Principal's News

Dear Parents, Carers and Friends of St Brigid’s,

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR GRADUATING CLASS OF 2023

Congratulations to all of our Year 6 students who are leaving us at the end of the year to commence their secondary schooling in 2024. We commenced their celebrations and farewells with the Year 6 parent run night on Monday night.  This was followed by their Graduation Liturgy last night, where much was said about our 2023 graduating class.  We recognised their achievements and successes over the last 7 years. 

Today the Year 6’s went on their ‘Big Day Out’ where they enjoyed spending the day together at an indoor climbing centre in Berwick.  They then had an outdoor Pizza Picnic at Braeside Park. We will finish the celebrations tomorrow with our End of Year Parish Mass at 11.300am. Tomorrow afternoon at 1:30pm we will have our End of Year Assembly, where we will farewell our Year 6’s and introduce our 2024 leaders.  

We wish all our Year 6’s the very best as they move into their secondary school journey and all the new and varied learning opportunities they can look forward to. They have so much to be proud of and they have been such wonderful role models and leaders at St Brigid’s.  As a staff, we cannot be prouder of our Year 6’s - they have shown tremendous leadership and have shown such great care and compassion for the students at our school. We look forward to you popping in for a visit whenever you get the chance.

CLASSES FOR 2024

Our final transition occured today where the students met their new teacher/s and classmates for 2024.  I commend the staff who have put a lot of work into forming these groups for 2024 – as mentioned in previous newsletters, requests made by parents are considered and are part of the process for class formation. I ask that you respect the decisions made, as quite often there are many overlayed reasons for your child to be allocated to a class group each year. Our 3-week process has allowed for greater capacity in relation to forming groupings that have been trialed rather than making “on paper” best decisions.

In class, it's not about the friendships children have but about the combination of children who will work well together. Every child will have at least one friend on their list, but it is also important for our children to make new friends as well. 

Classes are as follows:

Foundation - Suzie Ripp/Sarah Kimball and Lauren Eccles

Year 1/2A - Yasmin Allaf

Year 2F - Loretta Flavelle/Charlotte Tracey

Year 3/4H - Annemarie Harrison

Year 4D - Cassie Dirckze/Andrea Williams

Year 5/6K - Angela Kavadias/Rebecca Hampton

Year 5/6C - Arch Cochrane/Deb Patterson

Specialists

Visual Arts - Sarah Kimball

LOTE Italian - Marie Talarico

STEM & ICT - Deborah Patterson

Physical Education - Hannah Richards

Performing Arts - Rebecca Hampton

Learning Enhancement Team-  Hannah Richards, Melissa Roberts, Christine Thredgold

Learning Diversity and Wellbeing Leader - Christine Thredgold

Deputy Principal and Religious Education Leader - Jodie Marziano

Education Support Officers

Glenn Stewart, Cathryn Scofield, Sigi Goetze, Deb Glossin and Erin McGeoch

We are looking forward to another wonderful year working in partnership with our families. 

SOCIAL MEDIA/WEBSITES

We are reminding families to be vigilant with your children on Social Media/Websites.  It's a good time of year to check your filters are up to date.

FAMILY FAREWELL

We also say a sad goodbye and farewell to the following families leaving us at the end of 2023.  We wish them well for the future and thank them for being part of our school community.

We also say a sad but fond farewell to the following St Brigid's Staff members:

Belinda Wendt, Libby Young, Kate Sleeth, Kate Yass, Moira du Preez and Heather Hughes.

Thank you for your dedicated service.

REPORTS LIVE FRIDAY 15TH DECEMBER FROM 6PM 

Your child’s Semester 2 Reports will be available online and able to be downloaded/printed as at 6:00pm tomorrow. All families will receive an email from Nforma which will provide access to our Parent Portal.

Your username is the email address you provided to the school.  Your password can be reset if forgotten BUT, it must be at least 7 characters long, and include one that is non alpha numeric. This means that it needs to include at least one character that is not a letter or a number. Examples of these could include: *, - or /.

Semester 1 reports are also available via YEAR / SEMESTER menu in Parent Portal.

If you have any issues accessing your child's report please email the office on the address below and we will send a return email on Monday 18th December with your child's report -  office@sbmord.catholic.edu.au 

See attached User Guide for full instructions on accessing your child's report.

THANK YOU

At the end of every year there are so many people to thank for the generosity, willingness to help and all the support that is given to make us all feel welcomed and part of the  St Brigid’s community.

Parish Team

Many thanks Fr Andrew and Fr Ignatius for their ongoing support for our parish and in particular the parish primary school community.   We thank him for welcoming our classes to Mass and for celebrating the Sacraments with us.  Fr Andrew and Fr Ignatius are inspiring leaders in our community, guiding our faith journey and who is so very supportive of St Brigid’s School—on behalf of the school community we wish you a very holy, happy and safe Christmas.

Families

On behalf of the staff team I thank each and every family for your support of the staff and your children throughout the year. We thank you for working with us and for being beside your children in their learning journey. A sincere thanks to our parent community who have supported our school in so many ways this year; listening to children reading, assisting in the classroom, supporting staff on excursions, lending a helping hand to our Fundraising Team - Trivia Night, Mother/Fathers Day Breakfast and the Colour Run (just to name a few) and School Advisory Council. I thank you all for giving of your time and talent to make a difference to our community.

A simple thank you doesn’t really do justice to how we as a staff at St Brigid’s value the support, conversations and help you have given both us and your children to ensure they have such a successful year. 

Enjoy a wonderful Christmas with your families and we look forward to you joining us again for the commencement of the 2024 school year. 

