Hi,
I am very excited and proud to present the new School Strategic Plan (SSP) that will guide our school from 2015-2018.  It has been a long road designing this plan.  It all started with our community forums in late 2014 and the journey has included our school review, an Appreciative Inquiry summit with all staff and feedback sessions with students and staff.

At this time I would like you all to know that our aim is to make Templestowe Park PS the best primary school in Victoria.  This is a lofty ambition, I know, but we must develop an expectation and mindset that everything we do in our school, we do to the very best of our ability.  It will take a great deal of hard work and innovation from students, staff and the community to reach this goal. We must be joined as a true learning community. I have the highest expectations and we must maintain these standards and challenge each other to be the best that we can be!

Structure of the SSP
The Strategic plan is divided into four areas. They are:
- Student Achievement
- Engagement
- Wellbeing
- Productivity.
Within these areas we designate Key Implementation Strategies (KIS), Actions and Achievement Milestones. 

Philosophy behind the SSP
Our focus when designing the SSP was on preparing our students for the future. It is our very important job to ensure that our students have the academic skills to excel, the independent learning skills to be curious and successful learners, the ability to communicate effectively and to have a positive mindset to take on the numerous challenges that they will face in their formative and adult years.

We aim to prepare our students to be successful in all areas of their life and to be prosperous in whichever path they wish to take.  To be the best that they can be!

Student Achievement
Goal: To improve student learning growth in Literacy and Numeracy.
We are currently investigating the latest research into Literacy and Numeracy teaching to design a consistent best practice learning model from Prep/Foundation - Year 6.  A particular focus is on developing reading and writing strategies and the development of number knowledge. 

Engagement
Goal: To build an engaging, stimulating, authentic and rigorous learning environment that promotes student empowerment in the learning process.
Our aim is to develop the curiosity of our students so they are inquisative and self-directed learners.  This will be achieved through implementing an inquiry learning approach and greater student independence so they can research and investigate for themselves.  These are extremely valuable skills for their future learning and employment. It is our goal to make Templestowe Park PS a leading school for Science and Technology in the coming years. It has been well publicised in recent times the importance of these areas in future career paths.

Wellbeing
Goal: To enhance student wellbeing with practices that focus on empowering students and building life-long wellbeing and resilience.
A whole school focus on the RRIPO values and positive education are major elements of this goal.  We will build the capacity of our staff and community to implement programs that develop resilient, socially responsible and optimistic students. Developing these skills are essential for confident, balanced and successful adolescents and young adults.

Productivity
Goal 1: Improve communication within the school and broader community.
Goal 2: To enhance the leadership capacity across the staff.
We are aiming to to build a culture that communicates openly and innovatively with our school and wider community.  We are aiming to be a leader in the way we interact and communicate with the our community. You will see some significant changes in the next few months. Two of these changes are a whole school approach to blogging and the implementation of an electronic management systen that will provide families with their own portal to communicate with the school.

It is a priority of the school to develop our staff to build their leadership skills so they can be better educators and to have a significant impact when leading programs within the school.  We want to develop future leaders of TPPS and the wider educational community.

I hope that these summaries of the four areas of the SSP give you an insight into our future plans for our great school.  i have attached the 2015-2018 Templestowe Park PS Strategic Plan below so you are able to learn about our vision for our school.  We are very excited and more than prepared for the challenge ahead.  I hope that this plan brings our community together so we can be the best that we can be!

Sincerely,

Mark

Hi,

It has been a little while since my last blog. I hope this entry finds you well and looking forward to a relaxing weekend.

I have attached the 2014 Annual Report to the Community. This report outlines our school profile, our student performance and wellbeing outcomes, and our financial position.

As you read the report you will notice that we had an extremely successful year in 2014. Our student achievement clearly outperformed the median of all Victorian schools.  We have very high expectations of our students' academic achievement. When combined with our excellent teaching and learning programs it is easy to see why we are achieving within the top 10% of all primary schools in Victoria.

It is always important to continually improve and there are areas within this report that we are working upon.  This improvement strategy will be outlined in the upcoming School Strategic Plan that will be published in the coming weeks.  I look forward to working with the community to make TPPS the best that we can be!

Take care,

Mark

Hi,

I wanted to take the opportunity to explain the 'Appreciative Inquiry' that all staff at TPPS undertook today.  The purpose of the day was to create a foundation upon which TPPS can support students, staff and our school community to be the best that we can be. 

Paige Williams (psychologist and lecturer at Melbourne University) took us through a number of workshops that focussed on the following areas:

• Dream of what the best that we can be could look like at TPPS - for ourselves, our students and the wider school community.
• Design pathways to operationalise these hopes so we can move forward from today and begin making them a reality.
• Deliver clear commitments for which we are willing to be accountable to make this reality happen.

The day was a huge success and we established a vision for how we would like to operate as a staff, the learning environment we would like to create for our students and the way we would like to interact with our families and the wider community. These commitments will become a reality through the commitments that we made and the direction of our new strategic plan.  

The best way to explain what we covered today is through the collage we created through the day's activities. Please take a look below and be excited about the future prospects of our learning community.

Yours sincerely,

Mark

Today was one of the most magnificent and humbling days that I have had in my teaching career.  We celebrated Principal's Day at TPPS and I was completely overwhelmed with the beautiful messages and generous gifts I received from our students and the wider community.  It is at times like this that you realise what an important job that all teachers and educators have and the impact we can have on our students.  

