Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Narrabri West: Science Challenge Champions Again!


In June 38 students from our school participated in the National Science Challenge, run by the University of Newcastle and the Narrabri Rotary Club.

The students were involved in a variety of exciting and challenging science and engineering based activities. They designed, created, tested and problem solved their way through such tasks as bridge building, ring gliders, electric circuits, hovercrafts and catapult making.

The challenge was also contested by St Xavier’s Gunnedah, St Francis Xavier’s Narrabri and Narrabri Public School.

Due to excellent team work and the problem solving skills of all of our participants, we received high scores in all activities and were announced as the overall winners of the day with Tim and Josh proudly accepting the winning plaque. This is the second year in succession we have won this competition. More importantly, all of our team members had an exciting day and learnt heaps!

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Narrabri West wins New England Region Excellence in Education Award

Narrabri West Public School has won the 2008 New England Region Excellence in Education Award for Quality Service. Each year a total of nineteen ‘Excellence in Education’ awards are announced by Regional Director Mr Des Gorman in Education Week. These awards recognise excellence within a school.

This annual and prestigious award has as its criteria:

  • commitment to a whole school approach to quality service initiatives;
  • exemplary practices associated with systems and professional development aimed at continuous improvement in quality service to the school’s community; and
  • mechanisms to obtain feedback from the school community with a view to continuous improvement.

This is the third major award that Narrabri West has won in the last 12 months, which is indicative of the high quality educational programs that we have implemented. However the really exciting thing about these three awards is that they have all been for completely different aspects of school life. The Australian College of Educators Harris Award was won in 2007 for our Quality Teaching Program, whilst our 2007 New England Region Literacy and Numeracy Week Award was awarded for the excellence of our Learning Support Team and the programs within the school that they have implemented and maintained.

But in all of this, the real winners of course are the children attending Narrabri West, who get to benefit from the impact of these award winning programs.