We are fast approaching the end of the year. Having past the Melbourne Cup Weekend, it is a usual occurrence in schools for everything to feel like it is in fast forward mode. I encourage you to take a moment in the ensuing chaos and reflect on what a wonderful year we have had in our second year here at Thornhill Park PS.
Transitions
Our Prep students have now experienced their third transition day and we must say that they have been an awesome group to get to know. Our Year 5/6 students have also been doing their own transition of sorts with a week of ‘High School’ in their own classes and some transition work with the Melton Council Youth team. We look forward to our last whole school transition on Tuesday 10th December where all of our students will get to meet their new teachers and spend a couple of hours in their new grades.
Pick up and drop off times
A reminder that before school supervision begins at 8.20am and after school supervision is until 3.20pm. Any students who are early will need to go to before school care and those after 3.30pm will need to be in after school care. Of course we are accommodating if it is not a regular incident and you contact the school to let us know of your whereabouts. It is also important to note that many people ignore phone calls from the school after hours in relation to picking up their children, which can make children anxious and make it difficult to work out how to get a child home. Most people are fabulous in this space and we thank you for your efforts in getting your child to school on time each day.
Attendance
I just wanted to highlight the wonderful improvement in attendance across the school. We now regularly have classes with numbers over 97% attendance each week, which is phenomenal and ensures students have the best chance of succeeding. Please continue to ensure your children are at school by 8.40am each morning to get the most out of their learning.
Curriculum Day
We will be having our last Curriculum Day for 2024 on Friday 6th December. The Department of Education is implementing new mandatory literacy programs and an updated literacy and numeracy curriculum in 2025 that we need to familiarise ourselves with and this is the time we have set aside to do it. Please contact Big Childcare to see if they will be running a program on the day.
Parent Opinion Survey Results
I would like to thank the over 70 people who completed this year’s Parent Survey. It gives us valuable information to help us improve our school. Two main factors we are particularly proud of are our Overall Satisfaction rating of 87% and children feeling safe at school at 99%. We use this data to try and make further improvements to the way we do things at Thornhill Park. We thank you all for your continued support to make this school the best it can be for your child and to service this community. We all have a part to play in its success.
Sorry for the delay in getting this out. Last week was a busy week.
Darryl Spiteri
Principal