An integral part of Balaklava and its surrounding communities for more than 130 years, Balaklava Primary School proudly offers a contemporary educational program with our literacy, numeracy and wellbeing priorities embedded in a student engagement strand of information and communication technology. The strength of our school lies primarily with our dedicated core of classroom and specialist teachers, who offer a broad, balanced curriculum responsive to students' individual learning needs. As a 'music focus' and 'Eat Well, Be Active' school our students are offered a diverse range of opportunities, both within and beyond the Reception to Year 7 curriculum. We manage a bus fleet of 12 to transport our students living outside a 5 km radius from the school. Our school is situated on 3.34 hectares of land and neighbours the Balaklava High School. The Balaklava Community Children's Centre is only a short walk away. We are also conveniently close to the Balaklava business centre. Our school motto 'Believe, Participate, Succeed' was coined in 2008 by Governing Council and has been embedded in our culture. During 2009 we worked with our students and parent community to arrive at our seven core values: Fair Treatment, Cooperation, Success, Mutual Respect, Tolerance, Responsibility and Honesty. These values are promoted both within each class community and at whole-school assemblies. They are displayed proudly at the front of our school and form the basis of our cfde of conduct. During 2010 we focused on translating our values into virtues, supporting students to be self-managing and respectful learners and raising expectations in both academic and behaviour learning. In seeking a public way of acknowledging student achievements, the Student Commiittee suggested a rekindling of the traditional honour rolls. Students who achieve above-year-level learning achievement have their names recorded on learning area rolls, which are displayed proudly in the foyer the following year.