What a big Week at TPS

Welcome back to Term 4, which is always an extremely busy time of the year. We have so many fantastic learning opportunities awaiting our students, including camps, excursions, sports events and end of year celebrations.

Grade 5/6 Camp

Next week our Grade 5/6 students head to Melbourne Urban Camp for a 2 night stay. Activities include an MCG tour, Ten Pin Bowling, Scienceworks, Zoo, Ice Skating and the Queen Victoria Market, but probably the best experience for our students is catching Public transport and moving around the CBD in a large group.

We look forward to sharing our adventures via Facebook next week and in our next Newsletter. A big thanks to Mrs Young for her excellent organisation, and Mrs Pridham, Josh, Amber Townsend and Rohan Aldous for accompanying our students.

Unwanted Visitors

Unfortunately over the holiday period, we had some unwanted visitors come to school and do some permanent damage to our synthetic basketball court. We love people in the community using our school and facilities, but when damage is done such as this it is very annoying. If you see people acting suspiciously in and around the school, please contact the police. 

Transition

Our 2025 Foundation students started their transition visits today. It was great to see so many smiling faces amongst the group, and some very eager to start little ones. These transition visits will continue for each Friday, from 9-11:30am.

Our Year 6 students are starting to meet with their Secondary Schools, and will take part in transition visits throughout the term.

We will be conducting our own in-school transition visits later in the term as well. 

The statewide transition day is on Tuesday, December 10th.

Col Pearse visit

Our guest speakers keep coming, and yesterday was probably our biggest, with Paralympian gold, silver and bronze medallist, Col Pearse visiting our students.

Col amazed our students with his resilience and focus to do everything possible to become a paralympian swimmer at the past 2 Olympics and Commonwealth Games.

Col lost his foot in an accident with a lawn mower at the age of 2, and shared with our students his story of determination to get to become the best in his chosen sport of swimming.

Col very generously shared his medals with the students and his prosthetic leg.

It was an inspiring and engaging talk.

Community Programs

Term 4 has only just started but our Community Programs are back in full swing.

Our Grade 5 boys started with Boys to the Bush this week and had a great time working at a local caravan park and enjoying lunch at Rich River Golf Club.

Our Senior Citizens group were back to serve lunches to the very hungry patrons from the club.

Our second Girls Empowerment program group started, with a self defence course at Wickhams Martial Arts and our Regional Lawn Bowls team enjoyed a practice session at the Moama Bowling club today.

These programs are certainly a highlight for the students involved.

2025 Planning

Planning is well underway for 2025, and this week we welcomed a number of new students, taking our enrolments to 150, which is fantastic.

If you are not planning on being at Tongala PS in 2025, or know of a family who is coming to the school, please make contact with us, so we can play accurately.

School Saving Bonus

As part of the Victorian Government Education State model, all families will be part of the new School Saving Bonus Initiative from 2025.

The School Saving Bonus initiative is a one-off payment of $400 per child to be used towards supporting your child's education. 

Families can choose how they spend the School Saving Bonus. It can be used towards 2025 school costs, which may include:

• camps, trips, excursions and incursions
• swimming and sporting programs
• school uniforms

The School Saving Bonus will be emailed directly to parents and carers in November 2024. Therefore, it is essential that the school has your correct email address on your child's enrolment. If you need to change this, please speak to the school.

More information about the School Saving Bonus can be found at:

https://www.vic.gov.au/school-saving-bonus

.

Rob