21 Dec 2018
I would like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you for such a successful year. This has been an extremely busy year at school with many departmental initiatives and changes in curriculum, our approach to teaching & learning and systems management. We strive to keep our school culture positive, regardless of world events and negative news reports that hit us daily in the media. To this I would like to thank all of my staff here at Oatley West Public School. Our teachers are dedicated, professional people who come to school every day well prepared and organised. My job is to ensure they have everything they need to be able to bring the best possible teaching to your children within the guidelines of the Department of Education and the budget allowances we receive. To our school Administrative staff, which includes our Office, General Assistants and School Learning Support Officers, again a big vote of thanks for the work you do to support students, teachers and the community. Our P&C and all the sub-committees support me in my endeavours to bring the best possible education to our school. They rally a huge amount of people across all the committees and in turn raise funds to provide much needed resources for our children. I must also mention the parents of the School Club that sits separately from the P&C who also feed much needed resources into our school. Special thanks to all of our Volunteers including Scripture, Ethics, P&C, Classroom Helpers and our special Tutor Program (our Silent Army).
In Term 3 our school went through an External Validation process. The visiting Principal’s agreed with our assessment of the school and validated our evidence. This entailed a lot of time for the school team both school and personal time and I thank them for their professional approach to this procedure. It certainly proved that we are on the right track and doing well at Oatley West Public School. We continue to achieve academically and on the sporting field and I was so proud at the two musical evenings held recently. Our performing arts including percussion drums, all three bands, our dance groups, choirs, recorder and orators all did extremely well this year. Our aim is to educate a well rounded student and this area of the curriculum certainly goes a long way to providing this. We live by our School Values, our school motto of Learning to Live and Living to Learn and sort our problems by using the Restorative Justice method. We strive for a growth mindset. This works, our kids respond. I don’t think there is a teacher here who doesn’t love coming to school, because all our students give us everything they can in their learning each and every day. They take responsibility for their learning and work with teachers to achieve great things. Our school is noted as being one of the best, a high achiever, a school people want their children to come to. Most of this is because of our students, the effort they put into their learning and the pride they have for their school. I thank the efforts of our Prefects and Captains—the SRC Senior Team who have done such a great job this year and to all of our elected classroom SRC students. You’ve all done a great job and certainly left a huge legacy for the 2019 incoming team to follow in your footsteps.
On behalf of all the staff at Oatley West Public School, I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a safe and happy 2019. See you all in the new year!
Mr Paul Nash