"the latest"

THANK YOU!

We have to start this update with a big 'thank you' to all the staff who worked tirelessly during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Your efforts in terms of the learning and wellbeing of the the younger members of the THS community were noticed and greatly appreciated.

We also recognise that these efforts did not stop when the lockdown stopped.

On behalf of the parents of the THS community, thank you!

To thank the SASS, Staff, Teachers & SLSO's we organised some gifts, morning teas and notes of thanks - all were well recieved with a big thank you back to the parents!!

We would also like to take the opportunity to say an big thank you to Melissa Sharman for her dedication to the members of the THS community over the last 5 years - her care and work in transformation of learning has had big impact and will do so into the future!

We are running a welcome day for all new students on Saturday 4th December, 2021 - including uniform fittings, how to use the canteen and student opportunites to work in the canteen - carried out in small group training sessions.

To help with this we have produced an orientation handbook, covering the canteen and the uniform.

improve.ths

A managed process for community improvement and access to P&C program funding.

We have now consolidated all requests for P&C support into a single process, starting with an online form submission. The process is supported by our General Manager and is forming part of the transformation of the Student Leadership Group - as they get more deeply involved in self-managing their learning environment.

Anyone within the THS community who wants to drive an improvement in regards to one of our programs can submit an application.

It starts @ improve.ths.community...

Graduation Support

We will once again be supporting the Year 12 Graduation, which is scheduled for Friday 3^rd December. All food, including the Graduation Cake and Cupcakes, will be produced in the canteen, and our canteen team, led by our Canteen Manager and Head Chef, Oksun Seo, will also be organising and setting up decorations again.

Photos from last year’s graduation are included below.

The 2nd Vice-President role and "Other Executive" positions are currently vacant and the Social Events support group needs to re-built again, as we want to get going again with events in 2022, after two years of hibination!

If you can help with these positions please email pandcpresident@ths.community.

Having started the year with the hope of a greater return to normality, 2021 ended up throwing us even more challenges than 2020. However the experiences of the previous lockdowns and restrictions meant we were better prepared to meet those challenges this time around.

Terms 1 and 2 see a large number of Year 7 students join the team off the back of the information sessions run in January, and things were building nicely as we moved into the second half of the year – and then we lost a term and a half to lockdown! We have once again been impressed by how quickly our student team slotted straight back into their roles in the smooth running of the canteen upon their return in Term 4.

Term 4 commenced with online orders only for all students. After a successful first week of being able to keep a reasonable level of cohort separation, we were soon able to reintroduce over the counter for Years 11 and 12. Some highlights of the year include:

Completed our 2 yearly menu check to maintain our Healthy Canteen certification.

Mitigating the financial impact of lockdown by accessing the JobSaver Program, allowing us to run at a small surplus for the year.

Successfully securing a $25,000 grant for new equipment purchases via the Community Building Partnership Program.

canteen@ths.community

2021 saw the departure of our fantastic uniform shop manager, Kylie Southwell. Kylie did an amazing job over the last few years, streamlining our arrangements with our suppliers, and overseeing the addition of a number of new garments resulting from the 2019 Uniform Survey.

On Kylie’s departure, we took the opportunity to review how our Uniform Shop was operating, with the goal of integrating the operations under the existing Canteen student team. Some of the outcomes of this include:

Uniform pickups, ordering and exchanges were moved from the old Uniform Shop to a designated area near the Canteen.

Uniforms can be picked up, ordered and exchanged during morning, recess and lunch, every day of school term – if the Canteen is open, the Uniform Shop is open.

This has in turn created more storage space within the old Uniform Shop, allowing us to increase our stock levels, and minimise incidences of garments being out of stock.

All over the counter orders and exchanges are being processed by our student team.

All orders are being packed by our student team.

Following the bedding down of processes over the first term of transition, almost no queueing is required.

2021 also threw up some significant challenges. As well as our local lockdowns and the restrictions under which schools re-opened, our key supplier had a factory shutdown of over 2 months as a result of COVID restrictions, along with restricted operating hours for a longer period – while we were a couple of months ahead in ordering this year, our deliveries will be later than usual as a result of these delays. However we still have stock of most items due to our larger inventory levels, so impact to date has been minimal. We hope to be fully stocked before school returns in 2022, and we are hoping for a much smoother year ahead!

uniformshop@ths.community

Library Collaboration Space

The design for the refresh of this collaboration space has been completed; it will enable the specialist content areas within the THS community to work together.

Next steps for construction are underway.

more ...

2021 – Here we go again!!

Despite the interruptions that occurred during 2020 we were again able to run 3 concert bands and 2 stage bands in 2021. It was fabulous to see all the bands back together in person again.

We started the year with a really successful band retreat held at the school. The end of term 1 concert for families and friends was a great success and the band members enjoyed being able to play to an audience again.

We were able to get out in the local community with one of the stage bands playing at the Rotary tree planting ceremony in Turramurra.

In May we recorded all bands for the Sydney Eisteddfod, well done to concert band 1 and stage band 1 for their highly commended award.

Plans were well underway for a NSW regional band tour, unfortunately, covid got the better of us once again and this tour is now postponed until 2022.

Band rehearsals went back to being online in term 3. We were able to organize a virtual solo event with a high number of students participating. In term 4 the band has been working on a virtual performance of 2 songs and we hope to share those with the community shortly.

There are many people to thank, our conductor Jeff Barnsley, who has led the band through this difficult period with online rehearsals. Jeff has continued to try and foster a feeling of community while we have been online. Rose Foster has done an excellent job in keeping our improvisation students engaged with weekly zoom classes and backing tracks for students to improvise along to.

We would like to thank the members of the committee for their support over this difficult year.

Thanks to David Arblaster, Doug Sham and Belinda Farr-Jones for their support this year for the band program. Also thank you to Mark Byers (P&C President) and Simon De Rosa (P&C General Manager) for their help in this very challenging year.

We are looking forward to brighter days ahead for the band program in 2022!

Jane & Jane, bsgpresident@ths.community

We are still very keen to work on building up the social events within the THS Community, but obviously the impact of COVID-19 has put a hold on this.

We will start to refocus on this in 2022... so if you want to get involved in building the framework and structures for social events in the future, please let us know.

Financials & Operation

2021 has been about continuing the investment in the THS learning community, via the improve.ths process, which is now being actively adopted across the THS community.

Generally we continue with a healthy financial position, with funds in the bank, parent contributions and funds from our community-run businesses (Canteen and Uniform Shop) and some tax-payer funded contributions from our state government.

With the new General Manager role now responsible for the operations of the community-run businesses (including compliance and HR), the support groups are re-shaping to be advisory/mentoring focused; leveraging the parent expertise within the THS community to best support an authentic student-lead community

Budget for 2022