News & Events

March 7, 2024

March Newsletter 2024

There is so much happening at Poppins this year, we will do our best to cover major updates in the newsletters for everyone to be informed😊 It is wonderful to see all the children learning everyday in our natural environment. Both spontaneous & planned experiences maximise their education, whilst having so much fun each day. We have a few reminders for our Poppins community. Code for the Door – We ask please that you only share with member of your family that are authorised to collect your child/ren Thank you. Car park safety – please ensure you are driving with care, please slow down when entering and leaving the car park and ensure you are watching for children at all times. Please hold your child’s hand and walk-in front of the cars not behind them to ensure you can be seen. Food from home – If you are bringing in some breakfast for your child, please ensure it is NUT FREE. Toys from Home – We are fortunate to have an amazing array of resources for the children to play and explore with. Toys coming from home can often cause conflict and emotional distress for the other children in attendance. Unless your child requires a comforter for rest time, please leave all other toys at home.

February 1, 2024

February Newsletter 2024

Welcome to February 2024 All rooms have now completed transitions and the children have settled in wonderfully within their new spaces. Our Educational Team has begun the Programming and Documentation Journey for the year. Please enjoy reading in reception the Learning Focus for each room. This has also been attached to your first emails from your child’s teaching team. Educators will use these focuses as they relate to our philosophy and knowledge of early childhood development, children’s emerging interests, spontaneous teaching moments and intentional planned experiences to ensure your child is experiencing exciting, developmental, age appropriate and wondrous experiences while at Poppins Bush School. We encourage all families to read your child’s room focus and all emails so you can enjoy your child’s Poppins adventures, plus take a moment in the afternoon to view all the room photos on display in reception on our digital photo frames. This documentation each day will enable families to positively engage with your child in conversations about their day which will also promote and develop their speech, confidence, and interests.

January 11, 2024

January Newsletter 2024

Welcome to the first edition of our Community Connections Newsletter for 2024. A very warm welcome to all our new families and children. We are looking forward to getting to know your children and yourselves over the coming year. January will see many of our children transitioning to new rooms. This always comes with challenges but with positive support & encouragement our children adapt to new rooms routines, Educators, and expectations. Our fabulous staff have worked extremely hard to make the transition as smooth as possible and to give children and their families as much support as possible. We welcome feedback on how you think the transition process was handled as we feel there is always room for improvement as we move forward. There will be twelve editions of our newsletter each year. Inside you will find upcoming events, useful information about our curriculum, planning, and philosophy. Important news including breakouts of illness, reminders or changes to upcoming events or changes to policy will be emailed to parents at other times throughout the year. Please take the time to read all communication so you are aware of what is happening within our Poppins Community. The next edition will be due in February.

November 28, 2023

December Newsletter 2023

Season Greetings to all 🎅 We have wonderful news to share with all our Bush School Families in November we had our assessment and rating done. Poppins Bush School is excited to announce that is has received an Exceeding rating in all 7 quality areas. This month at Poppins we be hosting our Room Christmas Parties and our Prep Graduation🎓. With Christmas fast approaching our staff and children are getting in the spirit and exploring some Christmas experiences. The children are creating festive songs, ornaments and wrapping paper. 🎄⛄ At the end of October we sent out a Christmas Holiday Form to families. We have had a great response with families advising us if they are off on a holiday during the Christmas break. If you have yet to return a form please remember to let the us know if you are way over Christmas so we can help families who may be needing additional days over the Christmas break.

November 28, 2023

Assessment and Rating

October 31, 2023

November Newsletter 2023

Tis the season to be Jolly! 🎅 With Christmas fast approaching our staff and children are getting in the spirit. 🎄 We are super excited for this year’s Christmas parties. Over the coming weeks you will receive an invitation to attend an afternoon tea Christmas party for each of your children’s rooms. These parties provide a wonderful opportunity to meet your child’s friends and their families. These will be held in the Melbourne Laneway and Forest Area from 2.30pm -3.30pm on the following days: Nursery -------- 11th December 2023 Junior Preschool ----- 12th December 2023 Preschool 1 ----------- 13th December 2023 Preschool 2 ------------ 14th December 2023 Our Prep Graduation and BBQ will be held on Tuesday 19th December from 6pm-7:30pm.

