Tamworth West Public School

Principal's Report

Welcome to our final Newsletter for term 3. As I write this it is a lovely 23 degrees outside, and it appears that Spring has sprung! Let’s hope it continues. We have a busy end of term with lots of events happening across the next 4 weeks. Please check the dates at the bottom of this message to ensure you don’t miss anything. 

Kindergarten 2025

Our transition sessions for students enrolling in kindergarten in 2025 will commence on Wednesday 11 September from 10am to 1pm. We are excited to meet our new students and start getting them ready for big school! Information has been sent to all families. If you are unsure of any details, please contact the administration office. 

Stage 3 CPR - Changes

We won’t be running the stage 3 CPR this year. This is due to both year 5 and 6 completing the training in 2023, meaning that the 2024 year 6 students have already participated. Moving forward CPR will be offered when students are in year 6.

NAPLAN

Parents of students in years 3 and 5 should now have received their child’s NAPLAN results. Our staff will be analysing the data from these assessments over the coming weeks to gain more insight into areas for further development. Overall, we are very pleased with our students’ achievements across these two year groups and are seeing the benefits of our focus on best practice in the classroom.

School Photos 

School Photo orders are online this year. Our photo days are September 4th and 5th. We have arranged the timetable to suit those students who are attending the Regional Athletics Carnival. Students are to wear full winter uniform. Times below are approximate.

Regional Athletics Carnival

This year we have 15 students representing us at the Regional Athletics Carnival. Congratulations to these students and we wish you all the very best on Wednesday. 

Upcoming Dates

Week 7

4 September - School Photos & Regional Athletics

5 September - School Photos

Week 8

8-13 September  - Wellbeing Week at TWPS

9 September - P&C meeting in the staffroom 5:30 pm

11 September - Kindergarten 2025 Transition

Week 9

16 September- Calala Cottage excursion Stage 2

18 September - Kindergarten 2025 Transition

20 September - Year 5 Forum 6 Movies excursion

Week 10

25 September - Kindergarten 2025 Transition

27 September - Last Day Term 3

Thank you once again for your continued support of our school. 

Sara Spinks

Relieving Principal

Attendance

Good attendance is crucial to student success, both academically and socially. Our priority is to investigate ongoing poor attendance, regular partial absences and any unexplained/unjustified absences. 

It is a legal requirement that absences are explained within 7 days. Parents/carers can do this in advance through School Bytes, responding to School Bytes notifications, sending an explanatory note with their child or calling the front office. Eliminating unnecessary absences will support your child to maximise their learning potential and develop positive social interactions with their peers.

Working on mindfulness gives us opportunities to develop our ability to pay attention to the present moment and our thoughts. Practising mindfulness daily can help us stay focused on set tasks and reduce stress and anxiety.

Whole Family Activity: Mindful Walk

• As a family, go on a walk outside in nature. This might be around your local walking track, at your local park, or just around your streets.

• While walking, tune into your senses and observe what you can see, hear, and feel. Or you might choose to focus on one of the senses. Eg: Hear: what are all the noises you can hear on your walk?

• On your way home or when you return home, share what each person saw, heard, or felt.

Family Habit Builder

Each night at dinner, ask everyone to take one mouthful of food more mindfully than the rest and think about the flavours they can taste and how it makes them feel. (They can also thank the chef!).

Wellbeing Week

Wellbeing week organisation is underway, and what a week it will be! The wellbeing team has put so much time and effort into making the week memorable for our students, helping them to further develop their resilience, gratitude, mindfulness and teamwork skills along the way.

Further details will be sent out explaining the week very soon. 

Thank you to everyone that supported the Father’s Day Stall last week. A special thank you to the dedicated volunteers who help run these events, we couldn’t do it without you.

Next Meeting

Our next meeting will be held Monday 9th September in the Staff Room. All are welcome.

Christmas Carols

Our final event for the year will be the Christmas Carols in December. If anyone has any ideas to contribute or can help on the night please let us know. We will put up posts on the Tamworth West P.S Parents & Carers Group Facebook Page closer to the time.

Yaama Maliyaa

Welcome to another great month celebrating our Indigenous culture at Tamworth West Public School. 

Last month, we celebrated Public Education Week at our school and were lucky to have our school choir sing as part of the entertainment. The students sang Stand By Me in both English and Gamilaraay. Mrs Spicer has informed me that it takes great skill to sing in language so a massive congratulations to those students.

