Principal's News

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

CONGRATUALATIONS TO OUR GRADUATING CLASS OF 2022

Congratulations to all of our Year 6 students who are leaving us at the end of the year to commence their secondary schooling in 2023. We commenced their celebrations and farewells with our End of Year Parish Mass at 10.00am yesterday. Jodie prepared a lovely Mass and Fr Ignatius gave our Year 6’s a blessing. Today saw our End of Year Assembly, where we farewelled our Year 6’s with a beautiful Irish Blessing which the whole school performed. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the hall. 

The Year 6 Graduation Liturgy and Awards night will be celebrated at 5.00pm tonight (Thursday 15th) at St Brigid’s Church and we welcome families to attend. This is the time where much will be said about our 2022 graduating class, recognising their achievements and successes over the last 7 years. 

On Friday 16th December our 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. As a staff, we cannot be prouder of our Year 6’s - they have shown tremendous leadership and have shown such great care and compassion for the students at our school  We look forward to you popping in for a visit whenever you get the chance.

CLASSES FOR 2023

Our final transition occured today where, the students met their new teacher/s and classmates for 2023.  I commend the staff who have put a lot of work into forming these groups for 2023 – 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 overlayed 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 trialed rather than making “on paper” best decisions.

In class, it's not about the friendships children have but about the combination of children who will work well together. Every child will have at least one friend on their list, but it is also important for our children to make new friends as well. 

Classes are as follows:

Foundation - Suzie Ripp/Sarah Kimball

Year 1 - Kate Sleeth

Year 1/2Y - Libby Young/Belinda Wendt

Year 1/2E - :Lauren Eccles

Year 3/4K - Ange Kavadias/Andrea Williams

Year 3/4H - Annemarie Harrison

Year 3/4D - Cassie Dirckze

Year 5H - Heather Hughes/Loretta Flavelle

Year 5/6D - Moira Du Preez

Year 5/6C - Arch Cochrane/Deb Patterson

Specialists

Visual Arts - Sarah Kimball

LOTE Italian - Marie Talarico

STEM & ICT - Zoe Finster

Physical Education - Hannah Richards

Performing Arts - Rebecca Hampton

Tutoring Program -  Hannah Richards 

Wellbeing and Enhancement - Belinda Wendt

Learning Diversity - Belinda Wendt

Education Support Officers

Glenn Stewart, Cathryn Scofield, Sigi Goetze and Kate Yass

We are looking forward to another wonderful year working in partnership with our families. 

We welcome Kate Sleeth and Lauren Eccles to our St Brigid’s staff. Kate has worked here as a Emergency Teacher and Lauren comes from an Early Childhood Centre.  Moira Du Preez, will all know, she is an ESO at St Brigid’s whose Teacher qualifications from South Africa have been accepted here. 

SOCIAL MEDIA/WEBSITES

We are reminding families to be vigilant with your children on Social Media/Websites.  It's a good time of year to check your filters are up to date.

FAMILY FAREWELL

We also say a sad goodbye and farewell to the following families leaving us at the end of 2022.  We wish them well for the future and thank them for being part of our school community.

We also say a sad but fond farewell to the following St Brigid's Staff members:

Carolyn Yass, Yasmin Allaf,  Ellen Behrendt, Jules Oudshroon, Kylie Kostense and Lucy Jones.   Thank you for your dedicated service.

REPORTS LIVE FRIDAY 16TH DECEMBER FROM 6PM 

Your child’s Semester 2 Reports will be available online and able to be downloaded/printed as at 6:00pm tomorrow. All families will receive an email from Nforma which will provide access to our Parent Portal.

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 /.

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 19th December with your child's report -  office@sbmord.catholic.edu.au 

See attached User Guide for full instructions on accessing your child's report.

CHRISTMAS CAROLS THANK YOU

Thank you to our beautiful community for making our very first Christmas Carols an outstanding success. The children were so excited and sung beautifully. It was so lovely to see so many parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins who came on the night. It is how school just is - welcoming, friendly and full of laughter and fun!  What a great way to end the school year. 

A special thank you to Annemarie who taught our Year 5 children Silent Night in Auslan - it was very moving.

A very big thank you to Bec Hampton and Sarah Kimball who asked to present the Carols and for the work they did in song selection, practicing with the children and creating the art work and props for the children - Great job Bec and Sarah.

A BIG thank you also to Steve Harrison who did an outstanding job cooking the sausages for our Sausage Sizzle.

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 us all feel welcomed and part of the  St Brigid’s community.

Many thanks must go to Fr Andrew who is an inspiring leader in our community, guiding our faith journey and who 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 TO OUR 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 that is full of happy, resilient and thoughtful children. 

This year we were still under a small COVID cloud, but we managed to have a full year of schooling and all the extra curricular activities that we participated in. Once again, our parent community were flexible with change of dates due to COVID and the significant weather conditions we have had. However, all that we achieved was due to the cooperation and support of our families. A simple thank you doesn’t really do justice to how we as a staff at St Brigid’s value the support, conversations and help you have given both us and your children to ensure they have such a successful year. 

THANK YOU TO THE SCHOOL ADVISORY BOARD

I would like to acknowledge the contribution of our School Advisory Board for the time given to sharing in discussions about significant matters relating to the school throughout the year. 

Allie  has led the Board meetings effectively and efficiently and Belinda, Mel, Dan, Jen and Carolyn who has kept the school informed of Board matters. I thank the School Board for their commitment in 2022.

Personally, I would like to thank the Board for the tremendous support they have given me. Your loyalty, approachability and willingness to support the school’s decisions has been wonderful and I feel very fortunate to have had such a great council to work with.

Carolyn is resigning from the council and I appreciate the work and discussions Carolyn brought to our meetings. Jen is also resigning from the council and also her role as Fundraiser Coordinator. Jen has done such an amazing job with the fundraising at St Brigid’s and I certainly appreciate all the support she has given me in that role. 

THANK YOU TO OUR STAFF

I would like to thank the staff for their professionalism and dedication to their students. They have worked so hard to ensure the children have settled back to our school returns after 2 years of remote learning. Teaching is not a 8.30am - 3.30pm job - it is a job filled with love, worry and sometimes tears as we work hard to make all the students in our care to be happy and enthusiastic learners.

A big thank you to our Learning Support team who run individual and group programs that support our students.  They are an invaluable support to our teachers in the classroom as well.

The members of the Leadership Team who have worked collaboratively in assisting the staff to achieve goals and outcomes as stated in our Annual Action Plan. I would like to thank them for the support and advice they have given me over the year.

Special thanks to Jodie Marziano our Deputy Principal, Religious Education and Teaching and Learning Leader.  We are such a great team and we have worked hard to make sure we have achieved all we wanted to this year.    

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

Tracey Stackpole, our Office Manager and the still 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 Finance Manager has done an amazing job with our finances. Fiona is happy to help out in anyway and between her and Tracey they have made working in our office a rich and rewarding time. 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, I am sure she goes the extra mile for us. 

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!

FINALISING OF FEES FOR 2023

Just a reminder that all outstanding fees are due by Friday 16th December,2023. If you have any concerns regarding fees please contact Fiona on fblair@sbmord.catholic.edu.au

END OF TERM - 3.15PM MONDAY 19 DECEMBER

Tomorrow we finish our formal classes for 2022.  Students are welcome to come to school on Monday where they will be supervised while we clean and move classrooms.  All children attending on Monday must come to school in their summer school uniform.  Tuesday 20 December is a School Closure Day  for Staff Planning 2023.  Team Kids is available for bookings on Tuesday.

The school year for all students commences Monday 30th  January, 2023.

See Dates for your Diary for 2023 dates.

Wishing you a Holy and Merry Christmas. Safe travels if you are going on holidays and we look forward to seeing you in 2023.

Take care and stay safe.

Yours in partnership

Wendy Sullivan

Principal