October 11, 2023

October Newsletter 2023

Ready Set Smile 📸😁 School Photo Week is fast approaching… Don’t forget to return your School Photo envelopes by Monday 16th October. Our photo days this year are Monday 16th – Friday 20th October. In September we celebrated Poppins 6th Birthday. The children loved the sausage sizzle and the special birthday cake that Miss Gail made. The cake was enjoyed by all for afternoon tea. We held a smoking ceremony around our friendship circle that Miss Mary and her team of handy helpers had constructed. We invited Len Waters to conduct the smoking ceremony. Len gave a traditional Kamilaroi greeting “Yamada yada” – which means Hello everybody and shared his culture and traditions with the children. We also held another Pyjama week as it’s so much fun to get up in the morning have breakfast and just wear your comfy PJ’s all day. As summer is upon us, we have started our snake drills. This proved to be a great success as we had a visitor one afternoon and all the children knew exactly what to do.

August 29, 2023

September Newsletter 2023

Book week this year was amazing📚. Everyone’s costumes were fantastic… well done to everyone. A big thank you too to Miss Gail for the wonderful special meals prepare for each room during book week. On Friday 25th August we had Flanno for a Farmer Day. We also had a loader visit from Brycon Civil for the Prep children to learn about keeping themselves safe while also giving them an understanding of construction. Prep children got to sit in the loader and move the bucket up and down and honk the horn. A great time was had by all. We Welcomed Miss Cynthia and Miss Emily to the Poppins Family in August. Our wonderful Miss Em goes on Maternity Leave in September in preparation to welcome a little Miss to her family. Sunday the 10th of September will see Poppins Bush School turning 6 years old. We will be celebrating Poppins Birthday on the Friday 8th of September with a sausage sizzle, party games and a cake for the children at the centre that day 🎂🎉🎉😊.

July 26, 2023

August Newsletter 2023

Welcome to the August edition of our monthly newsletter. July was an exciting and busy period. We welcomed a new educator to our team, Miss Tiff. Miss Tiff has over 15 years’ experience in Early Childhood and is currently studying her Bachelor of Education in Early Childhood. Tiff has taken on the role of Room Leader in the Junior Preschool Room. Welcome to the Poppins Bush School team Tiff. Pyjama Week was not only a fun and comfortable week, but we also raised $154.55. Thank you to everyone who participated and donated. During August we will be supporting Jeans for Genes Day. On the 4th August everyone is encouraged to wear Jeans to support research into childhood genetics and research. We will have a donation box at reception. Please show your support for this amazing cause. Every year we celebrate Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Book Week (CBCA Book Week). This year’s theme is “Read, Grow, Inspire”. More information will be provided closer to the week as every year we have book character dress up days! Such an exciting week. In addition to dressing up each room is collaborating with the children to come up with some meal ideas for Miss Gail to create. This is something new we are trialing, but eating Gruffalo Crumble or Wombat Stew at mealtimes will be exciting!

June 28, 2023

July Newsletter 2023

Welcome to July 2023 We had a wonderful June at Poppins, with lots of children celebrating birthdays. Birthdays are a special day for everyone, and we love sharing this special time with the children. We received a visit from the Fire and Rescue Service (story on back page). This is always an exciting visit for the children! We also welcomed the official start of Winter. During the first week of July, we celebrate NAIDOC Week. The theme this year is “For our Elders”. This is always a reflective week, and we look forward to sharing experiences from this week with all families. Miss Emily and Preschool 2 have compiled a wonderful display in reception which documents the children’s cooking adventures over the Fire Pit. Please take the time to look at the photos and read about the children’s experience.

June 1, 2023

June Newsletter 2023

May 22nd – 26th we celebrated Grandparents Week We want to thank all the Grandparents and parents who attended Grandparents week. The children had a wonderful time having afternoon tea and showing everyone all the amazing things that they do at Poppins Bush School. Some of our children helped make Cupcakes and Damper for their Grandparents afternoon tea. This month we will be having the Fire Department come to our centre to do a fire safety talk with the children in Prep, Preschool 1 and Preschool 2 then they will be looking at the fire truck. Our Nursery and Juniors Preschool rooms will get to meet the Emergency Fire Personnel and look at the truck🚒.

