Principal's News

A Very BIG PINK Congratulations to Mrs Sullivan who became a Grandma for the first time today to a Beautiful Baby Girl!

Dear Parents and Friends,

How lovely to have a full week with our children onsite. Hopefully, with the announcements tomorrow we will have more restrictions lifted and we can have parent helpers back in the classrooms, parents allowed onsite and spectators at our sporting events.  Again, I would like to say thank you for the support and flexibility you have given us during COVID.

Enrolments

We have now opened our Enrolments for 2021. If you know of anyone who is interested in coming to our welcoming, community minded school please let them know to call the office or come in and see Tracey to book a tour and/or pick up an enrolment pack.

Existing families with children starting Foundation next year, are invited to come and collect your enrolment pack from the office.

We had flyers distributed around the Mordialloc area, a real estate board is being produced and will be erected at St Brigid’s Church on Friday.  We commenced our Enrolments this week with enrolment tours held on Wednesday which attended well. 

Board Meeting

We had our first School Advisory Board Meeting on Tuesday. We welcomed Trent Costelow and Caroline Morgan onto the board and discussed items about the school and fundraising. Our focus for this year is to continue to build on community. We are such a close knit and welcoming community, but with COVID in 2020, we did not get to see as much of each other as we would have liked to, so hopefully with our fundraising and other get togethers we can rebuild the love and laughter that we hear in our school.

Fundraising

I had a meeting with Jess Elliott and Jen De Jong (who lead the fundraising team) last week and we had a discussion about fundraising and discussed ideas about what we can use those raised funds towards.

Below is a list of activities/fundraising that we will undertake in 2021:

Black Tie/Formal social function

Mothers Day Breakfast and stall

Fathers day breakfast and stall

Easter Raffle 

Disco  F- 4

5/6 Night out

Design a brick 

Hot cross bun drive

Items we maybe able to fundraise for:

• Shade sail for the sandpit
• Sensory Garden at the front of the school
• Cubby house renovations
• Installation of fake turf around the bike shed
• Equipment/supplies for lunchtime clubs.

Parent Reps

Thank you so much to the parents who have agreed to be class parent reps this year.  As you can see below we have a few gaps to fill.  If you would like to volunteer to be one of the Parent Reps for your child's class please contact your child's classroom teacher or Tracey in the office.   

Our Parent Reps provide a vital link between the teacher and parents and our Social committee.  Ideally we like to have two representatives per class.  Each year level is usually responsbile for one activity per year.  Jen De Jong and Jess Elliott are the liaison between the School Advisory Board and our Parent community.  We we would like to have a parent rep meeting very soon to discuss the activities for this year.  We are kicking off our fundraising with our annual Easter Egg Raffle which our Foundation Families will be running, more information on our Raffle next week.  Parent Reps will be invited to a meeting on the evening of Tuesday 9th March.

Save the Date - Friday 12th March

As we have not been able to have parents onsite we have decided to have a St Brigid’s Picnic and Fun Afternoon. We will not be having formal lessons from 1.00pm and we welcome parents to come onsite and share a sausage sizzle with their children. We will have Kaboom here in the afternoon to supply activities for the children to participate in. More information to follow next week.  After so many cancellations and changed plans we have decided to celebrate coming back together as a community with a Picnic and Fun Afternoon for our students.  There will also be a  coffee van for the parents and a few more surprises as well.  Siblings under 5 are most welcome to come along.  We hope you can join us.

School Closure day - Friday 5th March

The focus for our school closure day next Friday is on giving and receiving Feedback. Feedback is an area that was targeted during our School Review and is part of our Annual Action Plan.

Semester 1 Wellbeing Reps

Congratualtions to our Semester 1 Wellbeing Reps who received their badges at Assembly on Friday afternoon.  The aim of our Wellbeing Reps is so that students have an authentic voice and are active agents in their learning and wellbeing.

Standard Collection Notice for Parents 

Each year the Australian Government asks schools to provide residential address for our Students.  Please see the 2021 Standard Collection Notice.

Bottle Tops

Mrs Kimball is collecting materials for a new artwork here at St Brigid's.  We are asking for green, pink and small yellow bottle tops only.  Could we please ask that they are washed before they are sent in.  Thank you.

Dolphin Research Institute Excursion

A couple of days ago, the four of us- Emma, Hudson, Benji, and Lillian were chosen as the ‘I Sea, I Care’ ambassadors for 2021. On Thursday the 18th of February, Mrs Wendt drove us to Portsea, where we changed into our wetsuits and were fitted for flippers at the pier. We got onto a boat and the staff gave us safety instructions. Soon after, we arrived at our first destination- Chinaman’s Hat- what a weird name... It’s a small octagonal structure (man made) in the middle of the bay. A community of seals were living there! We put our snorkeling masks on- although not before the stench of the seals hit our noses! Then we slipped into the water, which was extremely cold. As we swam closer to the seals, we could see them properly. Some of the seals were huge! Looking down under the water, we also saw a massive ray, too! After a while we got out of the water and the boat then took us to Popes Eye. It was a sort of semi circle made of rocks with many different types of fish and birds living there. We got into the water again and started swimming around. Some of the fish were massive while others were tiny. Shortly after we got back on the boat and started heading back towards the dock. We were hoping to see dolphins but unfortunately we didn’t see any. We took off our wetsuits and fins and made our way back to the pier. When we got back we had a discussion about the other things we will be doing this year. After that we got back in the car and headed back to school. Although not before we had a sneaky stop at McDonalds! By Emma & Lillian

Take care and stay safe and pray for a huge lifting of restrictions. 

Yours in partnership.

Wendy Sullivan

Principal

RE NEWS

This week, we begin the second week of Lent. Through Project Compassion we learn about 39-year-old Margret, a teacher at a vocational school for deaf students in the Solomon Islands. She was born deaf, so she knows the challenges it poses to education and employment. Apart from the difficulties the students all have, the school also faced water shortages, with not enough to supply staff and students with safe water for drinking, cooking, washing and growing vegetables.

Then Tropical Cyclone Harold damaged the school and its vegetable garden, amidst the threat of COVID-19. Staff and students rely on the vegetable garden to provide food for their meals.

With Caritas Australia’s support, the school installed water tanks, provided cyclone-proof building materials and helped to implement COVID-19 prevention measures. Margret’s school now has enough water for its students and the capacity to cater for more, with plans to boost food security, through increased agricultural production. 

• Around 60% of people in rural areas in the Solomon Islands don’t have access to piped water, while about 80% don’t have access to latrines or toilets. (UNICEF, 2019)