Principal's News

Dear Parents and Carers,

Congratulations to our Graduating Class of 2021

Congratulations to all of our Year 6 students who are leaving us at the end of the year to commence their secondary schooling in 2022. We commenced their celebrations and farewells today, at our End of Year Parish Mass and we will watch our End of Year Assembly, which has been recorded this afternoon. A link for the End of Year Assembly  - click here.  We will also send the link on SkoolBag.

Last night our Year 6’s celebrated the Sacrament of Confirmation. Fr Andrew officiated at the Sacrament and it was such a lovely Liturgy. I commend the children on the reverence they displayed during the night and the level of excitement that they brought to the Liturgy. Congratulations to each and every one of you.

On Monday night the parents have organsied a Graduation Dinner at Mordialloc Bowls Club. Thank you to the great team of parents who have put this event together.  It sounds like lots of fun.

On Tuesday 14th December,  we have our Year 6 Graduation Liturgy at 5.00pm followed by the awards ceremony. Our Liturgy will be held at St Brigid’s Church and we welcome families to attend. The restrictions that applied at Confirmation will be the same for our Year 6 Graduation Mass, which means 8 people including your Year 6 child. This is the time where much will be said about our 2021 Graduating class, recognising their achievements and successes over the last 7 years. 

On Wednesday 15th December the Year 6’s have their Big Day Out, which is at an Indoor Play Centre called “Funtopia” and afterwards Pizza at Chelsea Park. 

We wish all our Year 6’s the very best as they move into their secondary school journey and all the new and varied learning opportunities they can look forward to. They have so much to be proud of and they have been such wonderful role models and leaders at St Brigid’s.  We look forward to you popping in for a visit whenever you get the chance. 

2021 Meet the Teacher

Today our students met their new teacher/s and classmates for 2022. I commend the staff who have put a lot of work into forming these groups for 2022 – as mentioned in previous newsletters, requests made by parents are considered and are part of the process for class formation. I ask that you respect the decisions made as quite often there are many overlaid reasons for your child to be allocated to a class group each year. Our 3-week process has allowed for greater capacity in relation to forming groupings that have been trialled rather than making “on paper” best decisions.

New Classes for 2021

We look forward to working with you all  in 2022 where we will welcome 30 new Foundation students and new staff to our St Brigid’s community. I look forward to our students experiencing a full year of learning and fun.

Foundation  - 

Cassie Dirckze, Ellen Behrendt

1/2 Team -

 Suzie Ripp & Sarah Kimball, Libby Young (Year 2)

3/4 Team

Mrs Yass and Rebecca Hampton, (Year 3) Angela Kavadias,  Loretta Flavelle and Yasmin Allaf 

5/6 Team

Arch Cochrane,  Annemarie Harrison, Heather Hughes and Zoe Finster

Literacy Support - Andrea Williams, Hannah Richards (Tutoring program), Jodie Marziano

Wellbeing and Enhancement - Belinda Wendt

Learning Diversity - Belinda Wendt

Education Support Officers

Glenn Stewart, Cathryn Scofield, Sigi Goetze,  Moira Wessels and Kate Yass

Administration

Wendy Sullivan - Principal, Jodie Marziano - Deputy Principal, Tracey Stackpole - Office Manager, Fiona Blair - Finance Manager

We welcome Yasmin Allaf to our amazing teaching staff at St Brigid’s. Some of you will be very familiar with Yasmin - she is the Director of TeamKids here at St Brigids.

We also say a sad but fond farewell to two of our teaching staff:

Lauren Yap who is moving closer to home - Sacred Heart, Croydon; and 

Trisha Beamish who has taken a full time teaching position at Barwin North Primary School (again closer to home) Goodbye, Good Luck and we wish you all the best for the next stage in their teaching journey.

Family Farewell

We also say a sad goodbye and farewell to the following families leaving us at the end of 2021.  We wish them well for the future and thank them for being part of our school community.

Reports Live Today from 6pm

Your child’s Semester 2 Reports will be available online and able to be downloaded/printed as at 6:00pm today. Families will receive an email from nForma later this afternoon.  Please follow the link to the Portal click here.

Your username is the email address you provided to the school.  Your password can be reset if forgotten BUT, it must be at least 7 characters long, and include one that is non alpha numeric. This means that it needs to include at least one character that is not a letter or a number. Examples of these could include: *, - or /.

A letter of instruction was sent out to all families yesterday via email and Skoolbag on how to download your child/rens school reports. 

Semester 1 reports are also available via YEAR / SEMESTER menu in Parent Portal.

If you have any issues accessing your child's report please email the office on the address below and we will send a return email on Monday 13th December with your child's report.

office@sbmord.catholic.edu.au.

Brigid Vision School Performance

We really hope that you enjoy our “BrigidVision” school performance. It is such a shame lockdown lasted for 78 days instead of 7, as it would have been so lovely to see our children (and staff!) up on stage singing and dancing! Again, we are so proud of the work the children have put into this performance - they did an amazing job! A special thank you to Bec Hampton, Jodie Marziano, Holly and Liam who put all the class songs and voice overs together! A very big thank you to our beautiful children who you should be so proud of for  their amazing performance.  In case you missed it. The link to the school performance will be available on Monday.

