Acting Principal's Message

Dear Parents and Carers,

 Welcome to Term 4!  I hope you all enjoyed the holiday break and had some quality family time together. 

This term will no doubt be a fantastic, with a great many events to look forward to e.g. camps, new foundation 2024 transition sessions, sport gala days, Maths Family night, open afternoon, community coffee cart, Carols and Songs of Celebration, Year 6 Graduation, whole school disco, excursions, incursions, orientation to 2024 classes, community coffee cart, etc

We have had a great start to the term with the students quickly settling back into our school routines. We have had a few new students join the school and it has been wonderful to see our current students showing them around, articulating our school values, and welcoming them with a positive attitude. 

Last term we welcomed a local gardener onto our site, and he has been busily attending to the school grounds. We thank the parents who made contributions to the Garden maintenance fund, as it is with this money that this is possible. 

A reminder that on the 6th of November, a whole school Professional Practice Day for staff will be held, which is pupil free day for our school.  Professional Practice Days are for teachers to undertake professional learning/training to improve their practice. In 2023, there will be two professional practice days (one whole school day and another individual day.

The work undertaken by teachers on professional practice days must be consistent with Departmental and school priorities and selected from the following areas:

• planning
• preparation
• assessment of student learning
• collaboration
• curriculum development
• relevant professional development
• peer observation including feedback and reflection

The difference between a ‘professional practice day’ (PPD) and a ‘curriculum day (both being pupil-free) is that the Professional Practice day agenda is driven by the teachers as they identify specific areas to refine their practice, whereas the Curriculum Day agenda is derived from the school’s Annual Implementation Plan to address areas as identified from student achievement data. 

Time in Lieu- We all know that teachers work many hours over and above their scheduled working week, but, over time, we have held an increasing number of school events after hours for the convenience of our working parents. For example, parent information nights, parent-teacher interviews, school productions, Carols and Songs of Celebration, Graduation, Soirees, etc. With the current State Government School Agreement, schools now have two options when planning extra-curricular events: they either re-arrange the events to occur within the teachers’ working hours (between 8:45 and 4:45 pm) or the teacher must be given ‘time in lieu’. 

At TPS, our preference, so that time is not taken away from teachers being in their class (time in lieu means a casual relief teacher would be taking the class instead) so we are looking at how we might reorganize school events to minimize the requirement for time in lieu. For example, our staff will all be attending the school production, if required, or an Art Show; however, our consultative committee will be reviewing how time is compensated in ways that minimize any impacts to our students. 

 We thank-you in advance for your support with Time in Lieu and the timing of school events as we continue to navigate this space with staff and our community. 

Please review our dates, further in the newsletter, so that we see you at key events. 

Yes, it’s certainly going to be an action-packed and fun-filled term.

Kind regards,

Sharon Wildermuth

Acting Principal