Our School

Principal's Message

Welcome

Bentleigh West Primary School extends a very warm welcome to everyone, particularly our new families that are beginning their journey with us this year.

BWPS consistently sees our students two years ahead of peers, building foundation skills, confidence and the knowledge for our students to confidently apply their learning in the real world and have an excellent preparation for Secondary School. This enhances our students’ ability to take opportunities as they progress through their schooling and ultimately be life-long learners.

A quick glance at NAPLAN data shows BWPS has increased its performance over time to be well ahead of schools with similar students, including private schools, displaying the importance of training excellent teachers to deliver a well-rounded curriculum to ensure no matter what the measure our students are taught well and will perform well on any assessment.

Our specialists' programs are integral to the success at the school. Students are given many opportunities to excel in these areas, whether that is by taking a role in the production, representing the school in sport or through Art, ICT and Italian. We value all areas of the curriculum and work to develop every student to the best of their ability.

Our leadership team oversee staff development as we look to continue to build the knowledge and skill of our teachers and add value to the public system as well.

Please take a look at our virtual tour and our informative website to find out more about our approach to teaching and learning at BWPS.

Sarah Asome - Principal

Philosophy

Bentleigh West Primary School is a nurturing community where students, staff and families come together create an environment that develops, happy, healthy confident students, underpinned by the knowledge that success and achievement at school, engages and builds confidence that transcends the academic environment and encourages children to seek options and opportunities to maximise their education throughout their lives.

Bentleigh West values connection to the local, national and global realms ensuring all members model and teach inclusion, cultural safety and respect for our environment.

Bentleigh West acknowledges our indigenous elders past, present and future and welcomes all to our school on the land of the Boonurong.

Bentleigh West Primary School is well known for academic excellence, inclusion and a deep commitment to sustainability that has been recognised by the United Nations, National, State and Local Governments.

Mission Statement

At Bentleigh West Primary School we will:

Foster inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.
Be recognised as a high performing school with a reputation of evidence based best practice that is visible in each classroom.

Our why?

To add value.

School Overview

Our Values

The school’s agreed set of values are central to all policy and decision making. These values give emphasis to the cooperative and caring nature of the school’s ethos, and promote recognition of a positive and persistent attitude and a strong sense of responsibility and respect.

Respect

Encouraging students, teachers and parents to treat themselves, each other, and their environment, with respect.

Positivity

Encouraging students to approach life, and specifically learning, with confidence, optimism and enthusiasm.

Care

Encouraging students to care about themselves, others and the environment.

Responsibility

Encouraging students to take ownership of their actions, reflecting on them, and dealing with consequences of those actions with integrity.

Persistence

Encouraging students to strive for their personal best, accept challenges, try hard, and not easily give up.

Resilience

Encouraging students to be independent, problem solvers, optimistic and to make social connections.

Child Safety

Bentleigh West Commitment to Child Safety

Bentleigh West Primary School is committed to safety and wellbeing of all children and young people. This will be the primary focus of our care and decision-making.

Bentleigh West Primary School has zero tolerance for child abuse.

Bentleigh West Primary School is committed to providing a child safe environment where children and young people are safe and feel safe, and their voices are heard about decisions that affect their lives. Particular attention will be paid to the cultural safety of Aboriginal children and children from culturally and/or linguistically diverse backgrounds, as well as the safety of children with a disability.

Every person involved in Bentleigh West has a responsibility to understand the important and specific role he/she plays individually and collectively to ensure that the wellbeing and safety of all children and young people is at the forefront of all they do and every decision they make.