Children

As we conclude the school year we reflect on all that has been achieved. I continue to be amazed at how much we can fit into the school calendar. There have been many wonderful opportunities for the children to engage in purposeful learning and the experiences have been rich and varied. We thank our children for bringing joy to our daily work, for being kind and always giving their best. We congratulate our children on the level of engagement that they have demonstrated throughout the year as well as the sense of pride they take in themselves, their work, their belongings, the school buildings and grounds.  We also thank you for the respect that you show each other and all the adults in our community.

Congratulations to the graduating Year 6 class of 2023!  We thank them for being great role models and leaders. We wish them all the very best as they journey into the next stage of their education and their life. We hope that their secondary school years are full of reward, great friendships and learnings that set them up for positive futures. 

We look forward to our Year 5 children stepping up to be our new leaders in 2024 and our 2024 Foundations bringing their own sense of joy to our community.   

I congratulate all the children on their efforts this year and hope that the Christmas break will offer them rest and refresh them for another productive year in 2024. 

School Advisory Board 

I would like to acknowledge the contribution of our School Advisory Board for the time given to sharing in discussions about significant matters relating to the school throughout the year. 

Allie  has led the Board meetings effectively and efficiently and Belinda, Mel, Dan, Krista, Georgia, Alex and Kate (Fundraising Team) Margot and Kylie who have kept the school informed of Board matters. I thank the School Board for their commitment in 2023. Belinda is resigning from the council and I appreciate the work and discussions Belinda brought to our meetings

Personally, I would like to thank the Board for the tremendous support they have given me. Your loyalty, approachability and willingness to support the school’s decisions has been wonderful and I feel very fortunate to have had such a great council to work with.

A big thank you to the So Fun Team - Krista, Georgia, Alex and Kate,  who this year raised over $11,000. The money raised will go towards our new playground.

Staff

My sincere thanks to our staff for their calmness, positivity and passion for learning and teaching. 2023 has been a great year for St Brigid’s and I thank the staff for going the extra mile. Thank you for your work in planning and organising engaging learning opportunities, for your report writing and for being so professional in your handover to the 2024 classroom teachers.  Thank you also for helping create special and memorable events, such as, the Trivia night Parent Event, Sacraments of Reconciliation, Eucharist and Confirmation, Incursions and Excursions, Foundation 2024 Orientation Program, Camp Experiences, Year 4, 5 and 6 Camp, 2024 School Leaders Program, the Big Day Out, Graduation and Advent liturgies. The introduction of a whole school excursion (to Healseville Sanctuary) was such s positive and fun experience for our students and staff

Amongst it all I thank the staff for supporting each other and for their ongoing care for our beautiful children. This level of care can be witnessed by the manner in which staff cater for the wellbeing of our children and importantly for their academic growth. We have been most delighted to see that the collective efforts in the targeted delivery of curriculum positively impact our children.

We give thanks to a number of our colleagues and friends. We congratulate both Belinda Wendt and Libby Young on their retirement and thank them for their commitment to education and in particular St Brigid’s. Your dedication, love of life and learning have been a gift to us all.  Thank you for the care you have shown each and every child and their family.  We wish you all  the very best in retirement. 

We would like to thank Kate Sleeth and Kate Yass for their commitment and enthusiasm for the children in their care and wish them all the best in their new endeavours. 

We would like to congratulate Heather Hughes and  Moira du Preez on the impeding arrival of their babies. We can’t wait to meet them!

A big thank you to our Learning Support team who run individual and group programs that support our students.  They are an invaluable support to our teachers in the classroom as well.

My thanks to Jodie, who continues to work in partnership with me to ensure the smooth running of the school.

My thanks to the School Improvement Team - Jodie, Belinda, Suzie, and Arch who continue to lead the school with their knowledge and skills  to develop programs and practices to make sure we continue to grow and learn together.

Tracey Stackpole, our Office Manager and the still most flexible person I know! She is always smiling and so happy to help anyone and everyone! She is an absolute joy to work with and she makes my job so much easier.  Fiona Blair, our Finance Manager has done an amazing job with our finances. Fiona is happy to help out in anyway and between her and Tracey they have made working in our office a rich and rewarding time. I am also personally grateful to both Tracey and Fiona for all that they do to support me in my role as Principal. 

I also acknowledge the work of Steve and Tania, our maintenance and cleaner who continue to maintain our school site in an outstanding manner. Thank you to Sandra who has done an amazing job running St Brigid's TeamKids this year.  Sandra goes above and beyond the call of duty.  Thank you also to our wonderful Crossing Supervisors, Tricia and Denver, our kind, caring and loyal lollipop attendants who ensure our families safely cross the roads.

CHRISTMAS CAROLS THANK YOU

Thank you to our beautiful community for making our Christmas Carols an outstanding success. The children were so excited and sung beautifully. It was so lovely to see so many parents and other family members who filled our hall Tuesday afternoon.  

A special thank you to Marie Talarico who taught the whole school an Italian Christmas Carol.

FINALISING OF FEES FOR 2024

Just a reminder that all outstanding fees are due by Friday 15th December, 2023. If you have any concerns regarding fees please contact Fiona on fblair@sbmord.catholic.edu.au

END OF TERM - 3.15PM FRIDAY 15 DECEMBER

Tomorrow we finish our formal classes for 2023.  Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are School Closure/Time in Lieu Days  for Staff Planning 2024.  Team Kids is available for bookings on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday 7:00am - 6:30pm.

The school year for all students commences Monday 29th  January, 2024 for Staff.  Students return on Tuesday 30th January.

See Dates for your Diary for 2024 dates.

Wishing you a Holy and Merry Christmas. Safe travels if you are going on holidays and we look forward to seeing you in 2024.

Take care and stay safe.

Yours in partnership

Wendy Sullivan

Principal