2025 Foundation (Prep) enrolments
The Department of Education (DET) has released a new statewide Foundation (Prep) enrolment timeline.
The timeline advises families when and how to enrol their child into Foundation (Prep) at a Victorian government primary school, including Buninyong Primary School
The new timeline will apply for children starting Foundation (Prep) in 2025. All government primary schools will follow the new timeline in 2024 to support Foundation (Prep) enrolments for the 2025 school year.
You can find information and resources about the new timeline, including factsheets, at: Enrolling in Foundation (Prep). You can also download the ‘Foundation (Prep) Enrolment Information Pack for Parents/Carers for the 2025 school year’ from the Starting School webpage.
You will be able to apply to enrol your child in Foundation (Prep) 2025 at Buninyong Primary School from 15 April 2024.
What you need to do:
What you need to do:
- Use Find my School to locate your designated neighbourhood school (referred to as your local school) and other nearby government schools.
- Contact Buninyong Primary School to book a school tour or to learn more about the school and the enrolment application process.
- Download the ‘Foundation (Prep) Enrolment Information Pack for Parents and Carers.’ The pack will be available from Monday 15 April 2024 and will include an application form. The school may also provide you with a copy of the form to complete.
- Submit an enrolment application for Foundation (Prep) by Friday 26 July 2024.
- You will be notified of the outcome of your application between Monday 29 July and Friday 9 August 2024. If you receive an enrolment offer, you should accept the offer by Friday 23 August 2024.
- Take part in enrolment information and transition sessions during Term 4, 2024.
- Your child will start Foundation (Prep) from Wednesday 29 January 2025.
Enrolment applications submitted after 26 July 2024 will be processed by the school as they are received, in accordance with the Department of Education’s Placement Policy.
All enrolment enquiries are welcome.
If you are a prospective parent/guardian looking to enrol your child at our school please follow the instructions below:
- Contact the school to arrange a tour on (03) 5341 3560.
- Jot down some questions and bring them to your tour.
- On your tour, you’ll also receive an enrolment pack with more information.
- After your tour, sit down and think about whether or not Buninyong Primary (both the Buninyong or Scotsburn campus) is the right school for your child.
- If you choose Buninyong as the school for your child, please complete the enrolment form and return it to the school.
- Our school zone is available on findmyschool.vic.gov.au which hosts the most up-to-date information on school zones in Victoria. Students residing within our school zone are guaranteed a place at our school, which is determined on the basis of your permanent residential address. Our school manages enrolments using the Placement Policy to ensure that students have access to their designated neighbourhood school and may enrol at another school, if there are available places.
Buninyong Primary School Council has made the wearing of school uniform compulsory. This position has been taken for a number of reasons, including:
- Making sure our students are well presented
- Making life easier for parents
- Helping children identify with our school and feel like they belong
- Making it easy to identify students when we are on excursions
The uniform guidelines have been designed to help parents understand the uniform, but please give us a call if you have any questions.
Buninyong Primary offers its own uniform shop with all uniform items below provided. The shop is available from 8:30am – 4:00pm every week day. Please see the general office for any queries.
Our school is serviced by bus runs to and from Elaine, Yendon and Mt Mercer.
Our school is serviced by bus runs to and from Elaine, Yendon and Mt Mercer.
To be eligible for free travel on these buses, you need to live more than 4.8km from the school and Buninyong PS must be your nearest government primary school.
For students attending Scotsburn, there is a bus service provided by the school that transports them from Buninyong to Scotsburn each morning and the reverse in the afternoons.
This is a free service. Our Scotsburn students are also bused back to their campus after attending whole school assemblies at the Buninyong Campus. This too is free of charge. For more information regarding any of these bus services, call the office and they will put you on to one of our bus coordinators.
To better educate our children, we need to understand them better. Understand what makes them tick.
It is important to us at Buninyong Primary School that the transition from Pre-school to School, transition between grades throughout Primary School and transition to Secondary School is smooth and well communicated. As a result we have developed the following processes:
Transition from Pre-School to Primary School:
We certainly do our best to give every child the opportunity to make a smooth transition into Primary School. This includes the following Transition Activities:
- We come together with Buninyong Kindergarten to conduct transition activities in readiness for the following year.
- We also make an effort to keep Day Care Centers in the local area informed about transition visits to ensure that all students enrolling in Prep at Buninyong Primary School have the opportunity to visit our school before the Pre-Schooler Program commences. Kindergarten and Day Care staff will keep parents informed about these visits.
Offering two campuses allows Buninyong Primary School to be flexible and cater for a wide variety of student needs.
Buninyong Campus
This campus is located in the beautiful township of Buninyong on the southern edge of Ballarat. There are 600 students working in 27 classes at our Buninyong Campus. We run straight year level classes, with 4 classes in all but 1 year level. Despite being large, the environment is friendly, welcoming and calm.
