Principal's Report

Meet the 2026 Team!

On our social media channels we have posted information about our 2026 staff so that you can get to know everyone across the school. See the 'Meet Our Staff' page in this newsletter to read all about us! Here is the 2026 staffing list:

Shadow APs / principal team members are those that relieve in the role when the substantive owner is on leave.

Our amazing team members are always willing to help, so please do not hesitate to contact them per our communication policy.

2026 Fundraising

The below information is provided for families to plan for upcoming events. These events and activities are optional. This is only a guide and other events may pop up over the year. Please see the School Bytes calendar for actual dates.

NAPLAN 2026

Each year the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is sat by students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. Students will participate in tests for writing, reading, conventions of language (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and numeracy. NAPLAN 2026 will take place from Wednesday 11 March to Monday 23 March. 

NAPLAN is just one part of our school’s learning assessment program. The tests assess literacy and numeracy skills your child is already learning at school, so the best preparation is their everyday classroom learning. Our school will also undertake activities to help students become familiar with the types of questions and tools available in the online tests. The public demonstration site (https://www.nap.edu.au/online-assessment/publicdemonstration-site) is available for you to see the format of the online tests. Further information about NAPLAN is available on the NESA website (https://www.nsw.gov.au/education-and-training/nesa/naplan) and the NAP website (https://www.nap.edu.au/naplan/for-parents-carers). If you have any questions about NAPLAN, please contact your child’s teacher. 

Don’t forget to fill in the School Bytes form to provide permission for our Year 3 and 5 students to have a NAPLAN donut!

YPS Wellbeing

Student wellbeing is at the heart of all we do here at YPS. There are two initiatives that I would like to bring to your attention. This week, all students K-6 will select two staff members in the school as their “Mentor Staff Members”. These are adults in the school whom our children feel a strong connection with, it does not need to be their classroom teacher, in fact Mr Brian is often a popular choice! Mentor staff are informed which students have selected them and make an effort to ‘check in’ with their mentees over the year. Students can also request to chat with their mentor staff member at any time. We have found this to be a wonderful initiative in ensuring all students connect and thrive at school.

The Wellbeing Letterbox is situated on the admin building, near the lost property box. Students can pop a note in there, either with their name or anonymously, to let staff know of any wellbeing concerns they are having. These can range from “I can’t find someone to play with”, “I would like some extra help with maths”, “I would like to chat to my mentor teacher”, and even  “the girls toilets are out of soap”. It is great that our children have a way to easily connect with us. For our Kindy children who are yet to write, they can just pop their name on a post it note and we will go have a chat with them. 

Menstrual Program

The Department supplies period underwear at no cost to families. Please come and see the office, or send us an email with your child's size, colour and style preference, to request some for your child.

Volunteers

A reminder if you are intending to volunteer at our school this year, whether it be in the canteen, helping out in the classroom / library, assisting at excursions / carnivals etc., you will need to apply for a WWCC from Service NSW and complete an online form which can be sent out by the office. Please send through your full name, DOB, phone number and email address if you are interested in volunteering and the office can send the form to you. Please note that this is an annual process, so even if you completed this last year it will need updating. Please reach out to the office if you need any assistance with this process and please let any grandparents / community members know, if they are volunteering, about the process. Thank you in advance for helping our school!

P&C

Thank you to the parents who joined us for our first P&C meeting for the year via Teams. Thank you for coming along and supporting our school. A huge thank you to our parent volunteers who have been getting uniforms ready for the start of school and those that have already been in to support our canteen. 

Our AGM will be held after our Welcome BBQ on Monday 16 March at 7pm onsite in the staff room. It would be amazing to have many parents attend this meeting and help us plan for an exciting 2026.

Swimming Carnival

We had a fantastic day at our annual Swimming Carnival with lots of house and school spirit! Congratulations to Freeman for taking out the carnival trophy! I’m also proud to announce that Aria broke 4 school records and Henry broke 2! What an incredible feat! A massive thank you to the Engadine High School student helpers on the day and the staff, particularly Mr Robson, for organising such a great carnival. I wish all our 34 qualifiers the very best at the Zone Carnival - go YPS!

K-2 Swimming Carnival on Land

Our K-2 students had an absolute ball at our K-2 Swimming Carnival on Land. Thank you to the K-2 team for preparing such a fun event for our littlest learners!

Induction Assembly

We are so proud of our student leaders and know that they will do a fantastic job! We look forward to the terrific ideas and plans you have for our school community. We hope they wear their badge with pride. Check out the photos taken at our special assembly.

PLP / Education Support Plan meetings and Parent Teacher Interviews

This term, some of our students and their parents will have met with their teacher to develop a PLP / Education Support Plan (previously known as a PLaSP) for 2026. If you attend one of these meetings, you do not need to book in for a parent teacher interview at the end of this term. Booking times for interviews have opened for all other families to schedule in a time to meet with our teachers. 

