Staff at Bridgewater Primary School
Principal: Matthew Lehane
Classroom Teacher: Emalee Deane
Wellbeing: Simone Mataiti
Library Teacher: Sue Gentry
Business Manager: Joanne Egan
Principal: Matthew Lehane
Classroom Teacher: Emalee Deane
Wellbeing: Simone Mataiti
Library Teacher: Sue Gentry
Business Manager: Joanne Egan
Literacy
Numeracy
Inquiry
Parent involvement is a key feature of our school. It provides an opportunity for social contact and enjoyment for families within the school. It also gives parents an opportunity to be involved in their child's education and gives them a voice.
Our Parents' Club is very active in fundraising in order to support a range of school programs. Some of the school programs which Parents Club support through their fundraising efforts are:
Our Parents Club manages New and Second Hand Uniforms, Hot Lunches, Head Lice Checks, Scholastic Book Club and more.
Events organised by Parents Club include a welcome to new families, local festivals (Wool, Wheat and While Festival) and more.
Our Parents Club meet regularly. All parents and encouraged and welcome to join. Meeting dates are advertised in the school newsletter and on the school website's calendar.
Chaplaincy
Bridgewater Primary is fortunate to have a school chaplain as a part of our wellbeing team. The Chaplain at our school is funded through the Australian Governments National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program.
Chaplaincy is a unique service that is of great value to our students, staff and parents, offering care, building the social skills of students, and encouraging responsible behaviour amongst our young people. Our Chaplain works as an integral part of our Wellbeing Team. Together they offer individual support, they plan and implement wellbeing programs across the curriculum and they participate in a broad range of school coordinated activities such as school excursions, camps, sporting events and assemblies. Student engagement in this Program is of a voluntary nature.
Each year our school council seeks feedback from our school community in order to enable us to review and confirm support for the Program. We also maintain a risk management plan which is reviewed annually. School procedures are followed for parents and students to seek referral, manage complaints and to opt out of the Program.
Be You - Student Action Team
Be You - Beyond Blue is a whole school community approach to mental health and wellbeing. Our Be You Student Action Team members aim to be active community citizens who promote wellbeing and mental health.
Located on the Loddon River, the township of Bridgewater
The school's facilities centre on the original red brick building, which has very high windows facing the road. Shade cloth protects the entrance via an adjoining timber wing. The school grounds are beside the local railway station, close to the silos that service local farms.
The school recently underwent a full internal refurbishment, providing a new Office and Administration area, fresh paint and carpet throughout and new, modern toilet facilities.
Impressive use is made of the spaces in the main building, where the two original classrooms have been opened up into a single area. 'This allows not only for team teaching and/or flexible grouping across ages, but also for a number of "nooks" which are used for particular purposes (eg, a parent listening to an individual student read a comfortable reading area for individual study or "breakaway" times; and an area where multi-media work, is undertaken by students, teachers and volunteer parents). Undertaken with a minimal/zero budget, this reconceptualisation of the learning environment is moving towards the kind of flexibility advocated by educational designers such as Mary Featherston.
Extensive use is made of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) across all areas of school operations Student use of computers is based around a 1 to 1 netbook program across the entire school. The balance between the traditional and the modern in this small country school is perhaps symbolised by the juxtaposition of computers and the remembrance roll along the same classroom wall, and the positioning close by of multi-media production-oriented work stations.
Located on the Loddon River, the rural township of Bridgewater-On-Loddon is 35 kms north of the City of Bendigo, along the Calder Highway in Central Victoria.