All students leave their home teacher for specialist subjects each week, those being Music, Japanese, PE and Art. Students head off to specialist subjects as a year level, providing year level teacher teams the opportunity to plan together. This promotes high level sharing and learning between staff and is an important driver of success in our school.
All students belong to a ‘Family Group’ made up of students from P-6. Our Family Groups get together fortnightly to undertake activities that relate to our current whole school Social & Emotional Learning theme.
The school has outstanding facilities, including a full sized gym and dedicated spaces for a Library, Art, Japanese and Music. We recently renovated the original Buninyong Police Station, which is on our site….this provides an excellent break away space for small group work. We have fantastic grounds, which look terrific and present a wide variety of play options for students.
The playground is large and easily accommodates our students, both in terms of space and in terms of a variety of play options to keep everyone engaged and happy.
Scotsburn Campus
Our Scotsburn Campus is set in the rural community of Scotsburn, which is just up the Midland Highway and set in the rural community. This campus has just over 60 students who work in 3 multi-age classrooms….typically P-2, 2-4 & 4-6.
The facilities at Scotsburn are fantastic. There are 3 classrooms, as well as the original classroom (used for meetings, intervention programs, small group work, cooking and so on), a large multi-purpose shed (decked out as a comfortable work space) and another dedicated class space used for Art and Japanese classes.
In the past Scotsburn students have travelled to Buninyong for their specialist classes, but now these are all delivered on site. The specialist subject areas covered are PE, Japanese and The Arts.
The yard is inviting and presents a broad range of play options for the students. There is a resurfaced oval complete with an in-ground sprinkler system, creative play areas for building cubby huts, a Ga Ga Pit, basketball rings, sand pit, a range of climbing apparatus and much more.
A feature of the school is the high level of parent participation which is actively encouraged by our “open door” policy. It is a close school community and everyone pitches in where they can to help out. Opportunities for parents to get involved include excursions, helping with our Friday rotations (cooking & gardening), working bees, fundraisers and classroom support just to name a few.
The school has a strong environmental focus, with children caring for chickens, fish, a lizard, tending to a vegetable garden, seed propagation & tree planting. As the Scotsburn Campus is a Landcare School, the children are also involved in programs and excursions in conjunction with the local Landcare group. A highlight for Scotsburn students is a rotation of activities each Friday where the children cook using produce from the vegetable garden and engage in Landcare/gardening and team building / B+ activities (Social Emotional Learning).
There are bus services to and from Scotsburn which students can access. There is a bus service that leaves from Buninyong each morning, which takes students out to Scotsburn and this same service drops Scotsburn students back to the Buninyong Campus after school. This is a free service. There are also country buses run by Public Transport Victoria that service Scotsburn. These run to and from Elaine, Yendon and Mount Mercer and are free for eligible travellers. Contact the office for details about bus services.
Our Scotsburn Campus is perfect for parents who want to provide their child with a small school experience and the sense of community this brings. Having said that, Scotsburn students get the best of both worlds. As a campus of Buninyong PS, Scotsburn students participate in camps & excursions, the school fete, the school concert, inter-school sporting teams, debating teams, leadership programs, special theme days and the many other things that happen in bigger schools. Regular access to the library and gym at the Buninyong campus is also an added bonus.
Scotsburn is a great place for children, parents and staff and will continue to provide positive education outcomes for the students so that they can achieve to their full potential and become productive members of the community.
The school has outstanding facilities at both campuses.
At our Buninyong campus that includes a full sized Gym, Library, Art room, Japanese room, Music room and 28 dedicated classrooms. The original Buninyong Police Station, which is located on our school site, has been fully restored and is now used extensively as a break away space. We have beautiful grounds, which have seen many improvements in recent years and present a broad range of play options for our students. Those who like action and sport have purpose built areas for that. Those more interested in passive or creative play have spaces for that too. We have established interesting play spaces right throughout our grounds and as a result the children are well spread at break times and no specific areas feel crowded.
The facilities at our Scotsburn campus are fantastic. There are 3 classrooms, as well as the original classroom (used for meetings, intervention programs, small group work, cooking and so on), a large multi-purpose shed (decked out as a comfortable work space) and another dedicated class space used for Art and Japanese classes.
The yard is inviting and presents a broad range of play options for the students. There is a resurfaced oval complete with an in-ground sprinkler system, creative play areas for building cubby huts, a Ga Ga Pit, basketball rings, sand pit, a range of climbing apparatus and much more.
The school has a strong environmental focus, with children caring for chickens, fish, a lizard, tending to a vegetable garden, seed propagation & tree planting. As the Scotsburn Campus is a Landcare School, the children are also involved in programs and excursions in conjunction with the local Landcare group. A highlight for Scotsburn students is a rotation of activities each Friday where the children cook using produce from the vegetable garden and engage in Landcare/gardening and team building / B+ activities (Social Emotional Learning).