Term 3, Week 6 | 2026

It is great to be back on deck after a few weeks of leave. A huge thank you to Mrs Marler for leading the school during this time, and to our school executive team for stepping up and keeping everything moving in my absence. It is always reassuring to know our school is in such capable hands.

🧪 Year 4 Science Day at Wyong High School 🔬

Our Year 4 students recently had the opportunity to participate in a Science Day at Wyong High School, as part of a new approach to supporting transition to high school.

Our NSW Public School Survey data tells us that by Year 6, many students are already feeling highly anxious about the move to high school. So, we thought – why wait until Year 6? Let's get our students onto the high school grounds earlier, help make the environment familiar and give them something to be excited about!

The aim is simple: get our Year 4 students' feet on the ground at Wyong High School, experiencing the facilities, meeting staff and seeing what all the buzz is about well before their formal transition begins.

A huge thank you to Mr Hill, his executive team and the staff at Wyong High School for getting behind this idea and making it happen. It has also been fantastic to work collaboratively with our neighbouring public schools as we look at how we can collectively strengthen transition across our community.

📊 Some fantastic NAPLAN growth 📝

We have also been digging into our latest NAPLAN results, and there is plenty to celebrate. We have seen some incredible growth across a number of areas, and I have been particularly impressed by the proportion of students achieving at or above expected growth from Year 3 to Year 5.

NAPLAN is, of course, only one piece of the puzzle. Our team is currently combing through the range of academic assessment data we collect at Wyong PS to understand what is working, where our students need us next and how this evidence can help shape and drive our next School Plan.

❤️ Restorative Practices – working with our students 🤝

I have recently received some wonderful feedback from parents about the impact of our Restorative Practices approach.

A great example came from a playground incident last week involving two senior students who became involved in a physical altercation. Through our P3P3F3 process, clear expectations and a commitment to working with the students and their families, we were able to resolve the incident without suspension.

What stood out most was the feedback from parents about the process. They described an approach that was student-centred, restorative and respectful, rather than one that simply jumped straight to a punitive consequence.

Does this mean we don't suspend students? No. There will absolutely be times when suspension is an appropriate and necessary response to behaviour and safety concerns.

What we are working towards is consistency of process, not simply consistency of outcome. Different situations and different students may require different responses, but the way we approach those situations should be predictable, fair and focused on learning.

Ultimately, behaviour support is about more than responding to what went wrong. We want to teach, repair and build our students' social skills and capabilities, so they are better equipped to make positive choices in the future.

👨‍🍼 Coming up – our dads, fathers and father figures! 🍳

A reminder that our Father's Day Breakfast is next Friday 4 September from 8:00am in the hall. We hope to see plenty of our dads, grandads, carers and father figures joining us for the morning.

Our next Fathering Project event is also coming up on Thursday 17 September – Pizza and Paper Planes! These events are always great fun and a fantastic opportunity for our families to spend some quality time together at school.

Register for Pizza and Paper Planes here:
https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/DBbiYtjzQN

I hope to see you all there!

🏃‍♂️ Athletics Age Champions 🏃‍♀️‍➡️

Congratulations to our Athletics Champions and Runner’s up for 2026.

Wyong Public School is very proud of your achievements.

• Junior Boys Athletics Champion 2026 : Cameron A Runner up: Logan M
• 11yr Boys Athletics Champion 2026: Lincoln R Runner up: Fraizzier V
• Senior Boys Athletics Champion 2026: Parker E Runner up: Daniel W
• Junior Girls Athletics Champion 2026: Paige F Runner up: Shirley -Grace P
• 11yr Girls Athletics Champion 2026: Daisy K Runner up: Layla F
• Senior Girls Athletics Champion 2026: Remmi R Runner up: Emmy D

We wish all our champions and zone competitors the best of luck at Tuggerah Lakes Zone Carnival on Monday 7th September.

🥶 Frozen Meals for Families in Need 🍝

Wyong Public School has proudly partnered with Wyong Neighbourhood Centre to provide families in our school community with a small supply of frozen meals as a short-term helping hand when needed. Families can request up to 2 meals per person, per week, subject to availability, with no need to explain why support is needed. All information is strictly confidential, and we can also help connect families with other local support if requested. Please use the link to request support.

https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/DyfWJfMLhz

Mitchell Welham | Principal
Wyong Public School

APCI Update: Learning in Action at WPS

with Mrs Bath and Mrs Carter

Celebrate Literacy and Numeracy Week – Every day counts, every word matters

29 August to 4 September

This year’s theme for Literacy and Numeracy week is Every day counts, every word matters. Learning happens everywhere. Every conversation, every question, every story and every problem solved together helps children build the literacy and numeracy skills they need for life.

Celebrate Literacy and Numeracy Week at home with our family bingo challenge. Choose the bingo board that best matches your child's year group (K–2 or 3–6) and see how many challenges you can complete together throughout the week. Set your target: Complete a row, a column or even the whole board!

Road Safety

Quick quiz: At what age can a child safely cross the road on their own? Is it 8? 10? 12? Or does it depend on the child and the situation? You'll find the answer at the end of this article.

Road safety is an important part of the PDHPE curriculum, and at Wyong Public School, all stages complete their road safety learning during Term 1 each year. This ensures students revisit these important skills as they grow, building their understanding of how to stay safe as pedestrians, passengers, bike and scooter riders.

Our Student Media Team is already getting ahead for next year! They are busily planning and creating a short social media reel focused on crossing the road safely, using their own voices to share some important reminders with our school community.

Keep an eye on our school Facebook page to see their finished reel — and perhaps test whether your children can teach you a thing or two about road safety!

Family challenge: Next time you're out walking together, ask your child to talk you through how they choose a safe place to cross and what they check before stepping onto the road.

Answer: Students are only recommended to cross the road on their own from around 10 years of age. Of course, this depends on many factors, such as having a safe place to cross, the busyness of the road and the child’s ability to judge traffic speed and distance safely.

Have you ever gotten “the call” from your child’s school? You know, the one where they let you know about your child being involved in some situation. It catches you off guard, and suddenly you’re feeling angry, anxious, maybe a bit embarrassed. The instinct to blame the teacher kicks in, right? “There’s no way my kid could do that!

Here’s a little secret: your child’s teacher or principal doesn’t enjoy making those calls any more than you like receiving them.

They are not calling to upset you; rather, they want to collaborate with you to support your child to learn and grow.

Your school believes in working restoratively and helping kids to fix up when harm has been caused and relationships have been impacted. Let’s face it— we’ve all made mistakes in life, choices we wish we could undo. If you’re focused on the short game, you might be tempted to blame the school, shielding your child from any reflective process. Sure, you might win that argument, but at what cost? You risk damaging the partnership with your child’s school and your child misses out on a valuable learning experience.

Now, think about the long game—backing your child to become a resilient, empathetic, problem solver. Supporting them to own up when things go south, and to patch things up if they’ve caused a mess or damaged a relationship. Excuses and blame won’t help them grow but restorative reflection and action certainly will.

Every setback is a chance to learn, and the biggest lessons often come from uncomfortable situations. As a parent your job is to keep your eyes on the prize- your child’s future as a strong, compassionate individual. Embracing discomfort and learning from mistakes is the road to becoming an awesome human. They’ve got this! And so do you.

What Percentrage is each class so far this term?