In addition, the Statement of Commitment may describe the school’s principles for child safety. For example:

“In its planning, decision-making and operations Bentleigh West Primary will:

Take a preventative, proactive and participatory approach to child safety

Foster a culture of openness that supports all persons to safely disclose risks of harm to children

Provide written guidance on appropriate conduct and behaviour towards children;

Ensure children know who to talk with if they are worried or are feeling unsafe, and that they are comfortable and encouraged to raise such issues;

Share information appropriately and lawfully with other organisations where the safety and wellbeing of children is at risk

Value and empower children to participate in decisions which affect their lives

Respect diversity in cultures and child rearing practices while keeping child safety paramount;

Engage only the most suitable people to work with children and have high quality staff and volunteer supervision and professional development;

Report suspected abuse, neglect or mistreatment promptly to the appropriate authorities;

Value the input of and communicate regularly with families and carers

More information about Child Safety

Child Safe Policy

Code of Conduct

Responding & Reporting

Student Wellbeing

Bentleigh West is committed to a whole-school approach to wellbeing where it is at the core of everything we do. The Assistant Principal leads the wellbeing team to ensure all student’s social and emotional development is supported, in order to develop student engagement and promote learning confidence.

We value positive staff, parent and student relationships and communication, which is enhanced by regular communication through Compass and Connections. We encourage parents to participate in the classroom through specific unit-based activities or by volunteering on excursions and whole school events.

We have several systems and programs which are run at the school in order to develop students' capacity in this space.

Respectful Relationships

The Respectful Relationships education program is taught weekly from P-6. The lessons teach content covering a range of themes based on social and emotional health and safety, that are age appropriate. The program’s purpose is to embed a culture of respect and equality across the entire school community.

Lunchtime Clubs

We run a range of lunchtime clubs which students can access including, but not limited to, chess, dance, gardening, Lego, running, drawing and ICT. This gives students some quiet, targeted options for lunchtimes if they need a break from the outside space.

Zones of Regulation

Zones of Regulation is used school wide to consistently name emotions along with strategies to assist students to regulate their feeling for optimal learning.

Feelings are complicated. They come in different sizes, intensities, and levels of energy that are unique within our brains and bodies. To make them easier to talk about, think about, and regulate, The Zones of Regulation organises our feelings, states of alertness, and energy levels into four coloured Zones – Blue, Green, Yellow, and Red

Parent Handout

BLUE ZONE

Possible Body Signals

Heavy Limbs
Moving Slowly
Slow Heartbeat
Foggy Head

Sad

Sick

Tired

Bored

Fatigue

GREEN ZONE

Possible Body Signals

Relaxed Muscles
Focused/Engaged Brain
Comfortable Body Temperature

Focused
Happy
Content
Calm
Proud

Ready to Learn

YELLOW ZONE

Possible Body Signals

Wiggly
Faster Heartbeat
Body Warming Up
Tense Muscles
Thinking Faster

Stressed
Worried
Excited
Silly
Frustrated

Loss of Some Control

RED ZONE

Possible Body Signals

Fast Heartbeat
Skin Flushed
Hot/Sweating
Tense Muscles

Elated/Overjoyed
Angry
Terrified
Devastated

Panicked
Yelling/Hitting
Out of Control

Plans & Policies

BWPS Strategic Plan and Annual Implementation Plan

Our strategic plan sets the direction for the school over a four year period and the activities to be delivered to support this vision.

The plan was developed by our teaching staff and school council, in consultation with representatives from the parent community.

The plan articulates goals and improvement strategies in each of the key areas of Student Achievement, Student Engagement and Student Wellbeing.

We have teams within the school working on the delivery of this strategic plan and will report back on progress regularly.

We encourage parents and carers to read the Strategic Plan and the 2025 Annual Implementation Plan.

Strategic Plan

2025 AIP

Annual Report to the School Community

2023 Report

An annual report is prepared for the school community each year, in the format required by the Department of Education and Training.

This report is provided to inform parents and the wider school community of the school's successes, activities and achievements throughout the year, and to meet legislative and regulatory requirements under the Education and Training Reform Act 2006 and the National Education Agreement 2008.

This report is submitted to the Department of Education and Training in March for the previous year, and presented to a public meeting of parents annually.

The 2023 Report was released in May 2024.

Our policies

Our policies support the way the school operates on a day to day basis. These policies reflect the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development's guidelines and each policy has been modified to reflect our school's values and local context.

The development, review and ratification of each policy is a collaborative process involving our staff, school leaders and the school council. Input from the parent community is also sought on key policies such as the homework policy.

