Principal's News

Dear Parents and Friends,

WOW, WOW, WOW - what a way to finish the term, with our first F-6 Athletics Day,  Bike Ed and our Celebration of Learning!  I can’t believe we are at the end of Term 2 and half way through the school year. 

Athletics Day

As always I could not be prouder of our students! Their behaviour and sportsmanship on the day was absolutely amazing. Our students were competitive and gave everything a go.  However, where they really excelled was when it came to supporting their teammates - they were just so beautiful!  They cheered, clapped and even ran with friends when they needed extra support.  Our students certainly filled the staff’s buckets last Friday. 

A massive thank you to all the parents who came and helped us run the events - you did such a great job. The day would certainly not have run without your support!

An BIG thank you to our staff who did such a great job making sure the children got to the events on time, had enough time to eat and to cheer everyone on!

A SUPER ENORMOUS thank you to Hannah, who behind the scenes did an extraordinary amount of work to make sure the day ran smoothly.  From rescheduling the entire day, to booking buses, venues, St John First Aid, and getting notes out early, the day then ran like she had done it a million times before! Thank you Hannah!

It was such a great day I think we may have to do this one again!  What do you think?

On the day all students received points for having a go at each event. Students who came 1st, 2nd or 3rd in their event or heat received extra points.  We had sportsmanship cards, which also awarded points.  Teachers gave out these cards to students who were displaying good sportsmanship on the day. 

Overall results (points tally) for the day were:

1st place - Gold 1355 points  

2nd place -  Red 1314 points  

3rd place - Blue 1246 points 

Hannah is now busy finalising the District Ahtletics team. The District Team will be sent out around Week 3 or 4 in Term 3, as we still need to run trials for triple jump.  This will be done at school, on a Friday morning in the first 3 weeks of term.

To make the team representing St Brigid’s at the Mordialloc District Athletics Carnival, students will need to have placed 1st overall for their event. Please note that if your child came first in their heat, it does not mean they are automatically selected for the team.  All times will need to be looked at and the student with the fastest time will go into that event.  Please also note that students are only allowed to be in a maximum of 2 individual events and a relay. 

Kinder Visits Photos 

Last week, our Year 5 students enjoyed visiting Mordialloc Preschool on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. They explored the preschool space - making puzzles, playing in the sand pit, constructing boats, shooting hoops, painting and taking care of the dogs (soft toys) at the beauty parlour with our young friends. They are looking forward to more visits next term!

School Diary Competitions

We had exceptional entries for our diary competition this year!  It was very hard to narrow it down to a final 6.  I am not sure how our children will be able to pick a winner! Voting took place yesterday. Good luck to everyone who took part in the competition. As always the winner will be announced towards the end of the year when we get the printed diaries sent back to us. 

Bike Ed

Our children enjoyed their last Bike Ed session this week. The 5/6 ‘s were very excited to go for a big ride around Mordialloc and our F-4’s had fun going over jumps! Thanks to Thierry (Sammy in Foundation's Dad).  Theiry runs a fabulous local business called Bike Skills.  They have a fabulous indoor Bike Park in East Bentleigh that offers numerous riding programs, casual adventure park riding - including over the school holidays and even Birthday Parties. Thierry has very kindly given all St Brigid's Families a 15% discount code (which includes Birthday Parties) - quote code - stbrigids.  Click here to make a booking!

Grandparents/Grand Friends Day - Friday 26 July - 9:00am

Our Grandparents/Grand Friends Day is Friday 26th July (second week back at school). We would love you to send through some photos of your grandparents or grand friends that we could use to create a beautiful powerpoint to include as part of our liturgy.  

Please email your photos to:

jmarziano@sbmord.catholic.edu.au - thanking you in advance.

Reports - Live today at 6pm

A massive thank you to our teachers for their excellent work in the all important area of assessment and reporting. The teachers have moderated, collaborated and celebrated their students' talents and interests and have done such a great job of identifying where to next for their students. 

After reading the student comments on the reports it shows the enormous amount of learning that has taken place this semester. The learnings that stood out were:

• In Foundation it was learning their sounds and of course the kittens and their mum!
• In 1/2 it was learning to write an information report.
• Learning the split, jump and vertical strategies for addition and subtraction in 3/4;  and
• In 5/6 it was learning all the signs and symbols for Confirmation and Biomes.

What an amazing group of students we have! Well done, we are all super proud of you!

Your child’s Semester 1 Reports will be available online and able to be downloaded/printed as of 6:00pm today. 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 /.

