Term 3

Friday 22^nd August – 5/6 Down Hill Skiing

Wednesday 27^th August – Half Day Introduction to BSC

Thursday 28^th August - Ghana Beat my Drum (cultural performance)

Friday 29^th August – 5/6 Down Hill Skiing

Wednesday 3rd September - Book Club Closes 

Friday 5^th September – 5/6 Down Hill Skiing

Monday 8^th September to 12^th September – First swimming week.

Monday 15^th September to 19^th September - Second swimming week.

Friday 19^th September- Last Day of Term 3  

Term 4

Friday 10^th October- Upper Hume Division Athletics

Wednesday 15^th October to Friday 17^th October 3/4 Camp Howmans Gap (Permission Form on Compass)

Friday 17^th October – Regional Athletics

20^th October – Upper Hume Athletics (Back Up Day)

29^th October – Regional Hot Shots – Tennis Wangaratta

Monday 3^rd November – Pupil Free day

Tuesday 4^th November – Melbourne Cup (Public Holiday)

Parent Survey
Our school is conducting the annual Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey offered by the Department of Education and is seeking your feedback. The survey is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behavior, and student engagement. The survey is optional, but we encourage and appreciate your participation.

Our school will use the survey results to assist in identifying areas for improvement and professional development needs in the school, to target school planning and improvement strategies.

The Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey will be open online from Monday 18 August to Friday 19 September 2025.

The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time on desktop computers, laptops, tablets or smartphones.

Survey results help inform annual and strategic planning for the school. A survey link will be distributed via Compass.

Please speak to Michael, Sandra or Kerryn if you would like more information.

OSHC Committee
School Council is inviting parents to join the Out of School Hours Care (OSHC) committee. The aim of the committee is to develop strategies for the ongoing running of OSHC in an environment where staffing, regulation and funding is increasingly difficult. If you are interested in joining the committee, please speak to Michael (principal) or Sophie Dewar (School Council) or Sarah Crispin (School Council). The committee would meet monthly and make recommendations to School Council.

Michael Edwards
Principal

Permission Forms
We know this is a busy term with lots of permission forms coming out. Please keep an eye on the due dates to ensure consent and payments are completed on time.

Reminder: When completing permission forms on Compass for upcoming events, please note that some questions are mandatory (marked with an asterisk *). These must be answered before you can provide consent or make payment.

3/4 Howmans Gap Camp
Permission forms for the 3/4 Camp were made available on Compass Wednesday. We kindly ask that all consents are completed by the last day of Term 3, Friday 19th September.
If you have any questions, or need assistance with payments (including SSB, CSEF, credit or Direct Deposit into the school account), please contact the office.

District Athletics
We are still waiting on some families to provide consent for their child to attend District Athletics on Tuesday 26th August. A reminder email was sent yesterday. If your child is not attending, please notify the office. Cost for this event is $9.00.

Swimming Program – Wodonga Leisure Centre
Permission forms for our upcoming swimming program are now available on Compass. Please note, this program will run over five days, with session dates and times outlined on the permission forms. The cost of the swimming program is included in the Family Contributions that parents are invited to pay. If you haven’t paid the Contributions but would like to pay the swimming portion of it, the amount is $45.

Have a lovely weekend,
Kerryn and Sandra

This week’s helpers are  Grace Westbrook and Sebastian Davison

Next week helpers are   Freya Vorbach and Spencer Dowsley

Congratulations to all our award recipients.

WE ARE FAIR

Nate Millward for demonstrating the Value of Fairness by being a kind and helpful peer and mentor in our learning community. You encourage others while working hard on your own skill development. Keep up the awesome work!

Grace O’Dwyer  for consistently playing fairly, listening attentively, and willingly helping with the setup and pack-up of sports equipment.

WE ARE LEARNERS

Amelia Muth for putting in lots of effort with classroom activities and being super proud of your work. Keep it up, Amelia!

Eleanor Martini  for demonstrating the value of learning by publishing a fantastic 'revolting recipe for 'Blistering Biscuits' that included vivid adjectives and descriptions of the mixture. Bake them at home if you dare!

Harvey Thronton for quality publishing and creativity when writing their revolting recipe ‘Slime Acid Stew’. Truly a disgusting piece of excellent writing.

Grace Dowling for quality publishing and creativity when writing their revolting recipe ‘The Frog Cake’. Truly a disgusting piece of excellent writing.

Cooper Visentin for showing persistence and focus to catch up on missed work.

Jed Walker for his commitment to the systemised approach of researching, documenting and publishing when writing his information text on Spinosaurus

Tom Murphy for his commitment to using grid paper to support his drawing of a local shop facade to scale in Maths

Audrey Wyatt for demonstrating the Value of Learning by conscientious efforts to maximise time on task during the note taking, drafting and editing of your non-fiction text 'Authors of Fame'. Epic effort, Audrey!

WE SHOW RESPECT

Jimmy Wall for supporting your classmates with learning tools, especially on Fridays when we don’t have Michelle to help us.

Sunny Davison for demonstrating the value of respect by always showing active listening during instruction time and being ready to have a go at all learning with a positive attitude and a smile. Amazing work Sunny!

Ned Westbrook for adding insightful comments and demonstrating a strong understanding of the class novel

Attendance
At Yackandandah Primary, we believe that students’ daily attendance at school is important for them to succeed, not just in academic outcomes, but socially, emotionally and developmentally. School participation can set up our children for success in the present and well into the future. With the skills learned at school, young people can maximise life’s opportunities and based off the students we have here at YPS, it makes me excited for the future of our community.

