School News

Miss Marks' Message

Hello families!

It has been a wonderful return to school for 2025! We have welcomed many new families including those in Foundation, but also new families in other year levels. We have had a settled start to the school year and I have been incredibly impressed with the way students have begun to revisit our school routines and expectations. Ms Barnett has included specific details about our Learning to Learn program in her report later in the newsletter. 

Middle School Building

Our Middle School building has some unfortunate water damage as a result of the storm last Sunday evening. We have been working with the Department of Education to help us in ensuring the building is safe for everyone. Parts of the carpet in some of the rooms has been lifted and ventilation fans have been set up.

Given the need for repairs and to ensure the building is safe, we have relocated our Middle School classes. Not all the classrooms have damage, however the noise from the ventilation fans was a sufficient reason to relocate all classes. 

-MSA moved to the Performing Arts room.

-MSB has moved to the Staffroom.

-MSC has moved to our Science room near the Senior School. 

-The Mudbrick building is currently being used as a Staffroom.

We are lucky to have these additional spaces available for classes to use, and I am grateful that each class has been able to set up in their own space. We have not needed to consider shared spaces and each class has settled well into their new, temporary home. I am very appreciative of our staff team who have been flexible and understanding. 

All staff have supported each other by moving furniture, resources and setting up the new classrooms. We have been able to re-establish each classroom environment to support students in the transition to their new space and assist our learning programs to continue with limited disruption. I have also been impressed with the resilience and kindness of our students as they navigate this change and their new learning space.

The process of having the Middle School building assessed for repairs and application for these works to be completed is underway. This is a slow process and I am very grateful to the students and staff for their patience. 

Thank you also, to the parents who have been in contact with us to help advocate for the repairs. It is wonderful to know we have your support!

Family Night

On Wednesday February 6 we welcomed families to the school to meet their child's teacher. Although the ongoing construction prevented us from having food trucks at the event, it was great to see so many families connecting with the school and each other. The Art Room was a popular place to visit, as was the active opportunities with sports equipment under the COLA. 

Thank you to all the families who were able to attend!

Power at School

During the January school holidays, our switchboard was updated. On Monday February 3 and Tuesday February 4 we lost power at the school. We quickly realised this was isolated to the school and made contact with the project manager who led the power upgrade. They were able to visit the school and the power was restored quickly. On each of these occasions, we were without power for approximately an hour. The project manager is continuing to work with us to ensure power to our school site is balanced. Following the restoration of the power on Tuesday, the site was tested again before school on Wednesday morning. We are also expecting the same team to visit us this Wednesday, as the forecast for warm weather will mean air conditioning will be in high demand and the site can be monitored in real time. 

Communication 

It was so wonderful to see families connect with the school during our open classroom event last week. As a complement to this, I would like to share with you information about how you can make contact with us throughout the year. Positive relationships between school and home are a key to the success of all of our students. Mr Lindsay has written about this and you can read his report later in the newsletter. 

Classrooms open from 8:45am in the morning for students to complete their morning routine before instruction commences at 9:00am. In this time parents are welcome to visit classrooms with their children. Teachers are responsible for the supervision of students during this time, so please be mindful if you are needing a lengthy or private conversation with the teacher.  If you need to speak to your child’s teacher, please let them know your concern, and make a time outside of their hours of supervision to have this chat. 

Families are welcome to come onsite prior to the end of the day to wait to collect students. If you are doing this there are a few things to be mindful of.

• Please do not use the student toilets. Students will still be using these and it isn’t appropriate for parents to be accessing these.  If you need to use bathroom facilities, we will happily accommodate this by providing access to our staff bathrooms. Please visit the office and we can arrange this for you. 
• Please make sure your presence on school grounds isn’t a distraction to students finishing the day. Each day from 3:05pm onwards students reset their classroom spaces ready for the next day. Particularly in the early years of the school this is a very busy time of the day. We focus on calm and orderly approaches to support learning success so please refrain from drawing attention away from the teachers through the windows.  
• This is again a chance to have a brief chat with teachers or schedule an appointment if you need more of their time. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights teachers have meetings which commence at 3:35pm. Additional meetings for some staff are also scheduled for Monday afternoons. 

Sentral is the platform we use for online communication between teachers and families. This isn’t to remove face to face interactions but complement them as we appreciate for many families getting into to school for visits can be difficult. This can be useful to contact teachers as the need arises and likewise, teachers will use this to reach out to families too.

Whatever the mode of communication you engage in with teachers, it is expected communication will be respectful and courteous. If you are making contact regarding a concern raised at home by students, it is particularly important to bear in mind that our staff are likely to have more information. When a student comes home flustered and upset about something that's happened at school be it in the classroom or from the yard, a relay of that to their family, can often include a lot of emotion and quite often doesn’t represent the whole picture of what has taken place. 

The Parents Victoria resource 'Think Wait Communicate' provides further guidance around appropriately raising concerns with school staff Tip-sheet-think-wait-communicate.pdf (parentsvictoria.asn.au)

Welcome to our new staff

We have welcomed new teaching staff and inclusion team members this year! They have created the below profiles to share with you.

Enjoy your week, 

Chelsey

Meet our new staff!

School Leaders

On Monday February 10, our School Leaders and Miss Marks visited Don Wallace Reserve for the official opening! The upgrades at Don Wallace Reserve have recently been completed and we were invited to represent the school as part of the official opening. 

Golden Plains Shire Mayor Cr Sarah Hayden alongside Member for Eureka, Michaela Settle MP were also in attendance. 

Geelong Advertiser 'My First Year' 

Healthy Eating at TPS