Reports are also available via YEAR/ SEMESTER menu in Parent Portal.

If you have any issues accessing your child's report please email the Arch Cochrane - acochrane@sbmord.catholic.edu.au.

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

Student Led Conferences

Our Student Led Conferences  will be held face to face, second week back of Term 3, on Tuesday 23rd, 2pm - 8.00pm  and Wednesday 24th July, 3.30pm - 6.00pm in the classrooms. CLICK HERE to make a booking.  Booking Code is bacjk.

A friendly reminder that these interviews are strictly 15 minutes only (10 minutes with the parents and child and 5 minutes with just the parents). In order to be respectful to all, teachers will be adhering to these time limits and will remind you when the interview is coming to a close. If you feel that you still need to further discuss anything, please make an alternative time to meet. 

Our aim is to establish and maintain collaborative relationships between parents, teacher and student, regarding their academic achievement, learning and wellbeing.

Positive Feedback 

We love it when a parent comes to tell us news we need to celebrate.  Some of our Year 4 boys went to St Bedes for a school tour on Monday night and one of their dad’s came up to me on Tuesday to let me know how respectful and well mannered they were during the tour. Again another proud moment for our school!  Well done boys!

2025 and 2026 Enrolments Welcome

Please note our School Tour dates from now until the end of the year. Please let families and friends that you know who are deciding on schools for their children to come in and have a tour. If these dates do not suit you please call Tracey in the office to arrange a time that suits you and your family.

18th July - 9.30am -10.30am

15th August -  9.30am - 10.30am

10th September -  2.15pm - 3.15pm

11th October -  9.30am - 10.30am 

14th November -  9.30am - 10.30am

Premier’s Reading Challenge

The Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge is open and we are excited to be participating in this event. The VPRC is not a competition; but a personal challenge for children to read a set number of books by the 6th of September, 2024. Children from Prep toYear 2 are required to read or ‘experience’ 30 books with their parents and teachers, while students from Grade 3 to 6 are challenged to read 15 books. Please be mindful that the selection of books should be made up of books listed on the set book list, as well as reader’s choice. 

As a school we have read 285 books! Fantastic effort to all those who are participating! 

Congratulations to Jean in 4D and Lily in Foundation, who have completed the challenge! 

Here are some of their favourite books.

Happy Reading!

What have we done this term?

• F-4 Swimming Lessons
• Parliament Incursions for Year 5/6 ‘s
• PMP for the Foundations
• Story Dogs
• First Eucharist - Year 4’s
• Cross Country Training
• District Cross Country
• Interschool Sports
• Mordi Pre-School visits
• Foundation Prayer in Pyjamas
• Rabbit Rearing
• F-2 Shoe tying incursion
• Opening of the new playground by Tim Richardson
• Wipe out Waste F-6 Incursion
• Mother’s and special persons stall and breakfast
• Confirmation Commitment Mass
• National Simultaneous Storytime
• F-4 Disco
• Trivia Night
• Yr 5 Spirit Filled People with Fr Elio Capri
• Bike Ed
• Athletics Day
• Celebration of Learning

And in between all these amazing activities the children have had lots of great learning experiences!

School Closure Day - Tomorrow - Friday 28 June

Just a reminder to families that tomorrow is a School Closure Day.  The Staff will be undertaking professional development on the Vision for Instruction.

Welcome Back

Next term we welcome back Mrs Finister from parental leave.  She will be teaching STEM on Tuesdays & Wednesdays. Zoe has really enjoyed her time at home with Cleo and Maisie and is really excited to be retuning to STEM in July.  We would like to say a huge thank you to Mrs Patterson who has done an amazing job teaching STEM in Semester 1. Don't worry we will still being seeing Mrs Patterson at St Brigid's, she will continue teaching 5/6C on a Thursday and will do some relief teaching for us as well.

Farewell to Trish

Today we wished our lovely Chute Street Crossing Supervisor, Trish a fond farewell. Trish is moving to Adelaide with her husband to be closer to her children. 

Trish, we will miss your smiling face and wish you all the very best.  We are very sad to see you go.  We appreciate the care and kindness you have shown our families, students and staff. We look forward to receiving some postcards from your caravaning adventures.  

Happy and Safe Holidays

After writing all this our children are certainly looking forward to a well deserved break! Wishing everyone the most wonderful holiday. We hope you have the opportunity to recharge the batteries ready for a busy Term 3!  If you are travelling - travel safe.

Take care and we look forward to seeing you all on Monday 15th July. 

Wendy Sullivan