Dear Parents and Friends of St Brigid’s,

What a busy 2 weeks we have had. The children have settled in so well to school and are very busy building new friendships, learning new routines within their new classrooms and enjoying all the opportunities open to them.

Last week saw our St Brigid’s Feast Day celebrations which the children thoroughly enjoyed! This week saw our Year 5/6 students along with Arch Cochrane, Ange Kavadias, Deb Patterson, Deb Gosslin, Tracey and myself head off to the inaugural city camp. What an amazing experience we had! First and foremost I want to say how very proud we all were of the 44 children we took away with us. They all displayed beautiful manners and were respectful of everyone around them. I do not think I have ever been to a camp where the children were all settled (and a lot of them asleep) by 9.00pm. In saying that, we did walk over 20 kilometres for the 3 days and climbed numerous flights of stairs!

What did you enjoy about camp?

I really enjoyed going bowling because it was lots of fun.

Favourite memory from Camp?

My favourite memory from camp was when we went to the restaurant for dinner and at my table we tried to eat as much food as we could.

What is something new you learnt on camp?

Something I learnt was that you can make friends no matter what the other person's age is or who they are.

Josh P

What did you enjoy about camp?

I enjoyed going to the Old Melbourne Jail because we were allowed to explore the Jail and learnt a lot about the jail.

Favourite memory from Camp?

My favourite memory was going to the bowling alley because it was lots of fun and exciting.

What is something new you learnt on camp?

I learnt that back in the olden days there were people who got buried in the Gaol and some got hung to death.

Blake

What did you enjoy about camp?

I liked going to the MGC and looking at the different parts and players rooms and what the players do before games.

Favourite memory from Camp?

My favourite memory from camp was going to the different rooms at Parliament house .

What is something new you learnt on camp?

I learnt that in Parliament it is not always the Prime Minister who is the speaker.

Havana

Foundation Information Night

Thank you to the new Foundation families who attended our Information night on Wednesday night. It was lovely to see you all their and help you continue to navigate the primary school.

Get to Know You Interviews

We are looking forward to welcoming as many parents to our "Get To Know You" sessions next Tuesday 13th and Wednesday 14th February. The sessions will take place in the classrooms. It is a great opportunity for you as parents to let your child’s teacher know aspects of your child that will help them understand how best they learn or any other things the teacher may need to know. Don't forget - SCHOOL FINISHES AT 1:30pm ON TUESDAY 13TH FEBRUARY FOR ALL STUDENTS.

Please make sure you have booked a time to visit your child’s teacher. Click here for the link to make a booking.

TheirCare

We welcome TheirCare to St Brigid’s our new before and after school provider! We are very lucky that Sandra decided to move to TheirCare so she could continue the amazing relationship she has with our students!

REMINDER - TheirCare will be open for bookings next Tuesday from 1.30 for our Get to Know you Interviews or our Year 1-6 students.

Parent Helpers

If you have a spare hour or two and would like to support your child at school we would love to have you volunteer to help in the classrooms. We always need and value our parent helpers at all year levels to help support our children in their learning. If you would like to help out in the classroom please talk to your child’s teacher. There is a Confidentiality Agreement (On Operoo) that you must sign and you must have a current Working With Children Check to help out in the classroom.

Uniform

Thank you all, for wearing our uniform correctly and with pride. It was so nice to see all of our school in the new uniform - both normal and sports uniform - they look great!

It was lovely to see our Year 6 students wearing their Year 6 jumpers and tops - they are certainly going to be great leaders for our school this year.

Welcome

We welcome 2 new families to St Brigid’s. We have Marsha in Year 1 and Prince Jacob (PJ) in Year 4.

We know you will enjoy your time at St Brigid's and the wonderful community we have.

School Advisory Council

Many thanks to our School Advisory Council who once again will attend meetings with myself and Jodie to discuss initiatives to help continue grow our school. Thank you to Allie (Chairperson) Margeaux (Secretary), and Mel (Uniform) who are continuing with us for 2023 as board members. We welcome our SBSquad (Kylie, Hayley, Lisa, Vanessa and Louise) who will report on Fundraising.

Dan (Maintenance Representative) has had to step down this year so we would love to have someone else on the Council who would help with Maintenance. Please see a member of the council or myself if you would like more information. We would love to have a couple of people come on board as general members as well. If you would like to come on as general members, please come and see me or give me a call to discuss the role. As with all our Council meetings, everybody is welcome to attend our meetings. Meeting dates will be on a Wednesday night in Week 5 of each term. They will be advertised in the newsletter.

Operoo

Operoo is the platform we use to store information regarding your child and contact details. It is also used to get permission for your child to go on excursions, as well as to acknowledge and agree to policies we have in place that both parents and students may need to sign. This communication is our platform where all our information regarding your child is kept. It is important that all your details are up to date and if anything changes it is important to update the information.

Next week we will upload quite a few policies and agreements for you (and your child) to read and sign. These policies and procedures are mandatated to be sent out to all families from Melbourne Archidioces Catholic Schools (MACS) as a start of year set up. We apologise that there are a few to read, but once they have been read and signed they are valid for the whole year.

Please acknowledge and sign the following notes

Digital Devices Acceptable Use Policy 2023 Foundation to Years 6
Parent Code of Conduct
Student Code of Conduct
Mobile Phone Agreement
Parent Helper Confidentiality Agreement

Audiri

Audiri is our communication platform where we share notes and /or photos of things happening around the school. We encourage all families to have the Audiri App on your phone. Did you know that you can record an absence, holiday or change of address in the app? You can also follow a link to CDFpay so that you can place lunch orders. See the links button under the resources tab at the bottom of the app. It's also timely to remind families check you have the correct year levels selected on your app so that you receive all relevant information about what is happening in your child's year level. If you have queries please don't hesitate to see Tracey in the Office.

School Fees

Our school fee statements for Term 1 will be sent home by the end of next week. Due to the Governance structures all Catholic schools fees are created through Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic and then sent to us to verify. Fiona is doing the verification process this week and will hopefully send the fees out via email by the end of next week.

Reminders

Animals in the school grounds

Dogs are not allowed on the school grounds. This is an OH&S requirement.

Playground before and after school

School children and toddlers are not allowed to play on the playground equipment before or after school, due to limited supervision by staff.

Shooting hoops is also not allowed before or after school due to the amount of parents and toddlers that are in the school grounds at the time.

Social Media

Just a reminder to be vigilant with children on social media. Most of the social media platforms eg TikTok, Snapchat, children need to be over 13 to have their own accounts.

Please make sure you are aware of what your children are doing on social media and if you have any concerns please report it to the appropriate social media platform and the eSafety Commission.

Have a lovely weekend.

Yours in partnership

Wendy Sullivan.

Community News and Events

Junior Rockers

Mordialloc Tennis Club Open Day

St Brigid's Community Hall Hire

Mentone Hockey Club

MBJFC