Thank you

At the end of every year there are so many people to thank for the generosity, willingness to help and all the support that is given to make our lovely St Brigid’s School such a welcoming community.

Many thanks must go to Fr Andrew who is an inspiring leader in our community, guiding our faith journey and he is so very supportive of St Brigid’s School—on behalf of the school community we wish you a very holy, happy and safe Christmas.

Thank you Families

There has been an enormous amount of goodwill and support given by the parent community to the school and the staff and we are enormously grateful for all you have done for us. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have contributed to making our school a vibrant place.

Once again this year has certainly shown us the strength of our community, not only supporting each other but also supporting the wider community. During COVID, we have continued to support each other to make sure our students had the best opportunities they could. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the work you put in with your children to ensure they were successful at home.

Thank you to the School Advisory Board

I would like to acknowledge the contribution of our School Board for the time given to sharing in discussions about significant matters relating to the school throughout the year. Jason Watterson has led the Board meetings effectively and efficiently and Trent/Belinda (secretaries), Allie, Mel, Dan and Carolyn who has kept the school informed of Board matters. I thank the School Board for their commitment in 2021. The work done throughout the year in relation to child safe standards and other governance matters have been effective and positive.  Personally, I would like to thank the Board for the tremendous support they have given me, I appreciate their interest, expertise and dedication. As we come to the end of the year it is important to acknowledge Jason who is finishing his tenure.  Jason has contributed  much to not only the School Board but our school community as well.

Thank You to Our Staff

I would like to thank the staff for the professionalism and dedication to a year of hybrid teaching. They have worked so hard to ensure the children remain connected to their friends while in remote learning and then once back onsite to make sure they settled back to the school routine.  As you are all aware teaching is not a 8.30am - 3.30pm job - it is a a job filled with love, worry and sometimes tears as they work hard to make all the students in their care happy, enthusiastic and great learners.  We often take home thoughts around how the day went, how effective our teaching has been, how supportive we have been with students who have social and emotional needs, how constructive our interactions and conversations with parents have been and much more.  Our Learning Support team and programs are a valuable asset to our teachers and students. The members of the Leadership Team have worked collaboratively in assisting the staff to achieve goals and outcomes as stated in our Annual Action Plan.  I’d like to thank them for all the extra hours they have contributed to this aspect of their work.

The COVID layer once again has added a hurdle to overcome this year and again we have done it in an outstanding way! I have to say a big thank you to the staff, for the engaging and interactive lessons, the students for being so responsive on google meets and the parents for having to wear a ‘teacher hat’ every day.

Special thanks to Jodie Marziano our Deputy Principal, Religious Education and Teaching and Learning Leader. Again the Queen of Recording for another year - but for me personally she has been a great support and sounding board for everything we have wanted to achieve this year.   

The role of Learning Diversity Leader is a huge role in any school and Belinda Wendt has had ‘on the job training’ and has worked with passion, enthusiasm and boundless energy in supporting students, families and staff. 

Tracey Stackpole, our Office Manager and the most flexible person I know! She is always smiling and so happy to help anyone and everyone! She is an absolute joy to work with and she makes my job so much easier. 

Fiona Blair, our new Finance Manager has fitted in so well. I appreciate how much she has had to learn coming from a non-school environment. She has done an amazing job!

I am also personally grateful to both Tracey and Fiona for all that they do to support me in my role as Principal. 

Our cleaner, Tania who is always so accommodating with cleaning the school - especially during all the extra covid cleaning that needed to occur, we say thanks.

Thank you also to our Wonderful Crossing Supervisors, Michael and Denver, our kind, caring and loyal lollipop attendants who ensure our families safely cross the roads.

Our thanks must also go to Steve Harrison who is responsible for maintenance and grounds.  He does a fantastic job.

St Vincent de Paul Collection - Thank you

A huge thank you to the St Brigid's Community for filling our foyer with donated food, pantry staples and Christmas goodies. Barry, from St Vincent de Paul came and collected them on Monday and wanted to extend his grateful thanks for the donated items.

End of Term - 3.15pm Wednesday 15 December

We are finishing school at 3.15 on Wednesday 15 December with a final farewell to our Year 6 students starting at 2.45pm on the basketball court.

The school year for all students commences Monday 31st  January, 2021.

Uniform Shop Open - Friday 28th January 10:00am to 12:00pm 

The Uniform Shop will be open on Friday 28 January 10.00am to 12.00pm for any last minute Uniform items.

Merry Christmas to All

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the St Brigid's Community for the wonderful support you have given me once again during my first full (albeit remote) year as Principal of this wonderful school. The words of encouragement, emails and phone chats have made me feel so very appreciative of how we work so well as a community. I wish you all a very safe and happy Christmas Break and look forward to working together in 2022. 

Yours in partnership

Wendy Sullivan

Principal