Dear Parents & Guardians
Year 12 students
The Year 12’s are into their final few weeks of High School. Completing their final assignments and assessments, competencies for their Certificates and with final school ATAR exams Week 1, Term 4. The Valedictory evening is being held on Friday 23rd October at 6.30pm at the Recreation Centre.
Senior School Ball – thank you to the P&C for organising, catering, setting up and running with staff the Senior School Ball, held at the Clem Thomson Hall. The venue and the students were outstanding.
OLNA (Online Literacy and Numeracy Assessment)
Year 9 students have completed their OLNA exams, due to the cancellation of NAPLAN testing this year this term. The passing of all OLNA components meets one of the WACE (Western Australian Certificate of Education) requirement for students.
Where required, Year 10, 11 and 12 students have their next OLNA tests during Week 7 this term. We wish them all the best.
Year 10 selection process
Thank you to the parents and staff who attended the Year 10 Information Evening on Wednesday 19th August. Senior School Manager Jesslyn Devenyns gave an informative presentation on Senior Schooling, the WACE and the individual course selection process for Year 10 students and parents that commenced Wednesday 26th August.
HaSS and Design & Technology Teacher challenges
Unfortunately, we have had great difficulty this year to secure our final HaSS teaching position. This has required a number of teachers to take these classes to date, which is not ideal. We continue however, to work closely with the Department of Education in securing a teacher and wherever possible continuity of that teacher.
Similarly, we have recently lost Mr Andrew McMillan, one of our Design & Technology teachers to another school. We have advertised to fill the position unsuccessfully and have filled the position temporarily with another teacher who is not D&T trained – there is a shortage of D&T teachers across the state. We will be advertising again this term.
Athletics Carnival
It was fabulous to have so many parents helping and cheering on their children at the Tom Price SHS Athletics Carnival held on Friday 21st August at Clem Thompson oval. The students were amazing, participated with great spirit and some long-held records broken as well. Thanks to the school community for their amazing efforts – students, staff, parents, guardians and police!
Careers Expo
Our Career Expo is on again this year – Tuesday 15th September in the Gymnasium.
Fogarty EDvance Masterclass
Staff from all three Tom Price schools participated in the first of five workshops of the Teach Well Masterclass program on the 10th August. A key group of staff from all three schools will be continuing with the program over the next few months, with key Teach Well messages below;
Our Approach
- To provide teachers and school leaders with life-long learning opportunities that are rich, real-world experiences with follow-on support, enabling high impact practices in every classroom.
- To support teachers and leaders to be more confident and able to improve student learning as a result of these opportunities.
- To empower deep and broad connects between teachers and school leaders across the system.
- To provide opportunities for all teachers and leaders to respond to new insights into effective teaching.
- To bridge the gap from theory and evidence to practice at the classroom and school level.
Our Values
- Students come first. Our work with teachers and leaders must support all students to learn better.
- How teachers teach matters. We believe this is true both for the way we should work with teachers and leaders and for the students in their classrooms and schools.
- What teachers teach matters. We believe the content and curriculum of what we teach are just as important as how we teach, both for the learning of the teachers and leaders we work with and for how they approach the learning of their students.
- How school leaders lead matters. School leaders have the unique ability to align the work of teachers and staff to the needs of their students. When school leaders lead differently, teachers can work differently too.
- Life-long learning is for all. We seek to always learn from the teachers and leaders we work with and we believe in empowering all teachers and leaders to continue to adapt, learn and grow throughout their entire career.
Kind regards,
Andrew Jack
Principal