What a big fortnight at TPS

We have had some extremely cold, frosty mornings lately and then beautiful days to follow. There does seem to be a touch of spring in the air which is nice to see.

Attitude to School Data

Our year 4-6 students take part in the annual Attitude to School Survey. This survey provides student voice to a range of different areas within our school. Our data is always extremely encouraging, and we unpack our data further with small groups of students to gain a deeper understanding and plan for future improvement.

Some of the excellent data says:

Effective teaching - 81%

Differentiated learning - 81%

High Expectations - 92%

Sense of Inclusion - 81%

Advocate at school - 85%

Peer Relationships - 81%

Some of the areas that we continually keep looking for improvement in, is our school values and classroom organisation.

Athletics

Our Grade 3-6 Waranga Athletics Sports are next Friday, August 15th at Kyabram P-12 College. 

This is always a great day, with lots of outstanding results. If any parents can assist on this day, please speak to Mrs Young or through the office.

AFL Auskick/Superkick program

AFL Victoria are running a 5 week Auskick/Superkick program from Tuesday, August 20th. This is a great opportunity for our students who love football and are keen to keep practising their skills.

AFL Victoria is also running their Superkick program for students who are above Auskick age, and is a more game based program.

Community Programs

We continue to provide our students with wonderful opportunities to engage in our local and wider community. 

Our Boys to the Bush have visited Moama on the Murray, Pyramid Hill, Cohuna, Gunbower and Rich River Golf Club to take part in community based tasks.

The Senior Citizens birthday lunch attracted 40 people, and was catered by our Parents and Friends, with our students serving meals and cleaning up.

We keep supporting our friends at GTS  each Thursday, by providing a group of 4 workers to assist in the store.

Our Grade 2 Aged Care visits are going from strength to strength, and is a highlight of the week for both the students and particularly the residents.

Finally, Mrs Pearce took our Ronny and Friends Adventure leaders to Echuca to gain some ideas on how to make this great program even better.

NAPLAN

NAPLAN results are back and will be sent out to families very shortly. Again, it is hard to draw trends from the data due to the ongoing changes and inconsistencies with the testing process.

NAPLAN is now based around proficiencies and it is very pleasing to see that the work we have been doing in Numeracy is paying dividends. Literacy still requires greater focus, and the move towards a more phonics based approach will hopefully see improved results, especially around our Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation.

As I always state, our NAPLAN data is one form of assessment that is used to define a student or schools strengths and weaknesses and should be viewed this way.

Book Week

Book Week starts on August 19th, and runs for that week.

On Monday, our annual book parade will be held here at school from 9am. Our students (and teachers) love to dress up on this day and have a lot of fun.

On Wednesday, Linda from the local library will be here to run sessions with our students.

Finally, on Friday the whole school is heading over to St.Pats to take part in a special Book Week performance.

Regional Netball

Our Netball team, brilliantly coached by Meg, competed in the Regional Netball yesterday in Swan Hill. 

Playing against much bigger schools, our girls won all of their pool matches to progress to the semi finals. Unfortunately, they lost in this game, but finished 3rd overall, which is amazing.

Again, these girls were fantastic representatives for our school, and we are very proud of their achievements.

Parking around the school

It is a timely reminder about safely parking around our school. The drive through pick up and drop off is a great way to quickly start or end the day.  When in the queue, please simply wait for the line to start moving, which only takes a minute or 2 and follow this around. We have seen some cars at the back of the line reversing and exiting through the entry gates at the staff car park. This is dangerous and could cause an accident, so please simply be patient in this instance.

If parking and walking your child to class, please park in Purdey or Pankhurst street, or past the entry gate on Miller street. Buses and people using the crossing have spoken about lack of visibility when cars are parked between the bus zone and Pankhurst street.

Also, please refrain from parking on the opposite side of Miller street, as we have had some neighbours mention cars have been blocking their driveways and bins at times.

Thank you for your co-operation with this.

Camps

Our camps program is fast approaching with the following camps all locked in.

Grade 2 Pioneer Settlement - September 2/3

Grade 5/6 Urban Camp - October 16-18

Grade 3/4 Murray Life Adventures - November 20-22

All notes have been sent out via Compass, giving plenty of time for deposits to be paid and existing camp amounts to be paid off.

Please note the $50 non-refundable deposit for our Grade 3/4 and 5/6 camp is due by Thursday 15th August. 

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Rob