Dear Families and Friends,

Welcome back to the 2021 school year. I hope you all had a wonderful break and spent time with family and friends that you may not have seen much of during 2020.

All our children have come back to school very excited and happy to be at school with their friends and back to a normal style of learning. The teachers are equally excited to have their children with them.

Thank you for all the support you have given us as we start back to school to the new COVID normal. Restrictions seem to change often but as has been the case throughout this pandemic, school restrictions are different to the general public restrictions. Our restrictions for parents to come on site to drop off and pick up their children is that face masks must be worn. This is simply because we cannot guarantee social distancing. The other restriction that affects parents coming on site is the number of parents we can have in the classroom - as soon as we have a parent in the classroom the 2m2 density quota is enforced and it means the children are also counted in the quota. That is why we are asking you to drop your children off at the door. In saying that we also have many children who are walking in the gates by themselves. The independence that we are seeing from the children is fantastic and that is a credit to you as parents.

IMPORTANT COVID UPDATE RECEIVED FROM CATHOLIC EDUCATION TODAY

New Staff

This year we welcome:

Mrs Heather Hughes (56H) who has joined us as a full time 5/6 Teacher.
Miss Ellen Behrendt (12B) who is working with us full time in the 1/2 year level.
Ms Alysse Pirovano (4F) who is working Thursday and Friday with Mrs Flavelle and our Year 4 class
Mrs Deborah Patterson (34K) who is working every Friday with Mrs Kavadias and our 34 team
Mrs Moira Wessels who is working fulltime as one of our ESO's (Education Support Officer).

I know you will make each staff member welcome.

Tuckshop

Our Tuckshop will be up and running starting next week (Friday 12 February)! We have an external provider (the Team from St Louis) taking over the running of the school canteen. Lisa Griffin owns a local catering business as well as running the canteen at St Louis. Canteen will still be on a Friday with over the counter sales as well as ordering lunch through CDF pay as we have done in the past. Lisa has developed an exciting new menu (See below). Only the items on the menu will be available for online ordering. If you order Morning Tea form the pick up options for recess, it will be labelled and ready for collection at the beginning of recess from a table outside the Tuckshop. Items like cookies, icy poles, chips etc will be over the counter only. CDFpay are in the process or updating our online ordering system for the Tuckshop. Tuckshop orders will be open on Wednesday 11 February. A reminder that cut off for online orders is 8:30am on a Friday Morning. Click here for the link to CDFpay.

First point of contact

When contacting the school regarding any concerns with your child, your first point of contact must be your child’s classroom teacher. Your child’s classroom teacher has all the necessary information about your child and are the best staff members to work out whether we need to get other staff involved such as the Literacy Support Teacher or the Learning Diversity Leader. Please ring, email or make an appointment with your child's teacher and we can work on your concern together.

Contact Emails
Carolyn Yass	cyass@sbmord.catholic.edu.au	FY
Ellen Behrendt	ebehrendt@sbmord.catholic.edu.au	12B
Cassandra Dirckze	cdirckze@sbmord.catholic.edu.au	12D
Rebecca Hampton	rhampton@sbmord.catholic.edu.au	12R
Suzie Ripp	sripp@sbmord.catholic.edu.au	12R
Angela Kavadias	akavadias@sbmord.catholic.edu.au	34K
Deborah Patterson	dpatterson@sbmord.catholic.edu.au	34K
Libby Young	lyoung@sbmord.catholic.edu.au	34Y
Loretta Flavelle	lflavelle@sbmord.catholic.edu.au	4F
Alysse Pirovano	apirovano@sbmord.catholic.edu.au	4F
Annemarie Harrison	aharrison@sbmord.catholic.edu.au	56A
Arch Cochrane	acochrane@sbmord.catholic.edu.au	56C
Heather Hughes	hhughes@sbmord.catholic.edu.au	56H
Lauren Yap	lyap@sbmord.catholic.edu.au	56Y
Che Soon Lee	cs@sbmord.catholic.edu.au	Korean
Hannah Richards	hrichards@sbmord.catholic.edu.au	Sport
Sarah Kimball	skimball@sbmord.catholic.edu.au	Visual Art
Simon Altman	saltman@sbmord.catholic.edu.au	ICT
Wendy Sullivan	principal@sbmord.catholic.edu.au	Principal
Jodie Marziano	jmarizano@sbmord.catholic.edu.au	Deputy Principal

Skoolbag

Our communication tool Skoolbag has had an update (instigated by our external Provider) and this has caused quite a few technical issues on our end. Tracey has been in constant contact with them to try and rectify the situation but it has not changed our issues, as yet.

At the moment you will not get the notification “ding” to let you know that you have a notification, so please check your Skoolbag app regularly to see if notifications are coming through. Tracey is also sending all notifications to your email address so you hopefully will not miss any important messages from school.

Skoolbag have also sent through the following information to help alleviate the current issues.

Classroom Helpers

If any parent has an hour or two spare, teachers in all classes would love you to help. In the junior classes our literacy and numeracy lessons are so much more successful when we have parent helpers to support the children in small group activities. However, any help throughout the school is very much appreciated. Teachers have a sign up sheet on their windows, please feel free to add your name.

Class Contact Lists

Parents who attended our information sharing sessions this week were asked if they wanted to be included on the class contact list and were asked to verify their details. If you did not attend the Information Sharing sessions and you would like to be added to your child's class contact list please email Tracey - office@sbmord.catholic.edu.au with your name, your child's name, class, your mobile and email address.

Once lists are finalised, they will be distributed to all families next week. There will be no changes to the contact lists once they are published.

Foundation families will be asked to verify their details at the upcoming Parent Information Evening.

School Photos

Date for your Diary - School Photos will be taken on Thursday 25 February. All children will be required to come to school in their correct Summer Uniform (including proper footwear).

I am very excited to be back and am looking forward to working with you all during the school year.

Yours in partnership

Wendy Sullivan

St Brigid's Primary School Newsletter

Developing Life Long Learners

Issue 1 · 04 Feb 2021

In this issue