local native animals they believed represented the qualities of caring for ourselves, others and the environment and these were carved into the poles. Ron is also working with students to revise the sensory garden area. Each class will have a pole that represents some of the Indigenous Flora within our school, additionally a series of three smaller poles will be designed and painted by our Koorie Kids. Beth in grade 6, as our First Nations leader has written a new school acknowledgement and is working on this as an art piece.

Meanwhile the pencils and drums will be placed over at the second entrance near the shack and receive their own facelift. While the grade twos have been working on a ‘Belonging’ Mural to be placed at that entrance also.

We are also heading into an important milestone in 2025 with the 30^th anniversary of the wetlands opening. The history of the wetlands shows the commitment and determination of Balnarring as a community, and that we have always had a strong connection to Country. This anniversary is a chance to celebrate what is special about Balnarring Primary School. Both past and present, and with a view to a positive future, as we continue to nurture nature and care for the environment.

Our Colour Run was a great event with students making laps of the obstacle course, getting covered in colour and saturated by the Balnarring CFA who came along on the day. We are still finalising our fundraising totals. Thank you students, families and staff for supporting our fundraising efforts and for making the colour run day a great event.

We have some staff who will be leaving Balnarring Primary School at the end of the 2024 school year.

Belinda has been teaching Year 2 this year. We wish her well in 2025 with starting her own business.

Rebecca has been teaching Year 3 this year. We wish her well with exciting travel plans for 2025.

Chloe has accepted a teaching position for 2025 at Rye Primary School. Best wishes to Chloe for another successful year of teaching.

We also have some staff who will be on leave for the 2025 school year.

Kim has accepted a promotion position for 2025 with the Department of Education. Thank you to Kim for your support with wellbeing at Balnarring Primary School. Best wishes with the new position.

Miss Welch has been teaching Year 2 this year and will be spending the 2025 school year in Queensland. Best wishes to Amy for a wonderful year away.

Ms Olle is scheduled for knee early in 2025 and will be taking the year off to recover. Best wishes to Ms Olle for a smooth recovery.

Erin will also be on leave for the 2025 school year. We will miss Erin and thank her for her dedication to our science program this year.

We have had some wonderful events this term including the colour run and Christmas carols. Having parents/carers and families on site to participate in these events makes them even more special. I would like to take this opportunity to remind families that if you take photos during school events that you capture only your own child/children in any photos that you take.

I would like to send my very best wishes to our Year 6 graduating class. Although I have only had the pleasure of knowing these students since the beginning of Term 3 when I arrived at Balnarring Primary School, I have very quickly come to appreciate how ambitious, creative and compassionate they are. I hope that our graduates leave Balnarring Primary School with fond memories and friendships. I am certain they will have bright futures ahead of them.

Have a wonderful school holiday break. I look forward to a great year in 2025.

Bethany Jackson
Principal

Wellbeing News

As part of Balnarring’s wellbeing values– ‘The Balnarring Way’, we will be bringing you regular updates of positive wellbeing initiatives that are happening around our school!

Wow! It appears it’s not only our students who understand the importance of The Balnarring Way, but of course our wonderful staff as well. Our students did such a great job of raising funds to put towards our outdoors spaces with the colour fun run, and our staff saw an opportunity to be courageous and show pride for our school also through this event.

Many of the staff volunteered to be slimed as an added incentive for fundraising, but it all came down to the students’  vote – and Miss Fawke, Mr Shannon and Ms Jackson were the lucky winners. What a great example of The Balnarring Way to finish our school year, as they bravely faced the slime, all to help Balnarring Primary School!