The current policies are available below and new policies will be available on this page over the coming months.

Each policy is reviewed annually and updated as required.

Privacy Collection Notice: Information for students, parents and carers

The Department of Education (the department) values your privacy and is committed to protecting the personal and health information that schools collect.

All school staff must comply with Victorian privacy law and the Schools’ Privacy Policy. This notice explains how the department, including Victorian government schools (schools), handles personal and health information. On occasion, specific consent will be sought for the collection and use of information, for example, for a student to receive a health service. Our schools are also required by legislation, such as the Education and Training Reform Act 2006, to collect some of this information.

Throughout this notice, ‘staff’ includes principals, teachers, student support service officers, youth workers, social workers, nurses and any other allied health practitioners, and all other employees, contractors, volunteers and service providers of the school and the department.

On enrolment, and during the ordinary course of a student’s attendance at a school, schools will collect information about students and their families for the following purposes:

educating students
supporting students’ social and emotional wellbeing, and health
fulfilling legal obligations, including duty of care, anti-discrimination law and occupational health and safety law
communicating and engaging with parents
student administration
school management
supporting policy in relation to student education and wellbeing.

If this information is not collected, schools may be unable to provide optimal education or support to students or fulfil legal obligations.

For example, our schools rely on parents to provide health information about any medical condition or disability that their child has, medication their child may take while at school, any known allergies and contact details of their child’s doctor. If parents do not provide all relevant health information, this may put their child’s health at risk.

Our schools also require current, relevant information about all parents and carers so that schools can take account of safety concerns that affect their children. Parents should provide schools with copies of all current parenting plans and court orders about or that affect their children and provide updated copies when they change.

When parents enrol their child in primary school, they will be asked to provide personal and health information in several ways, including via the Enrolment Form, the School Entrant Health Questionnaire (SEHQ) and the Early Childhood Intervention Service (ECIS) Transition Form.

The Enrolment Form is used to collect information that is essential for the purposes listed above, and requests information such as:

Emergency contacts – Individuals parents nominate for a school to contact during an emergency. Parents should ensure that their nominated emergency contact agrees to their contact details being provided to the school and that they understand their details may be disclosed by the department if lawful, e.g. in the case of emergency communications relating to bush fires or floods.
Student background information – Information about country of birth, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander origin, language spoken at home and parent occupation. This information enables the department to allocate appropriate resources to schools. The department also uses this information to plan for future educational needs in Victoria and shares some information with the Commonwealth government to monitor, plan and allocate resources.
Immunisation status – This assists schools to manage health risks and legal obligations. The department may also provide this information to the Department of Health and Department of Families, Fairness and Housing to assess immunisation rates in Victoria, but not in a way which identifies students.
Visa status – This is required to process a student’s enrolment.

All schools may use departmental systems and online tools such as apps and other software to effectively collect and manage information about students and families for the purposes listed above.

When schools use these online tools, they take steps to ensure that student information is secure. If parents or carers have any concerns about the use of these online tools, please contact the school.

School staff will only share student and family information with other school staff who need to know to enable them to educate or support the student as described above. Information will only be shared outside the school (and outside the department) as required or authorised by law, including where sharing is required to meet duty of care, anti-discrimination, occupational health and safety, and child wellbeing and safety obligations. The information collected will not be disclosed beyond the school and department without parent consent unless such disclosure is lawful.

When a student transfers to another school (including Catholic, independent and interstate), personal and/or health information about that student may be transferred to the next school. Transferring this information is in the best interests of the student and assists the next school to provide the best possible education and support to the student. For further detail about how and what level of information is provided to the next school, refer to the: Enrolment: Student transfers between schools

Schools only provide school reports and ordinary school communications to students, parents, carers or others who have a legal right to that information. Requests for access to other student information or by others must be made by lodging a Freedom of Information (FOI) application.

To update student or family information, parents should contact their school.

For more information about how schools and the department collect and manage personal and health information, or how to access personal and health information held by a school about you or your child, refer to the: Schools’ Privacy Policy.