Principals Report

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

I hope the dads, granddads and special men of the St Brendan’s community enjoyed a beautiful Father’s Day being celebrated, spoilt and loved. I thank the men of our community for attending our Father’s Day breakfast and Mass. It was a delight to welcome you all.

I extend my sincere thanks to the wonderful staff of St Brendan’s for their generosity of spirit in hosting such a special day. I extend a special thank you and congratulations to our wonderful Year 1/2 team for the preparation of such a beautiful, sacred and reflective Mass where we were all able to see our students shine as we  celebrated our dads and other special men in our lives and in the lives of our students.

• “A father is someone you look up to no matter how tall you grow.” —Unknown

My  thanks and congratulations also go to Natalia Pidgeon (Diesel Year 5 and Duke Year 4) and Cindy Bryant (Catherine Year 6) and their amazing band of helpers who set up and sold gifts at the Father’s Day stall. Once again, it was a resounding success and the children loved ‘going shopping’ for gifts. I want to make special mention of Cindy who has been instrumental in the running of both our Mother’s and Father’s Day stalls over many years. As Cindy’s daughter Catherine is in her final year at St Brendan’s, this will be her final stall. Cindy, we can’t thank you enough for your generous spirit and the work you have done with Natalia to make these stalls a great success, and even more importantly, a highlight of our student's year. 

Natalia, please let me know if this is your last year of involvement so that I can acknowledge your great contribution too.

Safety Concerns At St Brendan’s

The safety of our students is our first and most important priority at St Brendan’s and in light of this statement, I would like to bring several important items to your attention. These include:

• Parking 
• Speeding 
• Wandering toddlers

On the 25th July, after our Leadership Team meeting where we discussed our concerns around the driving behaviours of some parents, I sent an Audiri message to our school community. Please see below a copy of that message:

Dear Parents and Carers,

At our Leadership Team meeting this morning, we discussed staff concerns for the safety of our students. This concern stems from parents and carers parking on either side of the internal road that leads to the back gate.

We are deeply concerned that if this practice is allowed to continue, we may have a serious accident where one or more children may be injured or worse.

We insist that, from today 25th July at 1.30PM, nobody is to park along either side of the internal road. 

If you wish to collect your children from school, please follow one of the following protocols:

• park in the bays provided and collect your child/children
• use the Junior or Senior 'Kiss and Go ' drop off and pick up bays
• park in the street at the rear of the school where staff can supervise students crossing the road 

Our traffic clears very quickly before and after school. We are lucky to have as much onsite parking as we do. If you do not want to wait in traffic at the end of the day, may I suggest you arrive at school at 3.25pm and your wait will be very short?

At St Brendan's, we hold children's safety as our number one priority.

Thank you for your cooperation in complying with this directive and respecting everyone's right to feel safe.

Sue Carr

Principal

This message has been largely ignored and our concerns for the safety of our students walking to cars parked on the internal road remains. We are so concerned that a student or younger sibling will be hit by a car on this road that we took our concerns to the St Brendan’s School Council meeting on Tuesday 27th August. With the School Council’s endorsement and support, we again state that nobody is to park on the internal road with these exceptions:

• Mother’s Day Breakfast
• Father’s Day Breakfast
• Any other event where the children are in their classrooms when parents leave the school ground i.e: not at the end of the school day

Another major concern is the speed at which some people drive through our school grounds.

I do my absolute best to ensure all students are welcomed to school each day and that they can cross the school crossing safely. Approximately two weeks ago, one of our Year 1 students came very close to being hit by a car that was travelling way too fast on the gravel section of Austin Rd. Finally, I implore parents to hold the hands of their young children when entering and leaving the school grounds or crossing the school crossing. It would be beyond imagining the pain and trauma that would be caused if a child from our community was hit by another parent.

I urge you all to work in partnership with the school staff to ensure our students arrive and leave safely from St Brendan’s.

Thank you for your support in these matters.

Have a great week.

Sue Carr

Fathers Day Breaky

It was our pleasure to offer the use of our Multipurpose room to Tillerkite Kinder for their annual Trivia Night. They are extremely grateful of our support. Their fundraising venture was a huge success. What a great way to build community in Somerville.