Tamworth West Public School

COVID Update

I sent out a COVID update on Sunday afternoon in line with departmental changes. In a nutshell, the updated settings include:

From Monday 28 February, we moved to symptomatic testing. Tests are to be used at your discretion such as if your child is symptomatic or there are cases in their class. Our school will provide each student and staff members with additional tests. Beyond that, students and staff can access PCR tests or buy their own rapid antigen tests as these are now freely available and accessible in the community.

Masks will continue to be required indoors for all school staff, volunteers and visitors including parents and carers in primary schools until Friday 4 March. From Monday 7 March, masks will no longer be mandatory for all staff. However, those who wish to continue to use them will be supported to do so.

From Monday 28 February, visitors can be allowed back on school sites regardless of their vaccination status. We are currently reviewing our organisation and arrangements and we will update you when we have new plans in place. We ask that everyone continues with our current routines at this stage so that we have time to communicate new routines before we change them.

As of Monday 28 February, students are no longer be required to be kept in year groups or other cohorts. As a result, we will no longer be staggering start and finish times. Staff will continue to accompany students to exit points as we have been throughout the start of the year, but this will not happen until the bell rings at 3:25 pm.

Our school will continue to ensure our layered COVID-smart measures are in place, including vaccinations, maximising natural ventilation in learning spaces, continued good hand hygiene practices and enhanced cleaning.

Information Evening & BBQ

With restrictions in place due to COVID, we were not be able to host a 'Welcome BBQ & Information Sessions’ this term. We have, however, tried to ensure that communications have remained open and regular between school and home. Each class or stage issues information newsletters throughout each term, all stages provide a monthly update through our school newsletter, many teachers are communicating via mobile phone and some are using Seesaw.

Under the guidance of Mrs Sharp, we are in the process of recording some digital information updates for all stages and our student leaders will be commencing weekly broadcasts to remind families of upcoming events.

If all this fails, please make sure you contact our friendly front office or your classroom teacher if there is something you are unsure of.

Life Education Van

Due to COVID guidelines, the Life Education Van, that was supposed to be here in Week 5 and 6 of this term, has been postponed until later in the year.

Student Wellbeing

At Tamworth West Public School we make a daily commitment to supporting and improving student wellbeing. Our Wellbeing Team meet once a fortnight to plan initiatives and analyse data that support the wellbeing of our students. The team are currently focussed on the following areas:

· Student attendance

· The Resilience Project

· The Opportunity Hub wellness program and girls group

· Student leadership teams

Throughout 2022, we will be working closely with The Resilience Project to support the wellbeing of our school community.

The Resilience Project delivers emotionally engaging programs and provides evidence-based, practical strategies to build resilience.

Our Partnership Program consists of online presentations and weekly lessons for students, professional development for staff, and a Parent & Carer Hub (inc. digital presentations) for our parent and carer community.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing the Parent & Carer Hub with you. The videos are 5-10 minutes long and will walk through the key pillars of resilience: Gratitude, Empathy & Mindfulness. You’ll hear stories and be introduced to activities to show how these strategies can support our kids' learning and development, and also support you as parents and carers.

This program is an important part of our school’s effort to look after the mental health of our community.

In this presentation, Hugh shares a personal experience about his sister's battles with mental illness.

Note: This video contains a story about an eating disorder that may be triggering. Please consider this before watching. For mental health resources and support information, visit The Resilience Project’s Support Page.

We will be in touch fortnightly to share the remainder of the program, including research and wellbeing activities to integrate into day to day life.

Part 1: Meet Hugh and learn about The Resilience Project - https://theresilienceproject.com.au/parent-and-carer-hub-hugh/

There will be a parent webinar on 5 March. More information to follow.

Hi everyone and welcome to 2022. I hope you and all of your children are settling in to the new school year. Welcome to all of our new parents and children. I just know that 2022 is going to be a better year for us all with COVID restrictions lifting.

The P&C have a very exciting year ahead. With normality coming back we can again hold our Easter raffle, Easter bun drive, Mother's and Father's Day stalls and throw in a few fundraisers - with one being our very popular cookie dough fundraiser.

Our Easter raffle will be our first event and tickets will go home with children in Week 8. As tradition continues we are asking for donations from our families for this. This can be in the way of Easter eggs, Easter craft or anything 'Eastery'. Due to current COVID restrictions, with parents not allowed on site, donations can be sent in with the students to hand in to their class teacher. These will be accepted up until 1 April. The raffle will be drawn at the Easter Hat parade on 7 April.

Our new school hat has proven very popular and we sold out in the first hour of our first day back. We now have new stock in and these are available to purchase from the office for $15.

