Dear Parents and Friends,

Can you believe that we are in Week 8! We only have 13 days left of school for our students - how this year has flown!!.

ST VINCENT COLLECTION - STARTS MONDAY!!

We start our Annual St Vincent Christmas Food Drive on Monday. Please remember to bring in your food donations so we can help and support the families in need in the Mordialloc area. The local chapter of St Vinnie's is particularly short of soap, toothpaste, shampoo, pasta sauce, biscuits and general groceries such as toilet paper, tooth brushes, nappies, deodorant, tinned fruit, tea bags, coffee, milo and sugar.

St Vinnies would also really appreciate anything that you could use on a Christmas Table - Christmas pudding, mince pies, serviettes, bon bons. Please check the 'use by' date on all items donated.

Friday 6th December is the last day to bring your food items. On this day all students will be able to wear their Christmas casual clothes. This coinsides with our Christmas Fun Afternoon so remember to wear a splash of Christmas! Remember that you must wear closed toe shoes eg runners.

Running Out of Steam

Every year as we come to the end of the school year we have very tired students who are dealing both at school and at home. Please make sure that you are keeping to a regular routine and getting plenty of rest - we still have lots to do before we close the school and prepare for the Christmas festivities.

Semester Two Reports - New Nforma App

As mentioned in last week's Newsletter Nforma (the platform used for our Student Reporting) that parents will now be able to access Student Reports via an Nforma App. It is important that all families download this App. This App will also be used for additional applications next year. We are looking at consolidtating a lot of our current practices into one place, allowing parents to have all necessary school information in one place.

It is very straight forward and once you have the App - it is very user friendly. Please see instructions below. Moving forward this will mean all information about your child is in one place.

If you have any problems please email Arch Cochrane: - acochrane@sbmord.catholic.edu.au.

2025 Transitions

Yesterday we had our first transition for our 2025 classes. This was the first of 3 and it may not be the class your child/ren will be in or the teacher/room they will have next year.

Transition 2 will take place on Monday 2nd December followed by "Meet the Teacher 2025" on Monday 16th December at 2.15pm.

Please trust us in this process as we take all areas into concerns not just friendships. Thank you for your understanding and trusting our professional judgement in this manner.

St Brigid's Carol's Night & Christmas Market - Next Friday 6 December - 3:15pm to 6:30pm

This year we are holding our annual Christmas Market and Christmas Carol night on Friday 6th December. Our Market will run from 3:15pm until 4.30pm. Our Christmas Raffle will be drawn at 4:55pm and our Christmas Carols will commence at 5:00pm. The children have been practicing their singing in Performing Arts with Mrs Hampton.

Families are welcome to bring a picnic (and a chair or rug) to enjoy during our Carols and we will also have sausages in bread $3.50 and choc tops $ 5.00 for sale - Cash Only. If you bring a chair they are to be placed behind the markers that will be placed towards the back of the grassed area.

We have a fabulous Christmas Raffle with first prize being a round of golf for four people at Woodlands Golf Club valued at $1040.00. We will also have a number of great hamper prizes.

Kris Kringle

Kris Kringle is a tradition that occurs in many places. In the past, students purchase a small gift ($5.00) for another student in their class or level. We will not be participating in this tradition this year. We would love you to donate to a charity of your choice or put a little extra into our St Vinnies Drive.

Important Dates for Your Diary

As we approach a very busy end to Term 4, I would like to take this opportunity to remind families of important upcoming dates:

Friday 29th November - 2:15pm - Assembly - All Welcome
Monday 2nd - Friday 6th December - St Vincent's Food Drive
Monday 2nd December - Second transition session for Year 1-6 classes 2025
Thursday 5th December - St Bede’s Orientation 2 for Year 7 2025
Friday 6 December - 3:30pm-6.30pm - Christmas at St Brigid’s - Market, Carols (5:00pm) and Raffe (4:55pm)
Monday 7th December - 2025 Year 7 Kilbreda Orientation Day
Thursday 12 December - Year 6 Graduation 5pm at St Brigid’s Church
Friday 13 December - Year 6 Breakfast; Celebration of Learning 9am; End of Year Mass at St Brigid's Church - 11.30am - all welcome; Reports available through the new Nforma App
Monday 16 December - Year 6 Big Day Out ; 2:15pm - Meet the Teacher 2025
Tuesday 17 December- Last day for students; 1:30pm - End of Year Assembly; 3:00pm Farewell to Year 6 on the Basketball Court - All welcome
Wednesday 18 December - School Closure Day - Staff Planning 2025
Thursday 19 & Friday 20 - TIL Days

Parental Use of the Staff Car Park

We have some safety concerns for children coming into the school via the front office.

