Tamworth West Public School

Party Day

Teachers have organised a fun filled day of activities for each stages’ party day on Wednesday 13 December. Please ensure you read all information carefully and have returned permission notes to assist our staff with organisation. 

Moving Day

There will be significant changes to where classes are located in 2024 which means that on Thursday (14/12), and possibly part of Friday (15/12) we will be moving classrooms. If you normally wait at your child’s classroom in the afternoon or are looking for their teacher on Thursday afternoon, you could possibly find them in the following locations:

Kindergarten will be remaining in the same rooms

Stage 1 will be relocating to H Block, rooms 18/19/20/22

Stage 2 will be relocating to C Block rooms 11/12/13/14

Stage 3 will be found in Rooms 15/16/3/4. 

3-6L will be moving back to room 10

Last day of Term 4 is Friday 15 December 2023 

As we near the end of the year, I want to thank you for your ongoing support and confirm that the last day of Term 4 classes will be Friday 15 December 2023.

As we draw close to the end of our school year we would like to highlight some of the wonderful cultural activities that have taken place throughout the year.

We have continued to include weekly Gamilaraay Language lessons for all students across our school. It is wonderful to see our students showing understanding and responding to language not only in the classroom but also in the playground.

We observed Sorry Day and celebrated Reconciliation week within class activities and stories.

Our NAIDOC week events were a great success with students involved with lots of cultural activities throughout the week. Our assembly that saw a great number of our students participate in cultural dances, and many of our community members joined us for this celebration.

Our Indigenous students have engaged in weaving for the girls with Shakayla Spearim and our boys in Didgeridoo lessons and practise with Lachlan Power and Mr Taylor.

Our staff continued their learning around Culture, participating in workshops and training provided by Tamworth West staff and the Tamworth Educational office.

Term 4 saw our whole school and community invited to participate in a Cultural excursion to Trelawney Station. Everyone was involved in Aboriginal art, Indigenous games, Traditional dance as well as sampling bush tucker and listening to Uncle Lenny Waters share his Aboriginal stories and knowledge.

We officially opened our Yarning Circle. Uncle Lenny Waters preformed a smoking ceremony and welcomed everyone to country. It was fantastic to share this celebration with our community.

Thanks for an amazing year. We look forward to sharing many more great experiences with you in 2024.

Yaluu

Upcoming Events

• Wednesday 6 December: Christmas Carols from 5:30 - 7.00pm on the school grounds. We will have music, games, sausage sizzle and maybe a visit from the man himself, Santa Claus.

Make sure to bring some spare change to have some fun. EFTPOS will be available for drinks and sausages. We would love to thank the following businesses that have come on board to help us with donations: Teys, Bakers Delight and Woolworths Shopping World. 

• Monday 4 December: P&C Dinner - 6pm at the Calala Inn. Please RSVP if attending.

• Monday 12 February 2024:  P&C AGM in the staff room at 5:30pm

We wish everyone a wonderful holiday and a Merry Christmas!

Emily Crompton

Secretary - Tamworth West Public School P&C

Canteen Menu [Download]

Tamworth West Public School is a Positive Bevahiour for Learning (PBL) school. PBL is a whole school program that encourages positive behaviour and allows students to become responsible for their own actions. Students and teachers work together to create a positive learning environment within our school using consistent procedures, language and expectations.

We have three expectations that underpin teaching and learning at Tamworth West Public School.

These are:

RESPECT

RESILIENCE

RESPONSIBILITY

We encourage students to uphold these expectations to a high standard. Our PBL motto is:

EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE, EVERY TIME

Positive Rewards

We have a school wide behaviour system that recognises and encourages positive behaviour. Students receive raffle tickets for displaying the correct behaviour. 

Weekly Lessons

Students participate in weekly school wide lessons that focus on a specific behaviour which is determined by data. There is a fortnightly focus area taught after each PBL assembly, for example, sportsmanship in games.

RESPECT

• We keep our areas tidy

• We use our manners

• We speak nicely to others

• We keep our hands and feet to ourselves

RESILIENCE

• We accept our consequences

• We use also inclusive

• We seek help when needed

• We solve problems peacefully

RESPONSIBILITY

• We look after our things

• We wear our school uniform

• We are honest

• We stay in the right areas

Over the past month....

