About Us
Principal’s Welcome
On behalf of all staff and school council it gives me great pleasure in welcoming you to Templestowe Heights Primary School. I am extremely proud and honoured to be Principal of such an exciting and thriving school community.
Templestowe Heights Primary School’s vision is ‘inspiring learners for life’. We value the importance of continual growth as learners for all members of our community; students, staff, parents and guardians. All staff have a shared goal of wanting to make a positive difference (social, emotional and academic) to every child under their care.
Our vision is supported by our mission statement of “the quality of the programs we offer will never be better than the quality of the teachers that deliver them”. Our mission is to ensure our teachers are continually developing their skills, knowledge and understandings that will enable them to provide high quality learning opportunities and learning experiences for all students at Templestowe Heights Primary.
2023 saw the completion of construction of a brand new, state of the art Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Mathematics (STEAM) building as well as the renovation of a new library, toilet block and shared meeting spaces. This is all part of a $13.1 million grant from the state government in recognition of our projected growth in our student population for the coming years.
Our teaching and learning spaces are flexible and all have interactive whiteboards, desktop and netbook computers, iPads and a dedicated bring your own device iPad program for Year 5/6 students. An indoor basketball stadium, school chickens, community garden, two outdoor adventure playgrounds, a synthetic outdoor basketball court and bat tennis area, a multi-purpose room and a passive play area all occupy our spacious grounds.
Our students are motivated learners and we are fortunate to have supportive, committed families that are active participants in their child’s learning journey. We pride ourselves on being a collaborative learning community and we both encourage and provide opportunities to strengthen the home-school partnership.
Students at Templestowe Heights Primary School participate in a wide range of inclusive and engaging curriculum, sporting and recreational programs. The Performing and Visual Arts program is a strong feature of our school environment, which includes ballroom dancing (culminating in a School Ball), School Production and an Art Community Show.
Students have the opportunity of being part of the Junior School Council, Sustainability group, School Choir, camps program, inter-school sport, chess club, after school art classes, and the instrumental music program. Students also participate in Italian lessons with a dedicated Italian language teacher. We have a strong whole-school focus on student wellbeing that includes a cyber-safety program and the Positive Education framework.
We welcome visitors to Templestowe Heights Primary School and have a comprehensive Pre-school to Prep transition program to meet your child’s needs. I encourage you to call to book a group or personal school tour on 9850 1796 to learn more about our wonderful school.
I look forward to meeting you personally.
Rhys Coulson
Principal
School Profile
Templestowe Heights Primary School
As of February 2024, we have 492 students enrolled amongst 23 straight grade classes. While our numbers are growing, we will never be a large Primary School, and for that reason one of the best aspects of our wonderful school is our strong and proud sense of a community.
We are proud to have committed staff who have established an environment conducive to the social, emotional and intellectual development of each child. An importance is placed on the partnership between school and home, fostered by parents and carers given opportunities to be actively involved through many different ways.
Students are provided with a wide range of challenging activities within the eight Key Learning Areas, with particular emphasis being placed upon the development of literacy and numeracy. Extra curricular activities are offered with the Performing Arts, Italian, Visual Art, STEM and physical and sport education. Dedicated enrichment and intervention teachers provide additional opportunities for students to support their learning point of need.
An excellent physical environment has been developed which provides great scope for extending the academic, recreational and sporting skills of students. Community support has supplemented the provision of teaching equipment and general facilities.
Our facilities include
- Well appointed and well equipped air conditioned classrooms
- Multi purpose room
- ICT equipped classrooms that include an interactive TV’s, desktop and notebook computers
- Modern Library
- New Science, Technology, engineering, Arts & Mathermatics (STEAM) centre
- Full sized gymnasium used for netball, basketball, volleyball and other indoor sporting activities which are components of the physical and sport education program.(This facility is used by the school during the day and by the local community during the evening and the weekends)
- Four adventure playgrounds
- A well maintained oval
- Synthetic grass areas marked out for basketball, bat tennis, rounders and volleyball
- Out of School Hours Care Program
- Passive play middle yard
- Canteen (online booking for busy families)
- Community Garden and School Chickens
Our Teaching and Learning Approach
Introduction
Templestowe Heights Primary is aligned with the Science of Learning, following the research and insights about how we acquire knowledge effectively and efficiently. Knowing the conditions in which learning can be most successful, helps teachers better meet the needs of their students. We draw on education, linguistics, psychology, neuroscience and cognitive sciences to further our understanding of the mechanics of learning and how we can optimally teach. We design sequences of learning where all students can experience success.