Miss Courtney Stanton continues to work with our Yr6 First Nation girls and is upskilling them in Indigenous art. She has even bought in some of the completed works she has been doing as part of Year 11 Art at Oxley High. Soon you will start to see this art displayed around the school for both visitors, staff and students to see. Keep an eye out!

If you have any insights or thoughts, you would like to share in regards to the teaching of Indigenous culture within our school please feel free to contact myself or Cody through the front office.

-Courtney Lyon

AET Chairperson

PBL Focus

Through our PBL motto - EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE, EVERY TIME, we have focuses to encourage students to uphold our high expectations through all our behaviours at all times. 

Our next focus is Looking After Our Belongings. 

As the mornings are cool and the days are getting warmer – we are finding some clothing items being left around the playground. Our focus is to remember to take our belongings back to our bags when we return to our classrooms to keep them safe. 

Packing up our lunch boxes and drink bottles after eating times is important to keep our food out of the sun. 

Tamworth West Public School is a Positive Behaviour 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

Book Week

What a HUGE, amazing, fun week! It made my librarian heart very happy to see the students all participating in the Book Week Activities. Starting on Monday with Character Scavenger Hunts, Guess Who activities and Door Walks, it was amazing to see students running around guessing items and increasing their book knowledge (some teachers too!). Then we created an amazing concrete garden using chalk and the concrete on Wednesday and Thursday, which the students are still asking me if they can continue. The week culminated in the Book Week Parade and it was amazing to see so many fantastic costumes! I really hope all the parents who came enjoyed themselves as I know the students had an amazing time.

The Book Fair was very successful, raising approx. $1700.00 in rewards which will be spent on resources for the school. Thank you so much for everyone for supporting this fundraising event.

-Natalie Ward

We have had a busy and productive start to the term and are thrilled to share what the students have been up to.

Writing

In writing, our Kinder students have been exploring recipes and narratives. They’ve shown great creativity by writing their very own recipe for a blueberry and orange juice icy pole. The highlight, of course, was making and tasting these delicious treats! Through this activity, students are gaining confidence in writing sentences independently, using their growing knowledge of sounds and sentence structure. 

We’re also proud to share that the students have now mastered all their single sounds. They are now progressing to more complex sounds, which they encounter in our Decodable Reader Australia Books. 

Sport

Our sports sessions have been full of energy and excitement! The students have been working on their basketball skills and are now learning the basics of soccer. It’s wonderful to see their enthusiasm and teamwork in action. 

History

In history, we’ve been discussing the concept of families, exploring different types, and recognising that every family is unique. This has been a meaningful way for students to understand and appreciate the diversity within our community. Students have also enjoyed sharing stories about their families and their favourite activities to do together with their peers. 

Science

In science we have been learning about living and non-living things. Students explored the school looking for living and non-living things. They have learnt what living things need to survive and how to label their pictures when recording in their books. Students engaged in a science investigation to understand how flowers absorb water to stay alive. 

We are fortunate to be working with the new syllabus. The learning activities support student growth and interest. The lessons are diverse and allow students to utilise their background knowledge yet challenge them. It is fabulous to see increased student engagement and improvements in all KLAs.

Year 1 have worked to develop their fluency and prosody. They have also been creating complex sentences using subordinating conjunctions. The students have further developed their getting-along during lessons, they have worked as a whole class, in pairs, and independently.

They have been exploring smaller numbers inside larger numbers and identifying growing and shrinking patterns.  

A friendly reminder, please ensure your child is dressing appropriately for the increased hotter temperatures. Some students come to school in skivvies and singlets. These students are finding the playtime difficult as they are beginning to overheat in their additional layers of clothing. 

The weather may cool off again, but at the moment, we are enjoying unseasonably warm conditions. Also, school policy requires students to wear a hat to play in the sun. Whilst we provide shaded areas during play times for students with no hat, often our PE and Sport activities are in the sun. Please ensure your child attends school every day with a school hat. Hats are available to purchase for $15 (cash) at the office, or via the Flexi Schools app. 

 Thank you for your support.

-Kirrily Milton, Sam Deaves, Kathleen Harris, Jordan Pollock and Alex Hammond

Stage 1 Teachers

Dubbo Excursion 

Well, we survived!!! The students and staff shared an amazing time and had lots of new experiences. We visited Wellington Caves, Dubbo Zoo, Dubbo Gaol, The Royal Flying Doctor’s visitor centre and the Cultural Centre. We were provided with yummy breakfasts, lunch and dinner meals. It was great to see many students trying new foods and enjoying the time with their friends.