May 1, 2023

May Newsletter 2023

In April the children in prep had a great excursion to ANZAC Park to lay a wreath. There is a Story at end of our newsletter about the excursion. In May we are looking forward to celebrating Mother’s Day on the 14th of May💐 We will also be holding Grandparents week on the 22nd – 26th May for the grandparents to visit in the afternoon for afternoon tea, stories, and fun. We are also hosting Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea on 31st May gold coin donation welcome. We are excited for the new outdoor spaces being created out the back of Bush School on the way to the chicken coup. We will have 2 new friendship circles for the children’s morning yarning meetings, we will also have a little construction area🏗, an animal & dinosaur nature strip🐾, a cross country & car racetrack 🏎& there is a possibility of an airport✈ near the newly proposed deck board walk. We look forward to inviting our parents and families into our new areas very soon. 😊

March 31, 2023

April Newsletter 2023

Welcome to the April addition of our monthly Newsletter! We are all looking forward to another wonderful month here at Bush school with the weather cooling down and daylight savings coming to an end. Super Excited for our Easter Egg Hunt this year 🐰. In the afternoon the children will go up into the forest area to hunt for easter eggs🐇🐇. Our Prep Children will be making an ANZAC wreath which they will take with them on there excursion to ANZAC Park and place at the monument. This is a great way for the children to learn about and honour those past and present in the armed forces.

March 14, 2023

March Newsletter 2023

Today we had a very exciting guest join us at Poppins to participate in a music experience with the children. They were so excited to see the drum kit set up in our main yard and sat so patiently while the other rooms took their seats. Ryan played some songs for us, and the children were blown away with the sounds coming from the drum kit. They all sat so beautifully and concentrated on the music being played for them. Ryan also encouraged our friends to have a turn playing the kit themselves and gosh was that popular! We think we may have some wonderful future musicians in our room judging by all the foot tapping, head bobbing and overall excitement. We were even lucky enough to see Junior Preschools own drummer Willow, get up and play some songs for us. The children were so excited to see one of their peers putting on a show for them! This experience created a wonderful sense of community within our room and gave one of our families an opportunity to share their home culture with our children. On behalf of our Poppins community, we would like to thank Ryan for donating his time for our little people this morning. If you or any family members have any hidden talents, interests, or skills you think we could share with the children please reach out because we would love to hear from you! It’s a wonderful way for us to bring elements of your home cultures into our program which in turn creates a sense of belonging for your child to our space.

February 15, 2023

Reconciliation Action Plan

As part of our ongoing commitment to inclusion, cultural awareness and reconciliation, we recently completed our Reconciliation Action Plan for Poppins Bush School. Creating awareness, understanding and embedding positive cultural practice as it relates to our First Nations people is an important aspect as we move forward and work towards reconciliation as a community and a Nation. This document can be accessed and viewed at Poppins Bush School.

February 6, 2023

February 2023 Newsletter

Welcome to February 2023! All room transitions are now complete, and our Educational Team has begun the Programming and Documentation Journey for the year. On display in reception is the Learning Focus for each room this has also been attached to your first emails from your child’s teaching team. Educators will use these focus’ as they relate to our philosophy and knowledge of Early Childhood development, children’s emerging interests, spontaneous teaching moments and intentional planned experiences to ensure your child is experiencing exciting, developmental, age appropriate and wondrous experiences while at Poppins Bush School. We encourage all families to read your child’s room focus and all emails so you can enjoy your child’s Poppins adventures, plus take a moment in the afternoon to view all the room photos on the individual room TV’s. This documentation each day will enable families to positively engage with your child in conversations about their day which will also promote and develop their speech, confidence and interests.

January 1, 2023

January Newsletter 2023

Welcome to the first edition of our Community Connections Newsletter for 2023. A very warm welcome to all our new families and children. We are looking forward to getting to know your children and yourselves over the coming year. January will see many of our children transitioning to new rooms. This is a process that always comes with challenges as children adapt to new rooms, Educators, and expectations. The Educators have worked extremely hard to make the transition as smooth as possible and to give children and their families as much support as possible. We welcome feedback on how you think the transition process was handled as we feel there is always room for improvement as we move forward. There will be twelve editions of our newsletter each year. Inside you will find upcoming events, useful information about our curriculum, planning and philosophy. Important news including breakouts of illness, reminders or changes to upcoming events or changes to policy will be emailed to parents at other times throughout the year. Please take the time to read all communication so you are aware of what is happening within our Poppins Community. The next edition will be due in February.

