Principals' Message 

Hello Parents and Friends,

This is the final newsletter for 2024.  It has been quite a year and we are so proud of our students, staff and school community.  As you have read in the newsletter throughout the year, there have been so many great achievements in 2024.  To commemorate this magnificent year, families that have ordered the 2024 Yearbook will receive it next week.  We must say, it looks amazing and it is one of our best ever! 

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a safe holiday break.  The 2025 school year commences for Grades 1-6 students on Wednesday 29th of January and for Prep students, Thursday 30th January. 

2025 Student Free Day – Monday 10th February 

As published on Compass this week, our current SMART spelling approach will change to the Spelling Mastery program in 2025.  On Monday 10th of February, all staff will be undertaking professional learning on this approach. 

If you require care on this day, please click here for the TeamKids Templestowe Park PS page. 

Farewell to the Class of 2024! 

Our fantastic Grade 6 students will spend their final week at primary school next week.  This cohort has had quite a journey through their primary school years and they have come through the other side as caring, smart, resourceful and independent young people. It was a pleasure to be a part of their Graduation Ceremony last week. The auditorium was filled with such great pride and joy as we celebrated their primary school journey and their outstanding achievements. 

It is an exciting time for any young person to move from the sanctuary of their primary school and take the challenge of entering secondary school. We are so confident that this highly talented cohort will make a very successful transition to secondary school based on the personal attributes and the education that Templestowe Park has provided them over the last seven years. Best wishes Grade 6.  We thank you for your outstanding contributions to the Templestowe Park PS community. 

Final Assembly and Farewell to our Graduating Grade 6 Students 

Our final assembly for 2024 will take next Friday 20th December at 11:15am.  It will be an outdoor assembly and hopefully it is a beautiful afternoon to say our official goodbye to our graduating students. We are looking forward to seeing you there! 

Vale Jasmine Carosella 

It was with great sadness that we learnt of the passing of our former student, Jasmine Carosella.  Jasmine was a member of the 2014 Grade 6 graduating class.  Many teachers have very fond memories of Jasmine.  She was a quiet, kind and happy student.  She excelled in all areas of school life, most notably in the classroom.  After graduating from TPPS, she attended Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar School and achieved an ATAR of over 95.  We pass on our deepest condolences to the Carosella family and Jasmine will always be a part of the TPPS community.  We are so grateful that her Grade 6 Legacy Project self-portrait proudly hangs in our Library. 

2025 Parent Payments: Please Make Your Payment by Friday, 13 December

You will notice on your Newsfeed under Course Confirmation that the 2025 Parent Payments are now available to be paid on Compass. 

The process on how to pay the charges is outlined in the attached letter and guide on the Compass Newsfeed. 

You will notice in 2025 that the student charges for Prep and Grades 1-6 are different.  In 2025, we have introduced two new student workbooks to the Grades 1-6 booklist.  Please see more information on what these levies cover in the attached letter. 

In 2025, the school will be undertaking a major project to build a shelter over our basketball court and lay synthetic grass over our asphalt courts. This is a large project that will be fully funded by the school. The shelter will provide a covered space for PE lessons and whole school events. Parent contributions assist us to undertake major projects such as this one.

Thank you for your vital contribution to our voluntary levies.  Without your contributions we would not be able to offer our extensive and diverse learning programs, purchase the excellent resources we have and improve our facilities to the level that we do.

If you have any further queries please contact the school office.

Parent Payments – Free Instruction & Curriculum Contributions 

Victorian Government Schools provide students with free instruction and ensure students have free access to all items, activities and services that are used by the school to fulfil the requirements of the Curriculum. 

Curriculum contributions by parents allows Templestowe Park PS to purchase the following items for students: 

• Curriculum Consumables: covering stationery items including but not limited to: scrapbooks, exercise books, display books, art folio, document wallet foolscap, pencils/ pens (depending on grade), pencil case, colour pencils/wax crayons, white board markers, wooden ruler, sharpener, erasers, glue sticks, scissors, etc. ($50)
• Consumables for Art ($40) 
• Consumables for STEM ($40)
• Consumables for Literacy ($40)
• Consumables for Mathematics ($40)
• Consumables for Language ($25)
• Consumables for Food Tech ($10) 

• Consumables for Wellbeing ($20) 

• Spelling Mastery Student Workbook ($25)

• New Wave Mental Maths Student Workbook ($20)

• Maths Online Subscription ($15)

• Literacy Online Subscription ($15)

• Other subscriptions ($10)

Without the contributions of families, the school would only be able to purchase simple resources that allow the delivery of free instruction.  This would essentially be a pencil and a piece of paper for each lesson. This would greatly impact the quantity and quality of classroom and specialist consumables/resources that each student use. It could also mean the cancellation of the excellent online subscriptions that we provide all students.  

We thank the community for making contributions that allow the school to offer such an engaging, diverse and empowering learning environment.  Without your contributions, our learning programs, grounds and school library would be vastly different and inferior to what we currently offer. 

Semester 2 Student Reports 

The Semester 2 Student Reports are available to download from Compass today. Just click on 'View Academic Reports' on your Compass home page to access them. 

Changes to School Structure and Teaching & Learning in 2025 

You would have all seen the letter published on Compass this week about changes that will take place at TPPS in 2025.  We encourage you to read the information attached and if you have any further questions, attend a Q&A session at Templestowe Park PS from 4:00 – 5:00pm on Monday 16th of December.