In life we take so many things for granted.  But I always realise the impact that one comment can have or the difference that a little smile can make to a student.  I can still remember the little words of encouragement that I received from my Grade 3 teacher, Mr Kelly, or the supportive push that my Year 8 English teacher, Mrs Guilders, gave me.  These acts stay with us forever and have such a huge impression on young people. Everyday I try and have as many positive moments with our students as possible.  I know one of these interactions might just stay with a student for a lifetime. 

The messages I received today will go into my teaching scrapbook.  Sometimes schools can be such busy places, however, it is important on days like this to sit back and realise what a wonderful job it is to be the principal of such a fantastic school.

Out of the many generous gifts that I received today there is one that I would like to mention.  Jaymie spent five hours of her own time at home building a diorama of our school office.  It was an exact model, except that my desk was spotless. Mr Cleary and I both loved it and it is now displayed in the office foyer.  Thanks for such a thoughtful gift, Jaymie! 

Thank you to everyone in the TPPS community for Principal's Day!  

Yours sincerely 

Mark

Hi,

Last Wednesday we had a RRIPO afternoon.  As many of you are aware the RRIPO program is a cross-age peer mentoring program where students from Prep - Grade 6 get to spend time with students from across the school and their RRIPO teacher. The RRIPO program allows students to form relationships with other students from different year levels and one particular teacher. During these sessions we participate in fun and engaging discussions and activities where we learn about our school values and how we can work together to make Templestowe Park a safe and happy school.

This week our focus for RRIPO was being grateful for everything we have. Gratefulness is one of the essential elements to mental health and wellbeing.  There has been considerable research on how being grateful can lead to greater levels of wellbeing. During my recent studies I undertook a course in Positive Psychology.  One of the research papers I studied found that if you think about the things you are grateful for before you go to bed your sleep can significantly be improved.  I trialled this in my own life and found an immediate improvement.  I then started doing this with my four year old son. Before he goes to bed every night we share our favourite things that happened during the day and list what we are grateful for.  This has been one of the greatest things I have done with him.  It is so special to spend that close time with him talking about the amazing things that have happened and why we are so very lucky.  Almost every night we mention how grateful we are for our family.   

Another interesting exercise I undertook recently was to write a gratitude letter to someone who has had a significant impact on my life.  I wrote to the husband and wife who inspired me to follow a teaching career.  Writing that letter made me feel so amazing and thankful. When I received a response from this couple I saw what a significant impact it had on them and the joy that it brought to their life. This feeling lasted for days and I realised the impact that little things like this can have. I encourage you to try this as it can bring such joy to you and the recipient. I know I will be writing some more letters in the near future.

My RRIPO group decided to record what they are grateful for in a podcast.  I have attached it below and I encourage you to take a listen.  It makes me smile every time I hear it and I love hearing such young students articulate what they are grateful for. So I hope you can be grateful in April/May and tell someone what they mean to you.  We have a fantastic and caring community  and I am so grateful to be a part of Templestowe Park PS.

 Mr Roberts' RRIPO Group Grateful in April Podcast

Yours sincerely

Mr Roberts

Happy Education Week!

All week we will be celebrating Education Week.  The title of the week is ‘Crack the Code with Maths’. Our students will be participating in challenging and fun activities based around Mathematics. This will include the following activities:

·        Guess how many stars in the jar?  The students will need to use their very best estimation skills to guess the correct number.  A special prize will go to the class with closest guess!


·        Open Morning Tuesday 19th May 9:30 – 10:30am: For both prospective parents and our school community, this is a chance to take a look inside the classrooms while our students are busy learning. Our Grade 6 leaders will be leading tours for parents and visitors. Don't miss the unveiling of our Grade 6 Legacy project at 9:20am! It looks absolutely breathtaking!


·        Open Night Wednesday 20th May 6:00 – 8:00pm: Our Open Night is a wonderful celebration of the learning at TPPS. Our entire community is invited to come in and take a look inside all classrooms, participate in fun family maths activities, listen to our wonderful instrumental music students and experience what a fantastic learning community we have. Our Grade 6 leaders will also be available to take prospective parents on school tours.

  ·        RRIPO Wednesday afternoon: Our RRIPO peer mentoring groups will be meeting for a special afternoon this Wednesday.  I can’t wait to catch up with my RRIPO group!


·        Hands on Maths rotations: This Friday our Prep – Gr 2 students and Gr 4 – Gr 6 students will participate in exciting maths activities and games.  The students will rotate between classes and experience amazing Maths activates at each stop!


·         Scratch computer programming tool:  Our Grade 4-6 students will experiment with the coding tool.  With Scratch, you can program your own interactive stories, games, and animations — and share your creations with others in the online community. Check out the link below to learn more.

https://scratch.mit.edu/

It is going to be a huge celebration of learning at TPPS this week.  There is a clear reason why we are one of the highest achieving schools in Mathematics in Victoria.  Our challenging and engaging Mathematics program allows our students to achieve their very best.  This week is a wonderful celebration of our learning community and our exceptional achievements in teaching and learning.

I hope to see you all at our Open Night on Wednesday to share the excitement of learning with our entire community.

Happy Education Week!

Yours sincerely,

Mark

Hello and welcome to my first blog entry!

I am very excited to launch this communication platform for our community.  Within this blog I will discuss our school and wider educational initiatives, update you about what is happening at TPPS and offer my thoughts and comments on issues.

The blog will allow me to go into greater detail about our school and the philosophies behind our decisions and future direction. As you can understand I have limited space to expand on my entries in the school newsletter so this forum will provide you with far greater detail.

I look forward to communicating with you with my blog. 

Happy blogging!

Yours sincerely.

Mark