November 25, 2022

Educator Professional Development

Our team at Bush School is excited to be part of some wonderful professional development in November. Professional development is important to ensure that we as a team at Bush School extend our knowledge and improve our skills as educators so we can continue to be a dynamic team here at the centre. This training opportunity has been postponed until January 13th and 14th 2023.

November 9, 2022

November Newsletter 2022

Tis the season to be jolly! With Christmas fast approaching our staff and children are getting in the spirit. We are super excited to be back hosting our room Christmas parties. Over the coming days you will receive an invitation to attend an afternoon tea Christmas party for each of your children’s rooms. These parties are wonderful opportunities to meet your child’s friends and their families. These will be held from 2.30pm -3.30pm on the following days….. Nursery 1 &2 -------- 13th December Junior Preschool -----14th December Preschool 1 ----------- 7th December Preschool 2 ------------9th December While our Prep Graduation will be held on Thursday 15th December at 6pm-8pm. (Invite only)

October 17, 2022

Poppins Bush School Centre Photos

School Photo Day is fast approaching… Don’t forget to return your School Photo envelopes by Monday 17th October. Our photo days this year are Monday 17th - Wednesday 19th October

October 4, 2022

A special visitor

This week we had a special visitor to Poppins Bush School. One of our educators, Miss Jess, is raising a baby goat and wanted to share with the children. How cute is Miss Jess' goat. The children were so gentle with her and provided such wonderful care. Thank you Miss Jess!

October 3, 2022

October Newsletter 2022

Ready Set Smile 😊 School Photo Day is fast approaching… Don’t forget to return your School Photo envelopes by Monday 17th October. Our photo days this year are Monday 17th - Wednesday 19th October Did you notice our Poppins bus in the car park over the past few weeks? Our Preschool 1 children ventured beyond the Poppins Bush School gates to Miss Mary’s farm. We used this opportunity to continue looking at our current learning focus, exploring the world around us through STEM and Schematic play. At the farm the children met some baby calves as well as got the chance to explore the farmyard including investigating the tractor. Offering nature play stimulates creativity and problem-solving skills that are integral to executive function development.

September 12, 2022

September Newsletter 2022

This year’s book week costumes were simply amazing… well done to everyone. Hats and Sunscreen reminder - with the weather warming up please ensure your child arrives ready to play with a hat and sunscreen. If we need to help apply sunscreen, please let us know upon arrival. Our spare hats are running low so, if any have made it home, please return them Friday 10th September will see us celebrating Poppins 5th Birthday with a sausage sizzle and party games 😊

September 5, 2022

Employment Opportunities

Are you are passionate qualified Early Childhood Educator. We are seeking Bachelor qualified educators to join our dynamic team at Poppins Bush School. If you would like to share your passion for Early Childhood Education please send your resume to admin@poppinsbushschool.com.au

August 24, 2022

Book Week 2022

We are so excited for Book Week this week and we have begun reading the CBCA shortlisted books to the children. We have also looked at the books which won their categories. For the Early Childhood category that was “Jetty Jumping”. A wonderful story about how it’s okay to feel worried and afraid but how it is also important to try new things, even if it’s by accident! The children loved this story. Many of them asked what a jetty was and if it was something that is real. We had a brief discussion around what a jetty is and where you might find one and what their purpose is. Don’t be surprised if next time you visit the beach or a lake you may be asked if there is a jetty! We will continue to read the shortlisted books for 2022 as they all contain relevant messages around emotions and how to overcome these emotions as well as being kind to others. Such important topics and areas we continue to explore daily with the children.

