Principal's News

Dear Parents and Friends,

Welcome back - I hope you all had  a wonderful Easter and celebrated with family and friends. I hope the rest of the holiday break was full of fun, adventures and some quiet time. I am looking forward to hearing from our students what exciting things they did over the break. Some of our children were very lucky to have had some lovely holidays - Dubai, cruising to Canada and Alaska, local holidays in Victoria and interstate holidays.  

It was lovely to open the gates yesterday morning and see so many children waiting and ready for school with big smiles on their faces! 

ANZAC DAY

What a wonderful turnout we had on Tuesday to remember our Anzacs who fought for our country to enable us to be safe and at peace with the rest of the world. Many thanks to the parents and children who got up early on their last day of the holidays to march with pride to the Mentone RSL. Thank you to Tabitha and Lucy who placed a wreath at the Cenotaph. I hope it is something you will remember with pride.

Our Liturgy and Community Leaders led the school in a beautiful Anzac Day Liturgy yesterday. They did a lovely job and our children were so reverent.

WINTER UNIFORM

Now that the weather is starting to cool down, we will begin to wear our winter uniform. We will have a two week period to transition from summer to winter.  We ask that you not mix the two.

Over the school holidays our new uniform shop opened at PSW - 1 Age Street, Cheltenham. Families can visit the store or place an online order with PSW.  We will still be selling a few items via CDFpay - winter beanies, school hats, St Brigid's sports socks and girls winter tunics and skirts.  Our winter beanies are great for the colder months and cost $15.00. Now that we have a St Brigid's beanie, no other beanies can be worn at school.   Click here for the link to CDFpay.

HAIR: All hair below the collar must be tied back. This is for both boys and girls. This is also part of our uniform policy.

BOYS:

If your child does not like to wear pants, we do allow them to wear shorts all year

GIRLS:

The girls winter uniform offers a choice of winter tunic or skirt to be worn with a white shirt or navy pants or navy skort to be worn with St Brigid's Polo.

Thank you for your support in this matter. Wearing our uniform  correctly demonstrates to us that we are proud members of the St Brigid’s community.  

WHAT'S HAPPENING THIS WEEK 

The Life Education program  was meant to commence on Wednesday but due to the educator being unwell it will hopefully commence on Friday. Once we know alternate dates we will let you know the timetable.  The  focus for Life Ed this year is resilience and building friendships.

INTERGENERATIONAL PROGRAM WITH NIXON MERCY HEALTH

Our Year 5’s will be participating in an Intergenerational program with Nixon House commencing on Friday. The students along with Nixon House residents will work with B & B Highway, an initiative from the JAG action group within our Parish.  Thanks to Dina (Lucy Year 6) for facilitating between the Parish and school to get this program up and running.  The students will learn about the native bees in our area and then with the residents will be planting plants the bees like and also build a beehive. Due to COVID restrictions the children will go to Nixon House in groups of 6. We look forward to starting these initiatives with Nixon house once again. Our children pre-Covid enjoyed going over and spending time with the residents.  

DISTRICT CROSS COUNTRY

We wish our Cross Country team all the best as they compete in the District Cross Country tomorrow. The team will travel to Karkarook Park in Heatherton. Good luck to Seb, Samuel, Raffy, Hugo, Kyle,  Luke, Royce, Josh, Tate, Eddie, Alfie, Hunter, John, Archie, Ava, Tabitha, Lachlan, Eden, Charlotte, Luke, Chloe, Matilda, Mikki, Eva, Josh, Harry, Christina, Maria, Sasha, Rebecca, Sammy, Jessica, Toby, Mikey, Viola, Blake, Isaac, Orianna, Josh, Isla, Iris, Sienna, Declan, Kirra, Levi, Islah, Xavier, Emi, Lucy, Finn, Ollie and Archie. 

Parents are more than welcome to attend and cheer on our team.

TERM 2

Term 2 is a short term, but it is a very busy 9 weeks.

So what do we have to look forward to this term:

Week 2

Swimming lessons start for students from F-4. An Operoo was sent out last term, thank you to all the parents who have given permission for their children. Please see the swimming timetable below and parents, you are welcome to come down and watch the lessons. We would love to see you there.

Dates: Monday 1st May- Wednesday 10th May

Year 6 students are attending their Leadership Day at St Louis de Monforts on Monday. An Operoo note went out on Friday of the last week of the school holidays. This day continues to build on their confidence and skills as leaders. They bring back strategies and ideas to build on their leadership role as well as mentoring our Year 5’s.

Eucharist for our Year 4 students will occur on Sunday 7th May at 1.00pm at St Brigid’s Church. This is the third sacrament that the children have participated in - the first one was Baptism and the second one was Reconciliation which was celebrated at the end of last year. We wish all the very best to our children who are participating in this sacrament - I am looking forward to helping them celebrate this wonderful day. 

On Tuesday night our Year 5/6 Parent Camp Information night will occur.  All 5/6 parents are welcome to attend.

Week 3

Swimming continues for our F-4 students and this will finish on Wednesday. 