Our AGM will be held on Monday, 14 March at 5.30pm in the staffroom and it would be wonderful to see some new faces at this. Two of our long-term committee members will not be standing for election as their children are now in high school, so we need some new faces and ideas. One of those committee members is me and I would just like to say a huge thank you and goodbye to all whose paths have crossed with mine over the years. I have loved my time at Tamworth West and will miss the staff and community immensely.

Stage 1 students have hit the ground running! We have been looking at how unique we are in appearance and personality. Friendships and personality traits of friends have been compared to our favourite characters in the books we are reading with students using adjectives and noun groups to describe.

Wow! What a great start to the 2022 school year!

We have certainly hit the road running and although COVID has had an impact on our classrooms and students' attendance, we are looking forward to another great year ahead. We have a new addition to our Stage 2 team this year, although most of our students already know her through her previous work at our school. Miss Deaves (also known to students as Miss Nat) is teaching Year 4. It’s my pleasure to be working with such collaborative and enthusiastic team members. They are:

Miss Kayla May – 4M

Miss Natalie Deaves 4D

Mrs Courtney Lyon – 3L

Miss Felicity Bagshaw 3B (Relieving Stage 2 Assistant Principal)

This term we have been learning about narrative structures, but in particular the endings of narratives. Students are working out the purpose of different endings including heartfelt, humourous, surprising, cliffhanger or narratives ending with a moral. We are enjoying listening and reading stories with different endings and discussing the purpose of them.

Over the past four weeks, students across all the Stage 2 classes have been placed into 4 different groups that are then used to rotate around different activities. This includes sporting activities on a Thursday where students are given the opportunity to learn new skills and games with different teachers. Students are enjoying a variety of games and the overall participation has been excellent. These 4 groups have also been used for CAPA (Creative arts) groups on a Friday afternoon where again students are taught different skills and techniques to produce a variety of artworks and medium. We have also welcomed 6 students from 3-6W and 1-4M to come and join us for sport and Health as part of their integration.

Stage 2 saw some students attend the school swimming carnival a few weeks ago. It was great to see the number of students who joined in numerous swimming events across the day. Well done to those students!

We are looking forward to upcoming events including Easter Hat parade and ANZAC assembly later in this term.

-Felicity Bagshaw

Stage 3 wrap up

We have had a quiet but settled start to the year and our Stage 3 students should be enormously proud of how they have adapted to the ever-changing COVID restrictions. Many classes experienced high absence rates but demonstrated exceptional flexibility in being able to adapt to changes in staff and routines. We thank families for their continued support of keeping unwell children at home, assisting with home learning when isolation is required and keeping effective communication between home and school.

This year we expanded our Stage 3 teaching team to include Mrs V and Nova. Nova has quickly established herself as a popular edition to not only 5/6V but the entire school. We are fortunate to have such an experienced therapy dog working in our school with her beloved owner, Mrs V.

Year 6 Shirts

We are currently working on the exciting task of ordering our Year 6 shirts for this year. Orders for the shirts are due back on Wednesda,y 16 March and this will mean that we hope to see the shirts at the start of next term so our Year 6 students can get lots of wear out of them. The shirts are permitted to be worn each Friday for sports day.

Until next Month...

-Thanks from the Stage 3 staff

1-4M has had a great start to the year. This term in English we have been learning about descriptive writing. Students have been using text based around lighthouses to explore this area. We have enjoyed listening to and reading the Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch, the Lighthouse Keeper’s Cat and Hello Lighthouse and exploring new vocabulary to make their character descriptions more interesting. We have also had fun research interesting facts about lighthouse. Mr Ward from 3-6W, who is a bit of a lighthouse expert has helped us with this and shown us some of his beautiful books on the topic. Students have also created some pretty amazing lighthouse art work.

Our Stage 2 students are now enjoying some sport activities on Thursday with the rest of Stage 2 and are in a group with their peers that rotates around different sporting activities. This provides them with the opportunity to learn new skills and games with different teachers. The students are enjoying the variety of games and their participation has been excellent. Stage 1 students have also had the opportunity to work with Mrs O’Connor on a Tuesday as part of their five teacher day and they have been practising their cricket skills.

This term in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) we have completed some interesting challenges. As a class activity we created a pretty spectacular marble run. Students had to work out different sizes and slopes for each part the cardboard marble run track, and then the teachers glued them onto the main structure in accordance with the student’s instructions. In week 5, we completed our ‘Build a Bridge Challenge’. The students could work in pairs or independently to produce a bridge. Each bridge held up well under our traffic test as students use different sized cars to test the strength of their bridge. Our Construction Fridays have been a great success and we look forward to our next one!

Linda McEnerny

Class Teacher

Welcome back to 2022:

Welcome to the first newsletter for 2022. All students have returned to school with a ‘can do’ attitude this year. Goals have been set, heads are down and classrooms are buzzing with learning activities. It is great to see students are settled back into daily routines and enjoying the excitement of a new school year.

