Welcome to the Taradale Primary School Parents and Friends Page

TPS stall at the Mineral Springs Festival

A huge thanks to everyone who helped with the stall at the Mineral Springs Festival! We made just over $2200! Fantastic effort from everyone and the stall looked amazing! It was great to see so many families contributing, it makes it so easy when there are lots of us doing it together, and it was a really fun community day.

Harmony Day

This week is Harmony Week, a week to celebrate Australia's cultural diversity and to promote inclusiveness, respect and a sense of belonging for all Australians. Friday this week (21st) is Harmony Day. Kids, parents and carers can wear orange or rainbow colours for the day to celebrate the theme 'Everyone belongs'. No pressure, just an invitation. If we can we'll have some face painting at the gate - TBC

Library

Work continues on setting up the library. Frances would love some extra help cleaning books - please pop in for 10 or 15 mins at drop off or pick up if you can and have a look at the list on the wall for jobs to do.

School chickens

In the past we have had a mix of heritage breed hens as our school flock. Unfortunately we lost them to a fox attack last year after several years of keeping them successfully but we are ready to try again and will make sure that we've got enough safeguards to prevent a future fox from getting to them. We've decided that this time around we will rescue 6-8 ex-battery hens so that we can rehabilitate them and give them a good life at school. It will be a great way to teach the kids about animal welfare and the kids will be able to see their recovery (they are often in very poor condition straight out of a cage egg facility) and watch them discover the joy of sun, grass, foraging and being chooks again. Typically after their stint as commercial layers they would be sent to the abattoir but we are going to register to be involved in their rescue instead. There might be the opportunity for parents to adopt some hens at the same time - we will post more details about that closer to the time.

Just to recap:

In order to commit to getting them again we need a group of parents/carers to sign up to be part of the chook group and we'll need to fill a roster with one person per day to check the chickens at pick up time. We'll also need a working bee prior to getting the hens to make sure that everything is ready for them and double check the fox-proofing in the hen house. Plus a roster each school hols to ensure that they get fed and watered. We've got a WhatsApp group that people can join if they are interested in being part of the chook group. By joining the group you are not committing to anything but can be part of the planning and discussion and can put your hand up for chook duties if you are able to help out: TPS Chook Group. Thanks!

Freezer for the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Programme

One of the things that fundraised money from last year is being used on is an upright freezer for the cooking classes. We are harvesting so much produce and the freezer will allow Chris and the kids to make the most of the bounty and preserve it for cooking all year round. Once we have the freezer installed Chris would love to make some big-batch passata so there might be a call out for parent helpers for this at some stage. Cooking classes happen on a Monday and Chris would love some extra parent helpers any time, so if you are interested let Chris know.

Weekly :

Breakfast club: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday *Still looking for volunteers to run Monday and Tuesday please!

Garden Club: Friday 8:45 - 9:30

*Breakfast club has GF options just so you know:)

Bulb Fundraiser

The bulb fundraiser will be live until the 11th of April, so there's lots of time to spread the word and get your orders in: http://www.bulbfundraiser.com.au/TARADALE

If anyone can put flyers up in local businesses or noticeboards let Chris know and he can print them for you - help with this would be amazing!

We use this page to update our community about the Parents and Friends Group activities and how you can be involved.

All parents and carers at the school and friends (community members) are welcome to join the group.

In collaboration with the school, fundraising events will support areas at the school including:

home readers
library books
games and quiet activities for students during break times
small appliances for the SAKG kitchen classes
coffee machine for the Breakfast Club volunteers
new marquee for fundraisers
garden beautification
playground toys

Community updates