We have observed some children being dropped off in the staff carpark and cars reversing out of the driveway. The Staff Carpark has become increasingly busy over the last few weeks during morning drop off and afternoon pick up. The staff car park is NOT a student drop off zone and reversing out of the driveway is very dangerous at such a busy time of the day.

If you are dropping your child/children and do not intend to get out of the car, please use the Kiss and Go Zones located on Chute Street or alternatively park your car in a legal car park and bring your child/ren into school.

Children who are dropped off in Albert Street and who enter through the Office must walk into school via the footpath not the carpark driveway.

Inform and Empower Cyber Safety Parent Evening -

Last week Marty and Carley McGauran came to St Brigid’s and delivered their Digital Safety presentation. It was an engaging and informative evening and they certainly gave us all something to think about. It was great to see families from every year level in attendance. Next year we look forward to our students engaging in online digital safety incursions with Marty and the team. We thank Bendigo Bank for sponsoring this excellent initiative. A very big thank you to the families that attended and supported this, below are some comments from the evening.

To watch a replay of the Cyber Safety Parent Evening please click here for the link and enter the password - informempower

We received some great parental feedback from the session and we wanted to thank all those who took time out of their busy lives to attend this very informative meeting.

The Parent Information Night with Martin and Carley from Inform and Empower was incredibly informative. Both presenters covered essential topics on how our kids can safely navigate the online and digital world in all its forms. While we all know it can be a challenging and at times, an overwhelming space, they shared valuable tips for us as parents to help guide our kids through it. One key takeaway for me was the importance of having open and honest (age-appropriate) conversations with our kids. I’m excited about the program being introduced in 2025, particularly being led by Martin, a schoolteacher himself, who is both engaging and knowledgeable. Kylie M

The Digital Safetry session presented by Carley (psychologist & mother) and her brother, Matt (primary school teacher) was great. They kept it real, didn’t preach and we took away a couple of things to consider. Well worth attending. Sonia & Steve R

Thank you so much for arranging the digital safety session. Although it is hard to find the time during the week for these sessions I am glad I attended. The session was quite informative and the presenters were engaging with relevant content, even if some of it was quite confronting. I thought I knew a lot about social media platforms and online gaming however this session definitely taught me some new things. I’m glad the program will extend to our kids in the classroom next year and think it will be very beneficial for them. Amy P

Foundation 2025 Meet the Teacher

There was much excitement today when our Foundation 2025 students came for their last transition session. There was a lot of cheering when Miss Eccles or Miss Sparkles as some of the children have referred to her, Sigi and Erin were introduced to the children and parents. Lauren, Sigi and Erin will be the Foundation team for Foundation in 2025. The children were very excited to receive a letter welcoming them to St Brigid's from our Year 5 students.

Farewell to Mrs Hampton

We will be farewelling Mrs Hampton at the end of the year. Don't worry we will still be seeing Mrs Hampton's smiling face around St Brigid's as she will be doing CRT work for us next year. We will farewell Mrs Hampton at our end of year assembly.

Running Club

Term 4 week 8 - Running club

Laps = 177

Km run = 8.6km

Double Km for Term 4 = 17.2km

Total km = 687.1km

We are on the Hume Fwy/National Hwy in New South Wales heading into Goulburn.

Have a wonderful week.

With thanks

Wendy Sullivan

Community News and Events

Bendigo Bank

Kilbreda College

Evergreen Christmas Trees - NOW OPEN

Apsendale Nippers

Junior Rockers

Skilled Legal

Mentone Girls Secondary College

Mentone Hockey Club

Mordialloc Cricket Club

St Bede's College

St Brigid's Community Hall Hire