2024 Principal Wrap Up and 2025 Looking Ahead

Dear Parents and Guardians,

As we approach the end of 2024, it’s a wonderful time to reflect on the year’s achievements and share exciting developments for 2025. This year at St. Brigid’s has been one of growth, change, and school improvement. Together, we’ve made incredible progress in learning and teaching, wellbeing, and infrastructure, while strengthening our Catholic identity and sense of community.

Learning and Teaching

Our leadership team participated in the Vision for Instruction professional development at MACS this year. Staff have been exploring MACS' key principles of How Students Learn to enhance teaching practices at St. Brigid's. A key focus has been the Science of Learning, which examines how the brain absorbs and retains new information, and applies these insights to improve student outcomes.

This year, we adopted the explicit teaching model in literacy and numeracy across Prep to Grade 6, delivering a consistent, student-centred approach with direct instruction and targeted feedback. We also introduced:

Initial Lit for Prep to Grade 2, providing explicit instruction in spelling, reading, and writing.
Teaching for Impact in Mathematics, P-6, supported by professional development for teachers in explicit mathematics teaching.
Victorian Curriculum 2.0 in Mathematics, with updated reporting aligned to the new curriculum.

Our partnership with Traces of Learning (Spark Consultancy) enhanced personalised learning through initiatives like Discovery, I-Time, Genius Hour, and Learning Investigations, integrating explicit skills with real-world applications.

We’ve enhanced our intervention and extension programs ensuring all students are supported to reach their full potential. In literacy regular groups occur from P-6, and Margaret Sacco, our speech pathologist, continued her vital work in early identification, class support, and teacher professional development. In numeracy, we introduced a mathematics intervention program, with two dedicated teachers supporting students from Prep to Grade 6.

Wellbeing

Our well-being support continued to expand, with additional social groups, one-on-one support, and the introduction of the Lulu Ambassador Program. Lunch clubs and passive play options were maintained for all students.

Next year, we’re thrilled to grow our wellbeing team with the Mental Health in Primary Schools (MHiPS) initiative. Led by Jess Glasson and supported by Jackie Schober and Daniel Garcia, this team will strengthen tier-one well-being practices and enhance partnerships between home and school. The initiative is being delivered in partnership with the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and the University of Melbourne.

This year, we introduced a new school uniform that combines modern design with comfort, ensuring students feel confident and at ease throughout the day. The updated uniform reflects feedback from both students and parents, incorporating their ideas to create a practical and stylish option that represents our school community with pride.

Positive Behaviours for Learning (PBL) continues to be a focus at St Brigid’s for consistent behaviour expectations, routines, and support across all areas of the school, as well as providing many tier 2 intervention supports which continue to be implemented. We introduced the PBL shop, where students can cash in their positive reinforcement tickets for rewards. The shop has shown positive results for students and was stocked according to student voice.

Faith and Community

This year, our students actively lived their faith through initiatives like the Mini Vinnies group and our combined efforts to raise $10,000 for the library building in Nepal. Due to customs issues, we were not able to build in Nepal, instead linking in with an Indian school, where the library is now being built. We also developed new partnerships with Windarring and local kindergartens and high schools, fostering stronger connections through visits and shared activities.

Religious Education leadership was shared by Emma Barker and Alex Williams. Our sacramental program was beautifully led connecting us with Holy Cross and the catechist students. Weekend masses for each level were introduced to strengthen parish and school connections. Unfortunately, they were not as well attended as we would have liked and as such we are open to new considerations for creating connections with our families and the parish in 2025.

We continue to support and grow parish connections through the promotion and selling of the pavers, the planning and enacting of 150th celebrations, contributions to the Leo Duggan book, and the donation of a computer for parish use. Our choir teacher Nadine Lawrence has been working closely with the parish planning community carols.

Infrastructure and Resources

2024 saw the completion of two new senior learning spaces, additional intervention and extension workspaces, and renovations to staff facilities. A successful grant allowed us to lay new turf, further enhancing our outdoor areas.

We also invested in digital technologies, including a 3D printer, additional Chromebooks for Grades 1-6, and new iPads.

Looking Ahead to 2025

Enrolments will have grown to over 220 next year, prompting the addition of a new class. In 2025, we will have two Prep classes with an additional enhancement teacher, and three junior middle, and senior classes.

Class teachers for 2025 are;

Prep - Perri James, Jess Toniolo, Aleks McGregor

Juniors - Brodie Goricanec, Mariah Plumb, Alex Williams

Middles - Kate Jackson, Luke Carter/Brena Fennelly, Michelle Haller/Annie Irwin

Seniors - Jayde Turner, Hayley Milner, Genetta Arthrell

Brena will join us again at the beginning of Term 3 and job share with Luke.

Further enhancements to our learning spaces have begun to create a new classroom. In addition, glass sliding doors and glass partitions will be added to each learning space over the Christmas break. These enhancements will still allow us to use our flexible spaces, whilst giving us the ability to decrease sound distractions during our explicit literacy and mathematics learning times.