Leading up to Covid-19 and since the pandemic, attendance rates have been declining; a trend that is national as well as international. Our school has been thinking about ways in which we can bring attendance to the forefront and ensure that school attendance is positive and supportive for all.  

Part of our school’s Annual Implementation Plan this year is around attendance and tightening our protocols for responding to absences.

Our hope, over the next few months and leading into 2026, is to be build our use of Compass (cloud-based school management system) to record and monitor attendance and respond to concerns in an appropriate and timely manner.

I am keen to seek some feedback from parents around how you think Compass is going for our school, what you like about it and what you’d like more support or clarification with. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be popping out at drop off and pick up times to gather some qualitative data. So, if you’re keen to share and you see me out and about at those times, feel free to catch me for a chat.

Enjoy the weekend.

Stacey Hogan
Leading Teacher

This week's Hot Lunch was Fried Rice.  
This is usually a crazy meal to prepare because we get so many orders, but with lots of the senior students away skiing things were a little quieter in the kitchen. Fortunately many of the younger students have been stepping up over the last few weeks to finish off any spare meals while the senior students enjoy the snow :)

The volunteer roster is now nearly full for the term, except for one more spot on September 19 (yellow). Thanks everyone for offering your time and energy, your efforts are very much appreciated!

Hannah Glanville-Jones
YPS Hot Lunch Coordinator
ypshotlunch@gmail.com

Artwork of the Week
Here's a snapshot of some of the artwork created on Wednesday as part of the Book Week celebrations. This year, the whole school explored creating an artwork inspired by Dave Petzold’s illustrations from the book, We Live in a Bus. Each class had a limited colour palette of oil pastels to work with; Foundation/1/2 red, orange, yellow, 3/4C and 3/4R blue, silver, grey, 3/4A green, yellow and the 5/6s purple and pink.

Book Week Character Dress Up Day
What a fantastic celebration of Book Week we had! Our Character Dress Up Day was a huge success, with students coming along in the most creative, colourful and clever costumes. It was wonderful to see so many favourite storybook characters come to life – the effort from everyone was truly fabulous!

The highlight of the morning was a lively performance of The Gingerbread Man, brought to the stage by the dynamic duo, Stacey and Brendan, along with some of our talented students who were specially chosen to join in the fun. Their energy and stage presence had the audience in stitches, so many laughs were shared throughout the show!

A big thank you also goes to Caz and Mandy for organising another successful Book Week. Their efforts ensured our school community had a week full of joy, creativity and fun, all while celebrating the love of reading.

Upcoming District Athletics Event
Our District Athletics event is scheduled for Tuesday 26th August at the Les O’Brien Athletics Precinct in Albury. At this stage, the weather forecast looks unfavourable, and it is highly likely that the event will be postponed to our back-up date, Thursday 28th August. Unfortunately, this date is also looking wet, so we may need to work with other district schools to find an alternative date later in the term.

A final decision will be made by lunchtime on Monday 25th August, and families will be notified via Compass.

Students who have qualified for the event may compete in up to five individual events, plus the relay. I met with all participating students earlier this week to confirm their events and provide further details. A list of the confirmed events is displayed on the concrete column at the back of the courtyard.

Permission forms are available on Compass. Some students will be entered on Monday when Sandra returns.

Students will travel by bus, and there is a $9 fee to cover transport costs. Please note that there will be no canteen available on the day. As with our House Athletics event, students will need to bring a packed lunch, snacks, a hat, and plenty of water.

Thank you for your support. We’ll keep you updated as the situation develops.

Cross-Country Ski Day – Falls Creek
On Friday 15th August, 42 Grade 5/6 students participated in the Cross-Country Ski Day at Falls Creek. Despite the cold, mostly overcast, and windy conditions, the students adapted well and had a fantastic time on the snow.

A big thank you to the parent volunteers who supported the students throughout the day and helped everything run smoothly. Your assistance is greatly appreciated!

Looking ahead, we would like to share some reflections on managing the skiing program. Coordinating ski days has become increasingly complex for Sandra, Kerryn, and myself, particularly with a growing number of families requesting multiple changes to bookings. This has significantly increased the administrative workload, and as a result, we will be introducing changes to the program next year to help streamline the process.

Of course, we understand that unexpected situations—such as illness—may require last-minute changes, and we will always do our best to accommodate these. However, we encourage families to have thoughtful conversations with their children prior to selecting ski days. Discussing factors such as weather conditions, travel sickness, and the physical demands of skiing can help students be better prepared and make informed choices before committing to particular dates.

Thank you for your ongoing support and understanding as we continue to provide memorable and enjoyable experiences for our students.

Robyn Wilson

23^rd  August – Zoe

27^th August – Harvey

CALLING ALL TENNIS PLAYERS – YACK TENNIS CLUB

Are you or your children interested in playing Saturday competition tennis this season?

Saturday morning competition tennis is designed for children who have had some coaching or experience of the game and are ready to begin match play. Section 4 involves doubles matches and players should be able to hold a rally. Parents will be asked to assist with the scoring of matches. Section 3 is for more experienced players and involves both singles and doubles.

For the adults, we have Saturday afternoon competition tennis (played here in Yack and around the district) or local social tennis on Tuesday or Thursday nights. Cardio Tennis will be starting again next term.

Tennis coaching is on Wednesday afternoons at the Yack tennis courts. For professional lessons and Hot Shots, contact our super coach, Pat Cartwright on 0448 325005.

If you would like to play Saturday competition tennis (junior morning or senior afternoon), please contact Matt or Bec by FRIDAY 29^th of AUGUST. The competition starts early next term.

For any further information, please contact:

Bec Stamp on 0437253334 or

Matt Bayne on 0447727002.