St. Brendan's Primary School Newsletter

School Advisory Council End of Year Wrap

Dear families,

 

The School Advisory Council have been busy this year after the return of face to face learning and managing this with ongoing COVID cases. Let’s not forget that we were still impacted by COVID closures until the end of Term 2 with up to 100 students and staff out at any one time, but the Council were appreciative of the way that the School managed these outbreaks without closing down the whole school. 

 

The children and parents really appreciated the consistency and stability of school routines, and slowly opening up to activities and get togethers within the school. This was also evident during the recent Flood crisis and the recommencement of school as soon as this was practical.

 

Some of the main issues discussed this year included:

  • Managing school reopening issues such as face to face parent teacher interviews
  • The positive response to CDF Pay from parents
  • Rollout of NAPLAN this year
  • Cybersafety Program
  • Positive response from parents and students to the Star of the Week Awards
  • Strong focus on Reading and Academics during staff training which was outlined to the School Council
  • Wellbeing program discussions
  • New Playground and Storage Sheds

 

Towards the end of this year, it was obvious that members of the School Council placed a lot of energy and commitment to ensuring that the Playground and Storage Sheds were able to be actioned as quickly as possible. The School were fortunate to receive generous funding for this to proceed, and the Council were in the privileged position of being able to select Playground designs, colours, location of sheds and shed sizes. We are confident that the designs and colours selected will receive a positive response from all St Brendan’s parents, and is something we can all be proud of. Many thanks to the subcommittee for keeping the momentum going for this project, and you should see the new playground in place at the commencement of the new school year.

 

I want to say a special thanks to Paula, John, Joel and Jo for keeping the Council informed and on track, as well as allowing a more inclusive approach to school decision making. I am excited to start preparation for the new School Strategic Plan for the next three years, as this is a major focus for the School Advisory Council in 2023. Please have a look at the previous Strategic Plan on the St Brendan’s website, and if you have any specific ideas about things to include in the plan I am happy to include them for discussion next year.

 

On a personal note, I want to say a how proud I am of the values and behaviours of our school community. We have all been through some really difficult times in the Shepparton area, but I was so pleased to be a parent helper on a recent F/1 excursion to Echuca. We had around 60 students being managed over two buses for the whole day, and I had people in the community come up to me saying how surprised they were at how well the children were behaved. The children knew what was expected of them and they lined up in an orderly way for all activities and were generally respectful and demonstrated the values of Making Jesus Real.

 

I hope you all have a wonderful and restful Christmas period and take time out from the challenges of 2022.

 

Regards,

 

John Miksad

School Council Chair.