We crawl before we walk and we walk before we run. Similarly with language acquisition (or the development of any complex skills), we need to understand the single sounds of our alphabet before we can decode other words or understand what a complete sentence should be before we write a paragraph. The teaching of mathematics is grounded through the mastery of key skills and knowledge of number sense that allows students to apply across other disciplines of mathematics. For example, when we know how to calculate numbers using the four operations, we can apply this to measure objects or understand statistics.
Our Teaching and Learning Model
![Picture1](https://templestowehts.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Picture1.png)
At THPS we implement an adaptive and responsive teaching model (Glaser, 1977; Snow, 1980). At the centre of our responsive teaching model is our tier 1 curriculum and instruction. It aims to provide all students access to a high-quality, classroom instruction tied to a guaranteed and viable curriculum.
We unpack the concepts, skills and knowledge we want students to acquire into small chunks and scaffold through high quality talk, questioning, checking for understanding and modelling. Our teaching and learning model allows us to target a single learning objective with extensive modelling, practice and feedback, followed by small or individual support and additional practice for those that need it.
Rosenshine’s (2012) ten principles guide our planning and delivering of the curriculum from the macro (our syllabus) to the micro (individual lessons).
Our Curriculum
![Learning Areas](https://templestowehts.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/learning-areas.webp)
Our curriculum is aligned to the achievement standards of the Victorian Curriculum’s (v 2.0) 8 Learning Areas and 4 Capabilities. We have a non-negotiable curriculum of 10 hours of literacy (reading, writing and speaking & listening) and 5 hours of mathematics each week.
Through our Core Knowledge Curriculum, we investigate and question big ideas that integrate all learning areas and capabilities (including concepts such as Social Justice and Identity). This innovative curriculum aims at providing all students with sequential understandings of foundational knowledge necessary to thrive as a citizen in the real world.
In addition, all students participate in our specialist program, where they have lessons with a separate teacher for Physical Education, Italian, STEM, Visual Arts, Library and Performing Arts (music and drama).
Our extra-curricular lunch time program caters for student-interests and are inclusive. Each term our dedicated teachers (as well as some outside providers) run these lunch time or after school activities to offer students an opportunity to try or further their interests in structured activities. These include robotics, Lego, choir, remote control cars, gardening, dance, basketball, soccer, running, music, art, singing and chess.
All our lessons are sequenced and break down the concepts, skills, knowledge and key competencies from the Victorian Curriculum that we expect our students to master. We now understand that in order for anyone to learn a new skill or concept and commit it to their long term memory that it requires multiple exposures and retrievals. For that reason, we regularly return and review skills and concepts that students have already been introduced to.
For example, we know when introducing the five times table or the long ‘e’ sound, we can’t simply ‘teach it’ for one week and assume the students will be able to retrieve that knowledge later on in the year. We need to regularly return to this skill or concept, over spaced time intervals to embed the learning. Hermann Ebbinghaus’ (see below) Forgetting Curve research helps us to better understand the theory that sits behind the evidence that has been replicated, empirically, ever since by cognitive scientists.
Our teaching approach ensures we regularly return to the key skills, knowledge and understandings that we want our students to learn and master.
English Curriculum
Our English curriculum follows Scarborough’s (2001) Reading Rope framework. We move from learning to read (Foundation-2) to reading to learn (yr 3-6). Students are exposed to and build a solid foundational knowledge of phonetics, phonics, syntax, morphology and writing composition. We introduce students at Year 3 to rich literature, utilising Doug Lemov’s (2016) framework of the five plagues of the developing reader. The systematic, sequenced teaching of writing is centred on the Hochman Method (Hochman, 2009), progressing students from sentence level to composition writing. Our core and general knowledge curriculum provides students with necessary background knowledge to enable them to form deeper understandings of the content and topics they are taught. We break down the various components of language acquisition and sequentially teach:
- Phonemic awareness (F-2)
- Phonological awareness (F-2)
- Core Knowledge
- Writing
- Syntax
- Handwriting (F-3)
- Morphology
- Literature (3-6)
![Picture7](https://templestowehts.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Picture7.png)
Mathematics
Number sense and automaticity are to maths, what phonics and fluency are to reading. Students are exposed to and build solid foundational understandings of whole numbers, place value, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The strong foundational understandings then allow students to transfer their competencies to solve unseen mathematical problems, interpret data and use units of measurement. Mathematical mastery of these key skills and concepts play a vital role in allowing students to be confident, capable and efficacious learners.
Intervention Tier 2 and 3 Curriculum
The tier 2 curriculum is designed to build the skills necessary for students to be able to access our tier 1 curriculum. Our literacy (phonologically-based) and numeracy (maths-mastery) intervention programs are explicit, instructional and evidence-informed. The mathematical enrichment program identifies students in years 3-6 that have mastery of the expected mathematical skills of the tier 1 curriculum to further deepen their knowledge through a more self-directed, inquiry-focused approach. Tier 2 programs are small-group in structure.
