Student Wellbeing

With students returning from lockdown, our teachers have been closely monitoring their transition back to school, with a particular focus on their wellbeing & connectedness. I’m delighted to report for the vast majority of students, the transition back to school has been quite smooth. In ongoing support of student wellbeing across the school however, our teachers are endeavouring to build a weekly wellbeing focus into their teaching programs to specifically broaden the strategies that students can use to positively support their emotions and decision-making. Our Wellbeing Planners at each year level, carefully integrate programs such as our School Wide Positive Behaviours, Respectful Relationships, Cybersafety and Social Thinking. This explicit focus on student wellbeing each week across the school, is indeed crucial at present to ensure our students feel safe and well supported at school. Ultimately, we understand that the implementation of these ongoing structures, will lead to better learning outcomes for all students. Please be assured that this will continue to be a strong focus for the school throughout the remainder of 2021 and we look forward to partnering with parents & careers in these endeavours.

Parent/Carer Conferences

Thanks A huge thank you to the vast majority of TPS parents & carers who booked a TEAMS conference last week. Whilst we understand the conferences were more limited in scope & time, we do sincerely hope that you were able to clarify any queries from the mid-year student reports, as well as get a sense of the some of the emerging goals for your child/ren over the remainder of 2021. I would like to once again thank our hard working teachers for facilitating these conferences so soon after returning from the recent lockdown period.

Interim Arrangements

We have been deeply appreciative of the support from the school community in regards to the interim arrangements that are in place, stemming from the current operational guidelines from the Department of Education & Training (DET). As soon as new advice is received from DET on this matter, we will of course try to provide as much timely notice as possible for parents & carers via a separate Compass newsfeed. We thank all parents & carers in anticipation of your patience on this matter.

Latest Update re: Lockdown

Yesterday the Victorian Government has announced a state-wide lockdown for Victoria to swiftly address the newly emerging COVID-19 cases and reduce movement in the community. 

The restrictions will be in place from 8pm tlast night for a seven-day period.

Following advice from the Victorian Chief Health Officer, all Victorian schools will move to remote and flexible learning until Thursday 12 August inclusive. 

Student attendance on site

As with other remote learning periods, our school will provide on-site supervision for students in the categories below:

* Children where both parents and/or carers are authorised workers who cannot work from home, work for an essential provider and where no other supervision arrangements can be made: 

o Where there are two parents/carers, both must be authorised workers, working outside the home in order for their children to be eligible for on-site provision

o For single parents/ carers, the authorised worker must be working outside the home in order for their children to be eligible for on-site provision.

* Children experiencing vulnerability, including: 

o children in out-of-home care

o children deemed vulnerable by a government agency, funded family or family violence service, and is assessed as requiring education and care outside the family home

o children identified by a school as vulnerable, including via referral from a government agency, or funded family or family violence service, homeless or youth justice service or mental health or other health service.

o Where a parent/carer indicates that a student with a disability is vulnerable because they cannot learn from home, and/or informs the school the student is vulnerable due to family stress, the school must provide on-site supervision for that student. This may apply to students enrolled in specialist schools and students with a disability enrolled in mainstream schools.

If your child needs on-site supervision, could you please fill out the on-site attendance form (same as last time) and return to us. (Please see COMPASS for form)

Outside School Hours Care

The same arrangements apply to our Outside School Hours Care (OHSC) service.

For more information, refer to learning from home information for parents.

Thank you for your continued support. I will keep you updated with information as it is made available. 

On Thursday 5^th August, 3/4C, 3/4H and 4/5P went on a local excursion to the Point Nepean National Park. During Term 2, the students studied ‘The Blue Marble’ where they learned all about how Earth is the only environment that we know of that can sustain life. Whilst at Point Nepean, the students learned about the history of Quarantine station by visiting the Information house, gun factory and hospital. After that, they took time to notice the natural aspects of the environment such as the local flora and fauna found at Point Nepean. They also noticed the erosion of the beach as they walked along the tracks to Gunner’s cottage and the cemetery. The students also practised thinking flexibly and empathically as they considered those who lived and were buried at Point Nepean. We all had a wonderful day and we were so proud of how well all students represented Tootgarook Primary School upholding our school values. A big thank you to Ms Hone for organising such a wonderful day.



Thank you to Bonnie for this great piece of writing about our excursion!

The students selected showed the characteristics of Focus, Effort, Respect, Commitment and Team Work .The clinics are designed to help the students develop greater confidence in their footy as well as making isure it is accessible to all ages, genders and locations.

The skills clinic is made up of 7 sessions and held at Sorrento.  The students receive an apparel kit and will participate in activities to further their football skills with some amazing coaches. 

Congratulations to you all!!!

The best gift any parent can give a child is the love of books and the joy and benefits of independent reading for fun. Children who read at home, or are read to, have a head start on reading success in school.

Our school continues to participate in Scholastic Book Club . Up to twice a term, during the school year, we will send home a Club catalogue with a different selection of books offered for all ages.

You’ll find award-winning books and bestsellers, as well as old and new favourites. 

It is easy to order. The Book Club LOOP platform for parents allows you to pay by credit card. Your child’s order is submitted directly to school safe and sound and the books will be delivered to class. You can place your child’s order at scholastic.com.au/LOOP or using the LOOP app, which can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play.

Owning your own books is something special! We hope that you will encourage your child to order books this year. Each order helps earn free books and teaching materials for our school, however there is never any obligation to order.