Welcome to 2025:

I would like to take the time to formally welcome all of our families to the 2025 school year. A special welcome to all of our new students and families joining our school community. I trust everybody had a fantastic and relaxing festive season and summer vacation.

Our entire school staff are looking forward to the year ahead and they have worked tirelessly to have classrooms looking amazing and ready for return to school. I personally am very excited for 2025 and I am looking forward to leading our school into a continued Better and Brighter direction.

2025-2028 School Vision:

At Berserker Street State School, we are committed to creating a positive school environment where students, staff and community feel a sense of belonging. We promote a positive culture that leads to success and achieves results to ensure equity and excellence.

We are committed to ‘The Berserker Way’:

• Better & Brighter Every Day!

• Wellbeing and engagement

• Culture and inclusion

• Academic achievement

• Calm classrooms, calm school!

• Celebrating the pride in our school.

We are a school that creates ‘Better & Brighter’ opportunities every day for all of our students to provide them with the skills to realise their potential and become innovative, successful lifelong learners for the 21st century.

2025 Annual Improvement Plan Priorities

To continue our work around school improvement and our journey to create a better and brighter Berserker we have identified three priority areas for focus in 2025.

School priority 1: Embedding a whole school approach to pedagogy.

School priority 2: Reading through the Australian Curriculum to improve educational achievement.

School priority 3: Berserker Street State School promotes a positive culture that leads to success and achieves results to ensure equity and excellence.

Staffing 2025:

This Year we welcome 3 new staff members to our school.

I would like to welcome Colleen Hehir on her appointment as Head of Department – Pedagogy. This is a role to support capability building of teachers to enhance teaching and learning across the school.

We welcome 2 new teachers to our team with Meaghan Pedler joining Year 2 and Katelin Warren in Year 6.

Students will be taught Technology, The Arts and PE as specialist lessons every week and Year 5/6 students will also participate in online Japanese lessons.

Berserker Day - Meet & Greet Event

Monday 17th February (Week 4) our school community will come together to celebrate Berserker Day! This is an opportunity to unite as a school community, celebrate our school, wish BSSS happy birthday and provide parents/carers a chance to meet and greet our school staff. This event will include a free sausage sizzle and there will also be birthday cake to be shared. Our Berserker Day celebration will be held in the Stadium directly after school from 2:45pm-3:45pm.

Students will also be able to celebrate Berserker Day by coming in free dress connected directly to our school. This may include wearing green & gold, house colours or even Viking inspired costumes.

I encourage our wider school community to come along and join us and I look forward to connecting with you during this event.

Attendance

Why does school attendance matter?

Regular school attendance gives students a better chance at life. Students achieve better when they go to school all day, every school day because:

▪️They have increased access to learning opportunities.

▪️They maintain friendships

▪️They stay connected to the curriculum progression

▪️They develop self-efficacy as a learner

▪️They have better long-term life outcomes.

There are school staff available to support you with improving your child’s regular attendance and to also support your family. Our school offers multiple supports to help remove barriers to your child attending school which is inclusive of providing food, school supplies, uniform items and now a health practitioner to support with illness. We can also refer you to external agencies to support your family.

We are here to help and work with you. We encourage you to contact us on 49 990 333 if you require further support or information.

Remember - Attendance is compulsory! Each parent of a child who is of compulsory school age has the legal obligation to ensure their child is enrolled and attends school on every school day for the educational program in which the child is enrolled, unless the parent has a reasonable excuse (explained). Parents may be prosecuted if they do not fulfil these legal obligations.

Nurse Practitioner appointments are back!

If your child is unwell or in need of medical check-up then I encourage you to contact our office and book a free bulk-billed appointment with our school-based nurse practitioner Kerinda. Appointments are always popular so I encourage you to book early. Kerinda is available each Monday (if not already booked out) and can provide check-ups, medical advice, provide referrals, write scripts and prescribe medication. This is a great asset to ensure Berserker students are always able to access what they need.

Swimming lessons:

Swimming lessons will commence next week for students in Year 4 & Year 6. If your child is in this cohort then I thank you for ensuring all permission and payment is returned before they attend. If you require more time to pay then contact the front office to discuss a payment plan.  The cost has already been subsidised by the school.

Year 6 students will swim on Tuesday and Year 4 on Wednesday. Students will be required to ensure they have togs inclusive of a sun safe shirt, towel and goggles are encouraged.

2024 House Captains and Student Councillors

We will finalise our House Captains from our Year 6 cohort on Friday 14^th February at 2pm. Students who have indicated to be a Student Councillor through our nomination process or unsuccessful as a Sports Captain will be inducted as student councillors at our upcoming induction parade. 

Student Leader Induction

On Friday 21^st February our Year 6 student leaders will be inducted formally into their roles during a special ceremony during our Friday morning parade. This will be held in our Stadium and commences at 8:45am. Parents/Carers are all encouraged to join us for this special event.

Year 1 Excursion

As part of their English unit, the Year 1 students will be going on an excursion to the Pilbeam Theatre in Week 5, on Thursday the 27^th of February 2025 at 10am.

In English they are learning how to plan, present a retelling and given an opinion on a familiar story. This visit will give our students the opportunity to see live theatre and experience a favourite story book brought to life. 

Alongside The Very Hungry Caterpillar, the show features three other Eric Carle stories – Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Ten Little Rubber Ducks, and The Very Busy Spider.

Students will need to be dressed in full school uniform.

Students MUST be at school by 9.00 am sharp as we will be boarding the bus for departure at 9.15 am and will be returning to school at 11.30am (lunch time). Any latecomers will need to go to the office where they will be redirected to another class for that day.

The is a FREE excursion as the school will cover the costs for each child.

We need permission for the students to travel by bus and request that the permission slip below is returned by Thursday 13^th February to their classroom teacher.  

Enrolment status:

As we finalise enrolments for 2025 there may need to be a review of class groupings with some cohorts having higher uptake then originally anticipated. Any changes that may need to occur will be communicated as necessary. As always, we thank you for your flexibility and patience if these decisions are required to be made.

P&C Meeting – 1^st of 2025

Our first P&C meeting of 2025 is scheduled for 6pm on Tuesday 11^th February held in the Diverse Learning Hub adjacent to the admin building. We look forward to another great turnout of parents and community members.  I encourage you to come along to hear and have input about our school as well as support initiatives across our school community.

Parade

I’d like to remind our school community that parade is held in the Stadium twice a week from 8:45am. Monday our parade is of a Positive Behaviour Focus with our celebration of student success occurring on Friday morning.

This is a great opportunity to collectively celebrate student success and come together for key information. I strongly encourage parents/carers and our wider community to join us at these times.

Have you liked our Facebook page?

Remember to stay up to date with what is happening across our school so don’t forget to like our Facebook page – Berserker Street State School.

Newsletter

Our school newsletter will be sent out on a fortnight basis on even school weeks.

I hope you have a better & brighter day!

Ryan Gilmour

Principal