Our tier 3 support resources are intensive, 1:1 by nature. They are designed for students requiring significant additional support to enable them to access more of our tier 1 curriculum.
![Picture6](https://templestowehts.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Picture6.png)
Vision & Values
Vision
Templestowe Heights Primary School provides an inclusive and collaborative learning environment for students, staff and families, that promotes high expectations for lifelong learners, embracing and contributing to local and global communities.
Values
Templestowe Heights Primary School operates under the following school values:
- Respect – We value people, property and the environment
- Persistence – We always try our best and never give up until we have achieved it
- Courage – We continue to take up the challenge of learning even when things get hard
- Responsibility – We accept responsibility for our own learning and behaviour and can be relied on to do the right thing
These values are fundamental to the culture of Templestowe Heights Primary School and are the underpinning principles for all school-based activity and decision-making. They provide a framework and whole school language for the development of all relationships within the school – students, teachers, parents and the community.
These values will be prominently displayed in all classrooms and throughout all areas of the school and constantly referred to in all aspects of school life.
The ‘Start Up’ program at the start of the year focuses on introducing the values and related concepts to all children from Prep to Year 6.
Our weekly ‘High Flyer’ Awards presented at our Friday School Assembly promote our school values.
Student Wellbeing
Click on the tab to view our wellbeing curriculum in action.
Student Leadership
At Templestowe Heights Primary School we offer all students the opportunity to become leaders. Students are provided with many leadership positions to develop their leadership skills.
The School Captains are selected by both the school students and the staff. The school highly recognizes the value of elected our School Captains who are able to model the preferred leadership attributes and values of the school for other students. School Captains develop an agenda and run our weekly Monday School Assembly and also represent the school at various ceremonies and occasions.
Each grade elects a representative per semester to be on the Junior School Council. They meet regularly to discuss issues related to school. The 2 School Captains help to conduct the meetings and co-ordinate all minutes, letters, agendas, etc.
Environmental leader’s positions are also held for a semester with each grade selecting one representative. These children meet fortnightly to continue to enhance our position as a sustainable school. They plan and implement ground improvements and monitor our levels of waste and energy usage.
2 Art leaders are selected from children from grade 6. These children are involved in the planning and development of our Art Show, actively participate in our Little Picassos program and help to select and award the weekly Art Award at our weekly Monday School Assembly.
Additionally, students in grade 6 can be nominated and subsequently elected to House Captain and Vice House Captain positions. There are four Houses at the school used for House sports, athletics and swimming, and School activities.
- Blue Bradman
- Gold Cuthbert
- Green Goolagong
- Red Newcombe
The follow are the leaders at Templestowe Heights Primary School for 2024, future leaders of the community and beyond.
School Captains – Juliette 6CS, Stefan 6CS
House Captains and Vice Captains
Bradman – Pranav 6KS & Maya 6KS
Cuthbert – Zev 6CS & Isabella 6CS
Goolagong – Azlaan 6CA & Samara 6CA
Newcombe – Frankie 6CS & Emersyn 6CS
Junior School Councilors
FEV Sophie, FJR Catherine, FKD Ellie, FRH Theodore, FSM William,
1AS Charlotte, 1PC Max, 1RR Elijah, 1SJ Vanya,
2EZ Luis, 2NS Dion, 2SC Alisha,
3EJ Ben, 3JA Jayden , 3MR Kit,
4BG Alba, 4RR Arlo, 4SM Ariana,
5BW Isis, 5KW Shalok, 5LS Lheveenaa,
Environmental Captains – Jamie 6KS and Leo 6KS
Environmental Leaders
FEV Olivia, FJR Jeremy, FKD Imogen, FRH Cassie FSM Teddy
1AS Andrew, 1PC Ethan, 1RR Emerick, 1SJ Klara
2EZ Oscar, 2NS Belle, 2SC Erin,
3EJ Madison, 3JA Cecilia, 3MR Lachlan,
4BG Milana, 4RR Ollie, 4SM Susanna,
5BW Annabelle, 5KW Tilly, 5LS Arya,
Art Captains – Ian 6KS and Sienna 6KS
STEM Captains – Kyle 6CS and Rafferty 6KS
Library Captains – Faith 6KS and Inca 6CS
Policies
Administration Of Medication Policy
Child Safety Responding And Reporting Policy And Procedures
Digital Technologies Policy 2022 2024
Gifts Benefits Hospitality Policy
Inclusion And Diversity Policy
Mobile Phones And Wearable Technology Policy
Photographing Filming And Recording Students Policy
Privacy Collection Notice Information
Procurement Procedure Document
Statement Of Values And School Philosophy Policy Final
Contact Us
276 – 300 High Street, Templestowe Lower, VIC, 3107
Tel: (03) 9850 1796