Welcome Ms Paulston:

More good news… The 5-6D classroom and the Support Unit welcomes Ms Kelly Paulston to our team. Ms Paulston is a familiar face at Tamworth West PS. and we are delighted to have her join us.

Friendship and Belonging:

All three support classes have Friendship and Belonging as a focus this term for English and PDH units of work. This theme is a great framework to support students as they navigate the start of the year after the long holiday break.

Mathematics:

All students in the support classes continue to work diligently during mathematics. Number Patterns, solving word problems, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, length and time have been some areas of maths focus during the last few weeks for students. Some students have also completed a number of STEM challenges during maths activities.

Each student is demonstrating improved resilience when working on new concepts and are developing positive skills when work co-operatively and collaboratively during maths activities.

Visual Arts:

Visual Arts has a couple of strands this term. Links are made with both the English unit and the seasonal themes of summer and autumn.

Important Events:

Come and Try Athletics Day- 17 March 2022 (Note home this week)

Parent-Teacher meetings to discuss Personalised Learning and Support Plans – Week 10

Pip Diss

Assistant Principal (Special Ed)

We are off to a flying start in 2022 with all our teaching and learning programs in full swing! Our teaching staff are thoroughly enjoying getting to know their new students and identifying how to best cater for the learning needs of each individual.

Kindergarten teachers have been completing the Kindergarten Best Start Assessments over the past 5 weeks. The teachers will be analysing the data from these assessments, along with class-based assessments and classroom observations to plan and implement effective learning programs where students can build their knowledge and skills across Literacy and Numeracy.

Our Collaborative Planning Sessions are up and running. During these times, teachers meet as a stage with their Assistant Principal Curriculum and Instruction to analyse and discuss data, moderate work samples, collaboratively plan future units of work, formulate assessments and engage in professional learning. As a result of participating in these sessions, teachers are able to develop a shared understanding of what is being taught and learn from the experiences of others.

All of the staff here at TWPS are looking forward to seeing each student grow and learn throughout 2022.

-Jordana Cooper

Horse Sports

We do have a TWPS Equestrian team. Any TWPS student from age 8-13 years is invited to be part of our fabulously enthusiastic team. Riders are expected to be able to walk, trot and canter independently.

You will need to have your own horse, tack and transport. Parents are required to support their child throughout the day and will be responsible for transporting horses to and from events. At all inter school competitions, riders undergo ridden assessments before they can compete. All tack is safety checked according to PCA guidelines and horse welfare is considered.

We are keen to expand our team. Two events have already been published this year. Willow Tree Horse Sports is Friday 16 September and ISHE is October 14-17 and as COVID restrictions ease, we hope more events will be advertised.

If you are a capable and enthusiastic horse rider, please email Mrs Milton. Kirrily.milton@det.nsw.edu.au

Tamworth Zone Swimming Carnival

Our best swimmers attended the Zone Swimming Carnival at Scully Park Swimming Pool on Friday 18 February 2022. Eva Wrigley, Naite Syron, Mya Kelly, Miranda Wrigley, Sienna Mulligan, Jessie Sandison-Welch, Bryson Gross and Mackenzie Kelly participated in a variety of events and this team were able to achieve some exceptional results, with numerous students finishing in the top 4 which puts them through to the Regional Carnival.

Bryson Gross came 4^th overall in the 12 years 50m Freestyle and 1^st in the Senior 50m Backstroke.

Mackenzie Kelly was first in the 100m Open Freestyle, 1^st 12 Years 50m Freestyle, 1^st in the Senior Girls Backstroke and 2^nd in the Senior Girls Breaststroke and 4^th in the 4 x 50m Individual Medley.

Our Senior Girls Relay team, consisting of Jessie Sandison-Welch, Sienna Mulligan, Mya Kelly and Mackenzie Kelly finished 2^nd overall.

A special mention to Mackenzie Kelly, whose amazing results on the day helped her achieve the Senior Girls Age Champion of the Carnival.

Congratulations to all our swimmers on your fantastic efforts on the day. Mrs Sheedy attended the carnival with the students and was extremely impressed with how well behaved and supportive of each other the kids were. We would also like to thank the parents who assisted with timekeeping on the day. Your help was greatly appreciated.

Tamworth Zone PSSA Trials

On Wednesday 23 February, Jake Cross-Felstead, Holly Roberts and Kelsie Jenner attended the Zone Touch Trials at the Gipps Street Playing Fields. Kelsie Jenner was successful in being named in the Girls Zone team and will now attend the Regional Touch Trials in March. Congratulations, Kelsie!

Ruby Endacott attended the Tamworth Zone Tennis Trials last Friday, 25 February. Ruby competed against other Year 5 and 6 students in a selection tournament. Ruby won 4 of her 6 games and has been invited to attend the Regional Trials next week. Well done, Ruby!