August 8, 2022

August Newsletter 2022

Upcoming events – August sees us celebrating Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Book Week 2022. Book Week is a chance to celebrate authors and illustrators and their works. At Bush School we have many of the shortlisted books for 2022 and will look at these over the coming weeks with the children. The theme for this year’s Book Week is “Dreaming with Eyes Open”. During Book Week we also love to take the opportunity to dress up as our favourite book characters. The team at Poppins will be dressing up in character on Wednesday 24th August, however we encourage children to dress up on any day that they attend Poppins as we want to ensure everyone is able to enjoy this truly magical week. We look forward to seeing the wonderful costumes of the entire Bush School community next week!

July 4, 2022

Guinea Pigs

We have welcomed three new additions to our Poppins menagerie. With Miss Chip, Miss Cookies and Miss Elsa our new Guinea Pig’s joining the team 😊 The children of the Junior preschool room have taken great delight in making them feel welcome, including them in their morning routine with lots of hugs and cuddles.

July 4, 2022

NAIDOC Week 2022

Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up!

July 4, 2022

July Newsletter 2022

Our Pyjama Week was a huge success raising $200.85 for this truly worthy cause. Thank you Some highlights from last month. We have welcomed three new additions to our Poppins menagerie. With Miss Chip, Miss Cookies and Miss Elsa our new Guinea pig’s joining the team 😊 The children of the Junior preschool room have taken great delight in making them feel welcome, including them in their morning routine with lots of hugs and cuddles. July will see some educators head off on holidays. The wonderful Miss Tahlia is heading off on a 12-week trip around Australia. We look forward to seeing all the pictures she will be sending through. Miss Tehan and Miss Hannah will be job sharing some office jobs as Miss Marg take a short trip away at the end of July.

June 6, 2022

June Newsletter 2022

Our Biggest Morning Tea was a huge success raising $123.30 for this truly worthy cause. Thank you Some highlights from last month, our Preschool and Prep children have been testing their skills through various gross motor games on the tennis court area. If you have not yet had a chance to see what we have been up to please visit our Facebook page Poppins Bush School. June will see some educator changes as we welcome a new trainee, Miss Kody to our Junior Preschool room. The amazing Miss Narelle, will be our first casual educator, and Miss Maree will be the new assistant in Preschool room 2. Miss Bridget and Miss Jess will be exchanging rooms as they build their knowledge of children development throughout their studies. The fabulous Miss Tehan will be returning from her UNI Prac.

June 1, 2022

Gross Motor Development

Our visits to the Tennis Courts have provided us with so many opportunities to develop our Gross motor skills, including strength, balance and coordination.

May 10, 2022

Prep Marsupial Park Excursion

This month, our Prep children ventured out into our community on the Poppins Bus 🚌 to the Marsupial Park. We discussed bus safety & then all the animals we thought we may see. The children were so excited, we boarded the bus & off we travelled. The excitement continued once we arrived, we saw Emu’s, a Kangaroo with a Joey in her pouch🦘, Guinea pigs, a peacock 🦚, lots & lots of birds with our binoculars plus an Echidna. Truly amazing 😊 Then we had lunch & a play on the adventure playground & then it was time to board the bus for the trip back to Bush School. A brilliant day was had by all 😊 🐝🦆🦜🌿

May 9, 2022

May Newsletter 2022

The Poppins Bush School bus! This month we would like to share a little bit about our wonderful bus! You will often see the bus parked out the front of the service waiting to collect the children for an excursion! It has 12seats and 10 car seats, allowing us to take the children out in the community to explore their interests further. The bus is a valuable resource that allows us to actively participate in our community and enables the children to explore spaces they may have not seen before.

May 2, 2022

Australia's Biggest Morning Tea

Our Biggest Morning Tea was a huge success raising $123.30 for this truly worthy cause. Thank you

April 4, 2022

April Newsletter 2022

Welcome to the April addition of our monthly Newsletter! We are all looking forward to another wonderful month here at Bush school with the weather cooling down and daylight savings coming to an end. This month we have seen our chickens return from their holidays! The Prep children are doing a wonderful job ensuring they have food and water and are tucked away in their coop at night. - We have had some of our children transition to the older rooms and they are all very proud to be exploring the rooms and forming new friendships with their peers. This month we will be running fire drills to ensure the children feel confident when participating in the procedure.

March 11, 2022

Chicken's return from their Winter break!

This month we have seen our chickens return from their holidays! The Prep children are doing a wonderful job ensuring they have food and water and are tucked away in their coop at night.