Kindergarten has been busy completing our units of work, assessment tasks for our reports and practising for our Presentation Day item. In Week 7, Kindergarten participated in the school’s Rainbow Day. It was a fantastic day playing under sprinklers and getting soaking wet. Thank you to the Wellbeing Team for organising a wonderful day for our students. All your efforts were greatly appreciated in Kinder!

Letters to Santa

Kindergarten has been busy drafting and publishing letters to Santa Claus. These have been posted and we now waiting patiently for Santa to reply.  Keep checking your mailboxes at home for a letter from Santa, which hopefully arrives early this month.  

Class Party Day

We are very excited about our upcoming party day at the cinema. We are walking to the cinema to watch ‘Trolls Band Together” while munching on popcorn. When we return to school, we will have a relaxing afternoon completing Christmas craft. If your child wishes to participate, please return your note and payment as soon as possible. 

I want to take this opportunity to thank our wonderful Kinder families for your support this year and wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a relaxing break with your families.  

Mrs Wilson, Miss May & Mrs Cox

We have almost finished Year 1!  WOW!

Party Day

We are super excited for our PARTY DAY at the movies. Please return notes and money as soon as possible. 

Thank you everyone for an amazing year. Year 1 have had an incredible journey of learning and growth. It’s been our absolute pleasure sharing the year with your beautiful children. 

Wishing you all the best for the holidays - enjoy the break 😊  Exciting times ahead for next year moving into year 2 😊

Ms Deaves & Miss Dwyer

It is difficult to believe the term is almost at an end. It seems to have flown by and students have been busy completing units before the end of the year. 

English 

Students have been learning about different perspectives. They have learnt to present an argument with supporting evidence to convince others to understand their perspective.

Mathematics 

Students enjoyed working on word problems involving multiplication. They learnt how to identify the main ideas and how to represent the problems in several ways on their whiteboards and in their workbooks.

History 

Students studied a local legend, Fredrick Ward, otherwise known as the bushranger Captain Thunderbolt. Captain Thunderbolt was known to have spent time in and around Tamworth during his years on the run from police.

Rainbow Day  

Students really enjoyed the activities provided for Rainbow Day. Fortunately, the rain held off, although it probably would not have mattered if it did rain as almost every student, and plenty of staff, were saturated at the end of the day. 

West Factor 

Year 2 have really embraced the opportunity to rehearse and audition for West Factor. Students’ participation has ranged from solo to group acts, and involve singing and dance. One group even composed their own song and music! Good luck to all in the auditions.

Some of the activities for last two weeks include:

• Presentation Day rehearsals

• Presentation Day

• Year 6 Farewell Assembly

• P & C Christmas Carols

• Movie day – please bring in notes and money.

• West Factor

• Craft activities

• Clean up classroom and send books home – could students please bring in 2 sturdy bags to carry work home.

Mrs Harris & Miss Pollock

Presentation Day Performances 

This term in preparation for our Presentation Day, students have been working in their year levels to learn their performance piece. Watch out for us on Presentation Day!  

Upcoming Events

• Carols by candlelight: Wednesday 6th December (more information to come)

• Presentation Day Rehearsal: Thursday 7th December 

• Presentation Day: Friday 8th December – Please return permission notes as soon as possible

• Year 6 Graduation: Monday 11th December

• Class Party (Movies): Wednesday 13th December 

• Last day of school: Friday 15th December

As always, thanks to our families for the fabulous support they have given our staff this year. Mrs Lyon, Miss Firth-Panetta, Miss Rivenell and I are so proud to have taught such a great group of students and we wish our students the best next year!

Thank you also to our fabulous team of Mrs Lyon, Miss Firth-Panetta, Miss Rivenell who have made a difference in the education and lives of our students.

We wish you a safe and happy holiday break.

Felicity Bagshaw

Stage 2 Assistant Principal

High School Transitions

We have had a busy end to the term with lots of taster and transition days for our Year 6 students going off to high school next year. Our Year 5 students were also lucky enough to attend a taster day at Peel High School to get the high school experience also. 

Korean Zooms

5/6W and 5/6D had their final zoom sessions with their Korean buddy schools and it was great to see that students get so engaged in learning about school culture in a different country. Their buddy classes also sent little gifts over and we mailed some back in return.