Mothers Day Breakfast and stall will occur on Thursday this week. The morning will start with a coffee van and breakfast for all our wonderful mums. Breakfast will commence at 7.30am and then our Mothers Day stall will start at 9.00am. A flier will be sent home today with more information and there may be a sneak peek of the gifts available for sale so mums you may be able to help your child/ren with what you would like to get for a gift.

Week 4

Week 4 see our Year 5/6 children go on their Adventure Camp to Waratah Bay. It is always a much loved camp with lots of fun activities for the children to participate in . 

The other year levels are also busy planning and deciding on dates for their level Camping Experiences, which we introduced last year and were a great success.

National Walk Safely to school Day is on Friday of this week.  We will meet the children at Ben Kavanagh and walk to school with them. Parents, you are welcome to come and walk with us as well. More information to follow.

Week 5 

We will be having a Liturgy on Friday to acknowledge National Sorry Day.  All parents are welcome to attend. 

Zara, Ruby, Camilla and Tabitha will be participating in the Kingston City Council Junior Mayor competition.

Week 5 is also eSafety week and the children will be completing activities in the classroom to continue to develop their online safety strategies. 

On Friday night we have the F-4 Disco  - keep an eye out for the flyers, payment will be via CdfPay. Our Fundraising team will keep you informed during the weeks prior.

Week 6

Parent Support Group meetings will be held this week and next. Tracey will create the bookings for you and send out the link via email.  

Week 6 is also National Reconciliation Week.

St Bede’s Year 7 Orientation Day (Thursday ) for our Year 6 boys, and at 7pm on the same night is the Parent Information Evening.

Week 7

Sacramental Information Night to be held at St Brigid's Hall. St Louis' parents will be attending as well. This is a general information night for Year 3 parents to gain an understanding of what is involved in the different sacraments.

Year 5 students are involved in another intergenerational program, this time with Mordialloc PreSchool. The kinder children will come to us for two visits and be supported by our Year 5 students and then our Year 5 students will go over to the Pre-school and spend time with the children there. 

Week 8

King's Birthday public holiday on Monday 12th June.

Semester 1 Reports will be available Friday.

Week 9

Student Led Conferences will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday, These conferences go for 15 minutes each and can be held via phone or face to face. The booking link will be sent by Tracey to all parents via email. 

Students will finish at 1.20pm on Tuesday  and the conferences will commence at 2.00pm and finish at 8:00pm. Team Kids will be open for all parents who require the service. On Wednesday the conferences will run from 4:00pm to 6:00pm. 

End of Term - School will finish for students at 3.15pm on Thursday 22 June.  Friday 23 is a Student Free Day and staff will have Friday planning for Term 3.   Team Kids will be open on our School Closure day.

ENTERPRISE BARGAINING AGREEMENT

MACS along with the VIEU have been working together to set up the new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement for the next 4 years.

Throughout the negotiations we have been asked to introduce to our staff some of the agreements prior to the official voting and signing of the Agreement (which should be in May).

We will hopefully get some correspondence from MACS to be sent home to parents very soon.

The three main agreements that have been introduced or will be introduced this term are:

30 + 8 model for teacher workload

This model shows the expectation of the teacher workload and how it is divided. 

30 hours for learning and teaching per week. This 30 hours is to be spent on work directly related to learning and teaching in their classes.

8 hours per week is for “other’ tasks and duties. These include lunch break, yard duties and after school meetings.  (Lunch break and yard duties for a full time staff member takes up 5 hours of the 8).

For this 30+8 model to work children will not be permitted in the class room prior to 8.40am moving forward with the school day starting at 8.45am as normal. 

Time in Lieu

Teachers who attend activities outside the 38 hour working week will be given Time in Lieu for the hours spent outside the work hours. The type of activities that this includes are:

• Overnight camps
• Camping Experiences,
• Student Led Conferences,
• Concerts
• Art shows
• Parent information sessions. 

Reduction in scheduled class time

This commenced at the start of the year when we changed our specialists to one hour sessions instead of the 40 minutes. This allowed the teachers to have 4 hours of planning time per week which is the required amount for 2024. As a school we decided to implement the 4 hours of planning time this year as the Agreement  wanted us to increase by 30 minutes this year and then another 30 next year and I felt it was easier to make the one adjustment instead of 2 over 12 months. 

If you would like more information please follow the links below or come and see me.

30 + 8 Teacher Workload Model

Time in Lieu Guidelines

TUCKSHOP IS OPEN TOMORROW

Our Tuckshop will be open for lunch orders tomorrow.  Don't forget to place you order tonight by 9:00pm.  We do ask that anyone attending Cross Country tomorrow NOT to place a lunch order as we are not sure the exact time you will arrive back at school.  Click here for the link to CDFpay.

YEAR 6 TO YEAR 7 GOVERNMENT SCHOOL ENROLMENT

Enrolments for Government Secondary Schools are now open.  Please see the attached link below.  If you are wishing to enrol in a Government Secondary School for 2024 Applications for Placement must be submitted to your chosen school (not St Brigid's) by Friday 12 May. 

With thanks

Wendy Sullivan