Homework

All Stage 2 classes have been given a science project to complete for the remainder of the term weeks 5-9. This project involves researching a planet and the details are available on Google Classroom. Some students have requested paper copies, and these have been sent home. Please contact your child’s teacher if you have any questions. The project is due in Week 9 of this term.

Education Week and Book Week

Congratulations to all of the students who received an award for Education Week. Our book week celebrations have included activities like GUESS WHO (which teacher is hiding behind the book) and seeing the DOOR displays that different classes have made. It was great to see the children dressed up in their book week costumes, they all looked FABULOUS!

Sport

Each Thursday all of Stage 2 combine for our sports session. Teachers are providing a range of activities that focus on fundamental movement and games skills, along with teamwork. 

-Stage 2 Teachers

Wow! Half way through Term 3 already and what beautiful warmer weather we are currently having. You can tell Spring is just around the corner.

Warmer Weather

With the weather starting to warm up, a reminder to students that hats are expected to be worn outside at all times. Stage 3 students are also encouraged to be aware of their personal hygiene. Roll-on deodorant only can be carried by students in their bags, aerosol sprays are not acceptable due to students with asthma. 

School Photos

A friendly reminder that school photos are happening this week. Please make sure your child has their FULL WINTER UNIFORM ready for their photos. If you do not have the complete uniform, please speak with your classroom teacher as they may be able to assist.

Upcoming Evevnts

Week 7 - School Photos and Regional Athletics 

Week 8 - Wellbeing Week

Week 9 - Year 5 Wild Robot Movie Excursion

-Kahla May, Cody Edstein-Boyes, Emily Roworth, Dee Burns

Stage 3 Teachers

We have made it to halfway in Term 3! There has been lots of fun learning over the past few weeks and we are excited to share what’s been happening. 

Stage 3 will continue to integrate with 6M during sport time. We are learning a range of different sports and movements with a variety of exciting games and activities. 

-Ms Neilson

We have had such an amazing term so far! We are about to move into our new English unit - ‘The Little Wave’ by Pip Harry. I think the class will love this text as we explore friendship, new experiences and staying true to yourself. Mathematics sees us continuing our focus on number talks and looking at 2D shapes. 

Thank you to those parents who have attending the formal review meetings, if you have not done so, I will be in touch to organise a time to meet. We are in for busy end of the term, please keep an eye on your phones for text messages and school bytes for events happening and important information. 

-Miss Roworth

Welcome back to everyone for an exciting new term. 

What a wonderful term we have had so far! Firstly, I would like to thank Mr Liddell for spending the last 6 weeks with us. He has worked tirelessly to plan and deliver fun and engaging lessons. Our students have been reluctant to pack up after some of these lessons due to having too much fun! 

I would also like to thank the parents who have attended the school to meet, discuss and sign the formal review paperwork. If you haven't met with us yet, I will be in touch to arrange a time.

As we move into the final part of the term, we have some important dates approaching. School Photos are on the 4th and 5th of September, and our class is running the assembly on the 6th of September. Keep an eye on the School Bytes app for other events happening this term. 

-Mr Lyon

Alexis Neilson   Chris Lyon Hannah Roworth

K-3N                                       3-6L                                 3-6R

Zone Athletics

On Friday 16 August students from Tamworth West competed at the Tamworth Zone PSSA Athletics Carnival. All our students did themselves proud, performing to the best of their abilities. We have many students who were successful in finishing in the top 4 in their age group, many of whom qualify for the North West Regional Carnival which will be held on the 4th of September. Their results are below: 

Our Senior Boys and Senior Girls Relay teams were also granted qualification to the Regional Carnival. The Boys finished 4th in the 4 x 100m relay, and the Girls placed 2nd overall.

Boys: Saiyuk Shrestha, Rhys Leahy, Jace Dawson, Patrick Miskle

Girls: Layla Cochrane, Charlotte McLachlan, Mackenzie Goodchild, Isabella McKnight. 

Due to these amazing results Tamworth West won the B Schools Championships. Which means our students had the most combined points over all the other schools with enrolments of between 200 and 500 students. 

Finally, a huge congratulations to Patrick Miskle who was awarded the 11 Year Boys Age Champion. This is an amazing result for such a talented young athlete.  

Well done to all the students who participated at the Zone Carnival. We are very proud of how you represented yourself and our school. 

State PSSA Softball

Jace Dawson and Cameron Mumford were been away last week in Penrith representing the North West at the State Primary Boys Softball Trials. We hope they have a great week and look forward to hearing how they performed.