Staff Professional Learning

Every Wednesday afternoon our teachers participate in professional learning sessions. As such, they are unable to meet with parents after school on a Wednesday. We also have instructional leaders, Jo-Anne Dooner and Justin Caban, who train our staff in current evidence-based literacy practices once a term. All teachers will participate in a full day professional learning session on Thursday 28 May. Your child will have a different teacher for the day on this date, however, our usual program is left by the classroom teacher so that there is no disruption to learning.

YPS Expo Evening

We love welcoming prospective parents to our school! Our School Expo Evening will be held on Wednesday 1 April 5pm-7pm in the Kindergarten classrooms. Please pass the message on to any parents you know who are looking to join our school in 2027. We provide a creche for any children that come along, and do request that parents RSVP by filling in this form: https://forms.gle/gkjvJW5pAFirJwj58 to help us with catering. It is always a fantastic evening and we thank Camp Australia for sponsoring our Lucky Door Prize.

Start of Year Reminders

School Start Time - We love that our students are keen to get to school early, however, please ensure that your child does not enter the school grounds before 8:50am. Many students have been in the playground before 8:50am and there is no duty of care from school staff before this time. Please help us in keeping our students safe by adhering to the 8:50am start time.

Annual Permission Notes - Please complete these in School Bytes if you have not already done so, they are now overdue. If you are unsure if you have completed them, please contact Michelle in the office. Thank you.

Acro Wednesday Afternoons - Unfortunately some students have been caught going into unattended classrooms after school and items have been going missing from some of our rooms. If your child attends the later session of acro in the hall on a Wednesday (4:30pm onwards), they are not to be left unsupervised in the playground from 3:20pm. Parents of unsupervised students will be contacted and will need to collect their child. Please use the after school care facility if you are unable to supervise your child. Thank you for helping us keep your children safe.

Anti-Racism Contact Officers - With your support, we do the very best we can to ensure culturally inclusive, cohesive, safe and engaging learning experiences for all our students. If at any time you find that you have a concern about racism in our school, you are encouraged to contact the school and speak with a member of staff so that your concern can be resolved. Our school’s Anti-Racism Contact Officers (ARCOs) are Kristen Edwards and Cindy Burton. They can be contacted by phone 9520 0277 or email: yarrawarra-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au. 

Yarrawarrah Community Squat Challenge!

In March, YPS staff will be participating in the Squat Challenge for breast cancer research. 56 Australians will be diagnosed with breast cancer today and a further 9 will die. We want to make a difference to the lives of those 56 Australians impacted by the disease - that is why we are taking on the Squat Challenge to raise vital funds for world-class breast cancer research. YPS staff will do 56 squats every day in March and students will be welcome to join in on the playground! We will share updates of the squats sessions via our social pages. Our YPS community can also sign up to the challenge and join our YPS Team by clicking on the link below.

Please support our Yarrawarrah Community Squat Challenge to save lives and make a difference.

Every donation, big or small, will get us closer to reaching our goal and helping the National Breast Cancer Foundation end deaths from breast cancer. If you would like to donate, please click on the link below. Thanks from the YPS team! https://fundraise.nbcf.org.au/fundraisers/yarrawarrahstaff/squatchallenge

World Sleep Day

It is recommended that children aged 5-13 years have between 9-11 hours of sleep each night. Adequate sleep has many health benefits including improved mental health, resilience, behaviour and learning.  On 13 March, it is World Sleep Day with the message of ‘Sleep Well, Live Better'. 

Parent resources for online safety

The eSafety Commissioner has resources available to assist parents/carers to speak to their child about online safety. This includes videos in a variety of languages and a template to assist families to make a tech agreement. https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents/resources

World Read Aloud Day

Our school participated in World Read Aloud Day as the importance of reading to children does not diminish once they are in primary school and able to read themself. Below is the research on why it is important to continue reading to children.

Reading to children allows them to experience the pleasures reading can bring, to learn vocabulary, sentence structures and the patterns of language and texts, and to see different purposes for reading, all without the cognitive overload of having to lift the words from the page themselves. They can focus on meaning, emotion and enjoyment. This remains just as important for older children. A child’s reading comprehension does not catch up with their listening comprehension until around the age of 12 or 13. Reading aloud to children and reading with them therefore continues to matter long after they can read independently, offering access to richer language and more complex texts than they might manage alone.

Hacking, Charlotte. "How to get children reading because they want to, not because they have to" in Books For Keeps no 267, Jan 2026 p 12.

It has been a great month at YPS! We look forward to making more marvellous memories in March.

Kind regards,

Kyleigh Nash

Principal