Its been a while since I flew in Tamworth, but by the looks of things not much has changed. As you have already stated it is Class D, and this combined with the high amount of training traffic with a smattering of turboprop RPT can make it busy. In the end I would still recommend what you have already thought about and give a local school a call.
1. You will most likely be given an instruction to call tower prior to the airspace. This will be about 10nm to run. Be mentally prepared to hold as the airways can get choked up with students making minced meat out of their radio calls.
2. On initial contact with tower give the report as outlined in the AIP. This includes radial, range, altitude, ATIS and your intentions.
3. Ask and you will get. You may get via the arc and once again be prepared for the traffic. They sometimes 'forget' about you and leave you high. Once again, be proactive. If you get direct to overhead the field then expect that you may have to enter the hold before doing the backcourse.
4. Tower may step you down, but once again it depends on traffic.
5. After the hold you may get a clearance for the approach straight away or you may get cleared out on the radial, receiving the clearance later. Report established when inbound. All they want to hear outbound is the call overhead the aid.
6. If you are continuing on you will need a departure report. Don't worry it is no rush. They would much rather hear a good call with accurate info.
Hope this helps. Its been a while since in YSTW, but I did countless ILS's into the place in another life. Hope your check goes well and let me know if anything I have said is incorrect.