Christmas Carols

Stage 3 are currently very busy preparing for the upcoming P&C Christmas Carols next week. We have had lots of excited students happy to help run the stalls for the evening and are looking forward to celebrating with the TWPS community Please make sure you remember your gold coins for lots of exciting activities such as face painting, games, a BBQ and slushies! Staff will not be supervising children during this time. Teachers are supporting the event by running stores.

Upcoming Year 6 Celebrations

Tuesday December 5: Please remember our Year 6 students have their formal at the Jockey Club next Tuesday. We cannot wait to celebrate in style with the students. 

Monday December 11: Our Year 6 parents are invited to help us celebrate their children at the Year 6 Graduation Assembly at 12:30. We hope to see you there! 

Stage 3 Party Day

On Wednesday 13 December, we are looking forward to celebrating with our students at our Stage 3 Party Day. The students are very excited to be participating in water fun activities at school followed by a pizza party for lunch. Please ensure notes and money is returned to the front office by Wednesday 6 December.

We thank you for your ongoing support throughout the year.  We have absolutely LOVED teaching your children and watching them grow throughout the year.

We wish our departing Year 6 students all the best as they start their journey into high school in 2024, we will miss you all! We look forward to having our current Year 5s back as our school leaders next year for a wonderful year in Year 6.

Have a Merry Christmas and a wonderful holiday break. See you all in 2024!

Mrs Nuske, Mrs Milton, Mr Willis, Miss Deaves & Mr Edstein-Boyes.

Stage 3

We started it off with the Trelawney Station Cultural excursion, all the students and parents enjoyed these trips. It was a wonderful experience and a great way to begin the term! 

Our Year 5 and 6 students have participated in different high school transition days which will help make their transition to high school easier. This has been accompanied by discussions and activities in our classroom to help ease some worries around the upcoming transition and build excitement around the positives. Some of our Year 6 students went to the ‘Stand Tall’ event which they found of value.

Students and staff had a great ‘Water Fun’ day. Students across the school enjoyed this activity as part of the Rainbow Day Reward for student behaviour. We thank our Wellbeing Team for their amazing efforts in organising this fun day.

As the school year comes to an end, we are all looking forward to the Year 6 Formal, it’s a very happy time for our Year 6 students as well as a bit of sad time as we say goodbye and wish them well for their future at High School.

We are now focussing on preparing for Presentation Day and working on different dance and musical items with our mainstream peers. It's always an exciting way to finish off a wonderful year, and we are all looking forward to it. Our students are also looking forward to their end of year class parties which will be held in Week 10, where they can relax and enjoy a Christmas movie with a popper and popcorn and then a pizza for lunch! 

Chris Lyon                           Kylie Taber                     Linda McEnerny

3-6L                                     3-6T                                     K-4M

Junior Basketball Competition

It has been another successful season for the Tamworth West teams who play each Thursday in the Tamworth Basketball Junior Competition. Committing to our weekly Monday trainings has certainly helped the development of all our teams. Four of our five teams made the semi finals in their respective grades and 3 of these teams made the Grand Final. We are very proud of all our teams achievements this year. 

Our 3/4 Girls Spirit battled away in the A grade girls comp, often with only 4 players. Thank you to Bronte Rankmore for coaching this team and helping them improve throughout the year. 

The 3/4 Boys Sun team finished 2nd in A Grade but were unable to grab a spot in the Grand final after consecutive losses in the semis. This group was coached by Cooper Holzigal who did a tremendous job. 

Our 5/6 Girls Fire managed to secure a place in the 5/6 Girls B Grade Grand final. They had plenty of chances in a low scoring game and only narrowly lost 13 points to 10 against Westdale.

In the 5/6 Boys C Grade, the West Thunder successfully won both of their semi-finals to make the Grand final. In an exciting game the boys were pipped at the post by a point against St Edwards. Kane Buttler helped the boys improve throughout the year. 

Finally, our 5/6 Boys Heat team also managed to get into the Grand Final. They had to play their arch nemesis, Timbumburi, who have been the standout team all year. Unfortunately, the boys were beaten convincingly but proved to be the second-best team in the A division for a reason. 

A big thank you to all our coaches and also the parents who volunteered for bench duties for our teams each week. We wish all our Year 6 students all the best in their Basketball Journeys and hope they continue to play for their High Schools next year. 

We look forward to the 2024 season and getting some new players to continue the strong basketball culture at Tamworth West. 

Jonathan Willis

Sports Coordinator