Principal's Report

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 the online form sent out by the office earlier last week. 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

It was wonderful to see so many parents join 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. We would love to get some lunch orders happening, so if you are able to help, please let us know.

Our AGM will be held after our Welcome BBQ on Monday 17 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 2025.

Swimming Carnival

We had a fantastic day at our 3-6 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 the school record in every race! What an incredible feat! A massive thank you to the parent helpers on the day and the staff, particularly Mr K, for organising such a great carnival. I wish all our 31 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 / PLaSP meetings and Parent Teacher Interviews

This term, some of our students and their parents will have met with their teacher to develop a PLP / PLaSP for 2025. If you attended 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 will open up tomorrow at 9am via School Bytes for all other families to schedule in a time. 

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 6 March. 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 2 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 2026. We provide a creche for any children that come along, and do request that parents RSVP to yarrawarra-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au to help us with catering. It is always a fantastic evening and we thank Camp Australia for sponsoring our Lucky Door Prize.