Our Year 5 students pictured here at Rothesay Bay Reserve as part of their "Kahui Ako of the Stream" inquiry.

Coming Up

Click here to view our School Calendar.

Parent/Teacher Conferences - 11 March

Junior Outdoor Education Day - Friday 13 March (Save Day Friday 20 March)

BBS Swimming Sports - Tuesday 17 March

Year 6 Camp - Monday 23 March - Wednesday 25 March - Carey Park

Principal Update

Thank you to everyone who attended a Parent/Teacher Conference this week. Our teachers truly appreciated the time you took to strengthen the partnership between home and school.

At Browns Bay School, we are incredibly proud to see so many children participating in our Outdoor Education programs. While our new Curriculum is highly structured with a significant amount of content to cover, we know that children thrive when they are confident, able to manage risk and capable of achieving more than they expected. These outdoor experiences stretch our students and support our school vision of building leaders and learners.

Our Year 3 children spent a day at Long Bay beach last week and our in school program for Year 1 and 2 is planned for this Friday. We have a save day planned for Friday 20 March if the weather prevents it happening this week. Our Year 6 team are in the final stages of planning their camp. Our Year 4 and 5 camps are planned for later in the year.

Huge thanks go to all our teachers, with a special mention to Jo Hewitt and Cherie Bibbie. Jo and Cherie work incredibly hard to ensure that the health and safety for both staff and students is planned in meticulous detail. We also want to acknowledge our FOTS team, who are wonderful supporters of these programs and help us keep costs as low as possible.

None of this would be possible without the parents who take time away from work to support our students. We undertake this immense amount of work willingly because we know how much it means to the children. Thank you, Team Browns Bay, for working together for our students!

This week, FOTS (Friends of the School, our PTA) held their AGM. It was fantastic to see some new faces at the meeting!

On behalf of the school community, I would like to thank Sarah Voss, Siobhan Richards, Jasmina Topic and Raymond Ou for their dedicated work on the executive committee in 2025. Your contribution has been immense; we are so grateful for the time, energy and passion you have poured into our school for the benefit of our children.

Morgana Smith has been re-elected as President and will work alongside Andrea Chiplin as Vice President. Sarah Paterson has taken over the position of Secretary and Emma Welsh as Treasurer. The team have a great vision for 2026 and I know it is going to be another busy year. Please do all you can to stay in touch with FOTS and be great supporters of Browns Bay School.

Finally, the Playgrounds at Browns Bay School are a great asset to the school yet their popularity after school and the resultant noise level is causing concern. Teachers are expected to work beyond 3pm and the noise level from the play can be quite a distraction when working or having meetings in the classrooms around the playgrounds and Netball courts.
I acknowledge it is a great time to catch up with other parents and children to have some playtime yet I would encourage parents to leave these areas after 3.30pm to enable some quiet time for teachers to prepare in their classrooms. A bell rings at 3.30pm to alert parents to the time.

Supervised team practices are exempt from this request.

We had an adult hit with an object thrown by a child last week so this is a timely reminder that an adult must supervise any children at school after 3pm.

Awhi Update

Respect

We’ve had a busy couple of weeks learning about where we can go and what we can do at break times. We want everyone to know how to stay safe and have fun at school.

Last week, our Awhi lesson focussed on why it’s important to show respect to everyone in our school community. Being kind, sharing a smile, greeting and thanking people are all things that students (and staff) were spotted doing at school. It makes for a happier, calmer environment and better focus for learning. Thank you.

Community Notices

To join our before/after school care fun, where play meets potential just click HERE