March 1, 2022

Car Park Safety

Car park safety – please ensure you are driving with care, please slow down and ensure you are watching for children at all times. Please hold your child’s hand and walk-in front of the cars not behind them to ensure you can be seen. Please do not let your children or their older siblings run and play in the car park.

March 1, 2022

March Newsletter 2022

There is so much happening in Poppins at the moment, we will do our best to cover the major updates in this newsletter 😊 It is so wonderful having families come into the outdoor area for drop off and pick up and to be able to have, all be it short, conversations about your child’s day! To keep our community safe, we will continue to ask our families to wear masks when entering Poppins during drop off and pick up times until Friday 11th March. Our recent wet weather has ensured that our outdoor spaces at Bush School have become even more intriguing and inviting to explore. It has been amazing to see the children’s imagination and curiosity grow and develop when our amazing educators create spaces that invite the children to investigate.

February 1, 2022

February Newsletter 2022

Welcome to the second edition of our Community Connections Newsletter. It has been an absolute pleasure spending the past month getting to know all of our children and their interests. We would like to take this opportunity to welcome all our families back into the centre for pickups and drop offs! As of Monday, the 14th of February all families will begin dropping off their children and picking them up in our outdoor spaces. To continue to minimise the risk of the spread of Covid 19 we ask that all parents enter through reception and walk through to our outdoor space. If your child is in the Nursery an educator will meet you at their door and take them inside for you. If your child is in Junior preschool, Preschool 1, Preschool 2 or Prep we ask that you please drop off into the outdoor space. Masks are still required to be worn when entering the service.

January 3, 2022

January Newsletter 2022

Welcome to the first edition of our Community Connections Newsletter for 2022. A very warm welcome to all of our new families and children. We are looking forward to getting to know your children and yourselves over the coming year. January will see many of our children transitioning to new rooms. This is a process that always comes with challenges as children adapt to new rooms, Educators and expectations. The Educators have worked extremely hard to make the transition as smooth as possible and to give children and their families as much support as possible. We welcome feedback on how you think the transition process was handled as we feel there is always room for improvement as we move forward. Each month we will send you our Newsletter, inside you will find upcoming events, useful information about our curriculum, planning and philosophy. Important news including breakouts of illness, reminders or changes to upcoming events or changes to policy will be emailed to parents at other times throughout the year. Please take the time to read all communication so you are aware of what is happening within our Poppins Community. Our Newsletters also include excellent information around various parenting and developmental topics. We would like to encourage all families to read through these each month. The next edition will be due in February.

July 29, 2021

Mr Matt In The Northern Daily Leader

Check out The Northern Daily Leader's focus piece on Mr Matt.

July 28, 2021

The Poppins Bush School Bus

This month we would like to share a little bit about our wonderful bus!

July 21, 2021

The Mental Health Benefits of Exercise

How do you feel after a workout? Even when you're purple faced and desperate for a lie-down, you feel pretty pleased with yourself for giving it a go, right?

July 14, 2021

Simple Math Activities Using Manipulatives

Counting bears or counting animals are a wonderful tool to have in your home for use now but also as your children enter Primary School.

July 7, 2021

A "million-word" gap for children who aren't read to at home

Young children whose parents read them five books a day enter kindergarten having heard about 1.4 million more words than kids who were never read to.

June 29, 2021

6 Important Tools to Raise Body Positive Children

Thanks to social media, and our culture's relentless pursuit of thinness, we now have to find creative ways to teach young children how to develop healthy body images.

June 1, 2021

June 2021 News

What's happening at Poppins in June.

May 20, 2021

Adventurous Play / Risky Play

Risky play is thrilling and exciting play where children test their boundaries and flirt with uncertainty.

December Newsletter 2022

Tis the season to be jolly! 🎅 With Christmas fast approaching our staff and children are getting in the spirit and exploring some Christmas experiences. The children are creating festive songs, ornaments and wrapping paper.🎄 If your family is off on a holiday during the Christmas period, please remember to let the us know the dates so we can help families needing additional days over the Christmas period. Exciting new teams for 2023 With the New year fast approaching we would like to announce the Room educators for next year! As our Poppins community continues to grow.