Specialist classes will be on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday next year with timetables to be released in early 2025. New sports and formal uniform days will be communicated depending on allocated sports days.

Fumie Cox will be finishing at the end of 2024. As a result, we will not be continuing with Japanese in 2025. This transition offers an exciting opportunity to explore a new language program, supported by MACS. Options include Auslan, French, Italian, or Indonesian, with a "Teacher as Co-Learner" model fostering collaboration and a love of learning within our community. Please complete the survey to share your preferences.

Review Feedback

We had our four-year review process this year. Data collected helps us set targets and goals for the coming four years.

Strengths

The inclusive and welcoming community.
Committed and invested leaders and teachers who place students at the centre of all decision-making.
The embedded whole-school approach to student well-being and behaviour management is informed by the analysis of a broad range of data and scaffolded by proactive approaches to build resilience.
The outward-facing school and commitment to partnerships that build student voice and agency in matters of civics and responsibility.
Differentiated learning that caters to the diversity of student learners.

Opportunities

Embedding research and evidence-informed whole school literacy and numeracy programs scaffolded by the MACS Flourishing Learners position statement, Vision for Instruction, and targeted staff professional learning.
Further exploring opportunities to build parent engagement in their children's learning, wellbeing, and in the faith life of the school.

Thank you to the 42 families who completed the Melbourne Archdiocese School Improvement Surveys (MACSIS) this year. These results aligned with the review data. Therefore highlighting the necessity and the value of this survey. We hope to increase the participant rate next year.

Farewell to Staff

We farewell Kieran Connell as he heads into retirement. Kieran has been a valued member of the St Brigid’s community for 35 years, joining us in 1990. He began his journey in Catholic Education in 1979. During his time, Kieran had many roles within our community, teacher, IT expert, OHS leader, and parent. Over the years he has mentored, guided, supported and inspired countless students and staff. We feel very blessed to have walked this part of this journey with him and we wish him all the best in this new chapter of his life.

We will also bid farewell to our Japanese teacher, Fumie Cox, at the end of 2024 who has been with us for two years. We have seen the growth in knowledge and understanding of Japanese culture over her time here. We wish her all the best as she heads interstate to take up a new opportunity.

Class Groupings for 2025

As we prepare for the year ahead, we are excited about the opportunities 2025 will bring for all our students. At our school, we pride ourselves on having a community of great kids, supported by a team of skilled and dedicated teachers. While we understand that class placements can feel significant, we want to assure you that your child will thrive no matter which homegroup they are in.

Our approach to learning is designed to give students a rich and diverse educational experience. For literacy and mathematics sessions, students are grouped across the entire cohort within their year level. This enhances the delivery of explicit, targeted teaching to meet every child’s needs. Through this model, your child will work with various peers and experience the expertise of different teachers throughout the week. Our teachers plan collaboratively, share data, and ensure consistency in the high-quality learning experiences provided across the level.

Homegroups represent just one part of your child’s school day. Beyond their homegroup, children build connections with a wide range of peers, strengthening their social skills and forming friendships that enrich their overall school experience. Learning to adapt, make new friends, and embrace different perspectives fosters resilience, courage, and personal growth. We encourage you to support your child in navigating any disappointment with a growth mindset, using positive language to highlight the opportunities that change can bring. These are essential skills that will serve our students well throughout their lives.

As we finalise class groupings, we encourage you to trust in the strength of our community and the thoughtful care that goes into creating a positive and nurturing learning environment. Together, we are helping to shape well-rounded, confident individuals ready to take on new opportunities and challenges with enthusiasm.

Change of After-School Care Provider

Gisborne PS School Council periodically reviews and renews contracts in line with Department of Education guidelines and timelines. These reviews are conducted thoroughly using a merit-based framework to ensure delivery of the highest value and quality.

Recently, the contract for Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) was due for review.

The evaluation process focused on key criteria, including:

Experience & Quality Standards
Value for Money
Policies, Processes, and Child Safety
Staff and Professional Development
Community Engagement and Values

The Gisborne School Council established a dedicated panel to oversee this process, and after a detailed assessment of all proposals, they have announced that Camp Australia has been selected as the new provider for Gisborne Primary School's OSHC services, which also includes St Brigid's Primary School families. More information about their programs, enrolment process, and opportunities to meet their team will be shared in the coming weeks.

Sincere thanks is extended to SchoolsOut for their six years of dedicated service and support to the Gisborne Primary School and St Brigid's community. Their contributions have been greatly appreciated.

Camp Australia are holding an information session next Tuesday night at 6pm in the 5/6 Classroom Building at Gisborne Primary School. This is also our End of Year Concert evening, and as such Matt Forest Principal of GPS has advised me that he will pass on all information so I can share it with our families.

Finally, I would like to thank you, our parents and guardians, for your ongoing support. Together, we have built a vibrant, inclusive, and thriving school community. We look forward to another year of growth and success in 2025.

Wishing you all a blessed Christmas and a joyful New Year.

Mel Daly

Principal

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