TPPS Annual Christmas Concert & Art Show – Wednesday, 18th December 

• Art Show 4:00 – 5:00pm

• Christmas Concert – 5:00 – 6:30pm 

Our Christmas Concert and Art Show is set to take place on Wednesday, 18th December. The night will kick off at 4:00pm with the Art Show in the main building corridor and the Christmas Concert will be held on the synthetic courts from 5:00pm.  All year levels will sing a Christmas carol and there may even be a special visitor from the North Pole!

All families are invited to bring a picnic dinner and enjoy the company of the school community before the concert begins at 5:00pm. 

We are looking forward to sharing a fun and festive night with you all!

Class Placements and Transition between Classes – Meet the Teacher Days

Our students will have the opportunity to meet their new teacher and classmates next week.  These sessions are vitally important to build initial relationships and to alleviate any worries that our students might have. Our teachers participated in two formal class handover meetings this week where important information about each student was shared. 

The two class transition sessions will take place at the following times:

• Monday, 16th December 11:50-12:40pm; and

• Wednesday, 18th December 11:50-12:40pm.

A great deal of care goes into the formation of classes.  Here is a link to the Class Formation Policy, outlining the process undertaken, to ensure we provide the best learning environment for all our students. 

https://www.templestoweparkps.vic.edu.au/source/BUILD/class_formation_policy_2024.pdf

We received a substantial amount of additional information from parents through the Class Placement Form for 2025.  Submission of this form did not guarantee the parent request, as multiple factors were used to make placement decisions, however the information was certainly considered. 

Starting in a new class can be challenging for some students and it is important that the school and parents help them with this transition.  Children take their cues from trusted adults and it is our job to set them up for success for the coming year.  We have provided some advice from Dr Judith Locke (clinical psychologist and former teacher) to assist parents whose children may be anxious about their new class. 

Tips for Parents of Anxious Students

• If your child is anxious about starting a new class with unfamiliar people, do listen to them talk about their fears, but normalise them (‘A lot of people feel worried about starting something new’), and then talk about their past strengths in facing tricky things and your confidence that they will cope with this challenge.

• When they come home from their first transition day, keep your questions broad, ‘How was it?’ not, ‘Did you make a friend today?’ or ‘Is Sam in your class?’ This won’t put unnecessary pressure on them or suggest things in which they should be disappointed.

• Keep your and your child’s expectations realistic. It is highly unlikely that they will form close friendships in the early days of a new school year, particularly in early primary. How often have you started a new job and come home from your first day to announce, ‘I made my new best friend today’?

• There are things you can say if your child is not in a class they want to be in:

1. Listen to them. Then reflect back what you hear. ‘You’re upset because some of your friends are not in your class. That is a completely understandable feeling’. Or ‘Sounds like you are upset because you didn’t get the teacher that you wanted.’

2. Then state the potential benefits of facing this challenge, i.e.: making extra, new friends; learning skills to make new acquaintances; being able to focus more on schoolwork in class than talking to their current best friend; and learning how to work with a different type of teacher than the one they had last year.

3. Maybe tell them a story about how you learned a lot from a teacher you had who was a bit tougher but taught you a lot, or a time you went somewhere where you didn’t know anyone but learnt how to get on in unfamiliar environments.

4. Let your child know they can still see their other friend/s at lunchtime or at playdates and parties.

Willow B – National Champion! 

Our students have had so many amazing achievements this year and we been informed of another.  Willow (Grade 4) recently travelled up to Sydney  for the CheerCon Best of the Best National Championships and came away as a national champion!  

In 2024, Willow moved up to the Under 13 age category and has continued to excel in her dance. In late 2023, she achieved the highest overall score for her ballet grade and was subsequently accepted into the Victoria Youth State Ballet. With this company, she has performed in productions such as ‘The Little Mermaid’ and most recently ‘The Nutcracker’ at prestigious venues like The Palais Theatre and Melbourne Town Hall. 

Competing for The Edge Performers School, Willow claimed the State Championship title back in August and then two weeks ago she flew to Sydney to compete at Nationals, where she claimed two gold and two silver medals and a silver grand champion (2nd highest overall score for all age groups) in lyrical!

Congratulations, Willow!  We are so proud of your achievements. 

Thank You - Helpers Morning Tea: Monday, 16th December: 10:15am

Our Helpers Morning Tea will take place on Monday, 16th December at 10:15am in the School Hall. This Morning Tea provides us with the opportunity to thank you, our community, for the invaluable assistance you have provided to us throughout the year in the classroom, on excursions and camps, with the PFA events, helping covering books, as classroom representatives and in so many other ways. 

An invitation was sent to all helpers last week and we look forward to seeing you all on Monday morning. 

Farewell to Departing Families from TPPS

We would like to wish a very fond farewell to all our parents and families who will be departing Templestowe Park PS at the end of 2024. We wish you all the very best for the years ahead and I thank you for the contributions you made to our learning community.

Goodbye and best wishes to the following families:

Agostino, Alekna, Argyropouos, Bhat, Bonola, Carpenter, Carvalho-Webster, Charalambous, Crema, Damchev, De Klerk, Doherty, Dyring, Eid, Enger, Fazzari, Guo, Godwin, Jawish, Jeffrey, Kalaichelvan, Kallitsas, Khorram, Killackey, Kouthouridou, Leong, Lim, Liu, Lopez, Lotfi, Loukas Malik, McModie, Monitto, Nicholson, Ng, Nguyen, Pedram, Petidis, Poisson, Quinlan, Radovic, Reilly, Sadrforati, Shemshedin, Singh, Taylor, Torihi, Trajanovski, Vellios, Wong, Young-Healy

Have a wonderful and safe holiday break!

Mark Roberts                       Brian Cleary                                        Robyn Twyford 

PRINCIPAL                           ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL                  ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL