Newsletter July 1st, 2025

Dear Parents, Carers and Families,

As Term 2 draws to a close, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to you all for your ongoing support and partnership throughout the semester. I would especially like to acknowledge the incredible commitment of our staff, who consistently go above and beyond to create a safe, inclusive and nurturing environment for all our students. Their positivity, flexibility and willingness to step in wherever needed is truly appreciated.

Our students continue to amaze us with their enthusiasm and engagement. They embrace every opportunity with energy and optimism, consistently demonstrating our core learning dispositions: Bravery, Curiosity, Collaboration, Resilience and Perseverance.

Reflecting on this term, there is much to celebrate. Highlights have included our Catholic Education Week celebrations, Mother’s Day Breakfast and Liturgy, sacramental programs, athletics day  and various enriching excursions- all contributing to a vibrant and memorable first semester.

Wishing you a restful and enjoyable break with your families. We look forward to welcoming everyone back to St Brigid’s on Monday, 21st July at 8:55am.

Take care and have a great week.

Jayne Bosworth

'Inspire us to act justly and to reverence all God has made.'

Excerpt from St Brigid's Prayer

As a school community, we all share the responsibility of ensuring a safe and smooth environment for our children—this includes during drop-off and pick-up times.

We kindly remind families to be mindful of traffic flow within and around our school. Please avoid stopping for extended periods in areas that are not designated for parking, as this can cause unnecessary congestion and delay for others. A quick and efficient drop-off or pick-up helps keep traffic moving and ensures everyone's safety.

We also ask that you use designated pedestrian crossings and model safe behaviours for our students. Small changes in our routines can make a big difference in maintaining a respectful and efficient space for all.

Thank you for your continued support in making our school safe for everyone.

At St Brigid’s, we value every day of learning and love seeing our students at school, engaged and thriving. However, we kindly ask that if your child is unwell- whether it's with a cold, flu or any other contagious illness- they stay home to rest and recover.

Thank you for your understanding and support as we work together to keep our classrooms healthy, safe and ready for learning.

As previously communicated, school will conclude at 2:20pm this Friday 4th July, 2025.

If your child does not want a hot dog or if there are any specific dietary requirements please advise via email: administration@sbballan.catholic.edu.au

Please send snacks or a sandwich to school if more lunch is needed in addition to the hot dog.

Thank you to our P&F for organising this.

Following discussions at recent P&F meetings, we are excited to move forward with the redevelopment of our school oval, made possible through the generous funds raised by our wonderful school community facilitated by our P&F committee - both past and present.

While the oval redevelopment will be an ongoing project over time (potentially over several years), we’re excited to be moving forward with the first major step - the installation of a full-sized cricket pitch during the July holidays!

The oval redevelopment is now our school’s major fundraising focus. This is truly wonderful news for our school and is sure to bring great joy and excitement to our students.

Our end of semester reports will be available on PAM from 4pm Thursday 3rd July, 2025.

Semester One Formal Reports will include:

• Work Habits Table
• Level of attainment in the form of a dot on a continuum for the learning areas explicitly taught in Semester Two and in accordance with the Victorian Curriculum Achievement Standards:
  • Religious Education
  • English (Reading & Viewing, Writing, Speaking & Listening)
  • Mathematics
  • Technologies
  • Humanities
  • Capabilities (Ethical, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking and Intercultural)
  • Physical Education
  • Visual Arts
• Comment to celebrate your child’s achievements, in relation to their Personal and Social development and learning in Mathematics and English
• Statement outlining what has been taught and learnt in Auslan
• Comment to identify your child’s next steps in learning to ensure future success and growth

This year, I have been working closely with architects Morton & Co to continue the development of a Masterplan for the future of our school. In March, we submitted an application to the Australian Government Capital Grants Program to support Stage 1A of this plan.

As previously shared, our school is currently experiencing a period of significant growth. Over the past three years, enrolments at St Brigid’s have increased from 94 students in 2023 to 136 students at the commencement of 2025 -  a 44.7% increase. This growth has created a need for additional resources and infrastructure to ensure we can continue to provide high-quality Catholic education for our students.

At present, all seven of our classroom spaces are in full use, with further enrolment growth expected in the coming years. To respond to this, the Masterplan has been developed in three key stages:

• Stage 1A: Construction of two new classrooms and an amenities block
• Stage 1B: Extension of the staff room and addition of a meeting room
• Stage 2: Creation of a Specialist Learning Area within the main building and an amenities block
• Stage 3: Development of a Multipurpose Hall
  
  

Our Capital Grants application specifically seeks funding for Stage 1A. I look forward to sharing further updates with you.

We are excited to be planning a fun and festive ‘Christmas in July’ event for our wonderful parent/carer community!

To help us choose the best date and get an idea of numbers, please take a minute to complete this short survey. Your feedback will help shape the event.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/9XMJH8F

To assist with preliminary stages of planning for 2026, a friendly reminder to current families to please submit enrolment forms for siblings entering Foundation in 2026 via the ‘enrol now’ tab on our website - https://www.sbballan.catholic.edu.au/

Whole School Prayer/ Assembly will continue to take place on a fortnightly basis at St Brigid’s Church on Monday afternoons from 2:30pm.

Term 3 dates:

Monday 11th August, 2025 @2:30pm - Year 5/6B facilitating

Monday 25th August, 2025 @2:30pm - Foundation A facilitating

Monday 8th September, 2025 @2:30pm - Year 2/3BW facilitating

Term 4 dates:

Monday 13th October, 2025 @2:30pm - Year 4/5S facilitating

Monday 27th October, 2025 @2:30pm - Foundation C facilitating

Monday 10th November, 2025@ 2:30pm - Year 2/3M facilitating

Monday 24th November, 2025 @ 2:30pm - Year 1S facilitating

Our next P&F meeting will take place on Monday 4th August from 3.15pm - 4.00pm in our school Library. An active P&F committee allows families the opportunity to play a valuable part in providing social and fundraising activities.  Please attend this meeting if you are interested in joining our P&F committee. Any help would be greatly appreciated as all funds raised contribute to resources and materials to support your children in their holistic development.

Suzanne Beaver will again be at St Brigids every Tuesday this year. 

Suzanne is available for individual sessions with children. Common issues addressed are managing strong emotions, self esteem, friendship issues, anxiety, and family challenges such as illness, grief and separation.

Suzanne is also available for individual sessions with parents. Topics can include a range of parenting challenges, i.e. managing strong emotions, school reluctance, helping your child form strong friendships, and helping your child to navigate family separation.

Suzanne can also assist you in finding the right external support for your child and family.

This is a great service provided right here at school. Please don't hesitate to contact Suzanne with any concerns you might have. Contact Suzanne by phone on a Tuesday or by email any day sbeaver@sbballan.catholic.edu.au.

You can also access the service through the office or your classroom teacher.

All of the timetabled events (to date) for the school year can be found on our school calendar which can be accessed through PAM and via this newsletter.

Welcome to St Brigid's Primary School's Parent Access Module or PAM.

PAM is the home of your school related, student information and will be used for medical profiles, excursion/camp permissions, parent teacher interviews, absences, text notifications and daily messages.

Please follow the instructions below to set up your account.

Step 1:
You will need to set your own access password. To set your password click on the link below. This will take you to the PAM login page. Click on the 'Forgot Password?' link and follow the prompts.

PAM Login

Step 2:

Download the SIMON Everywhere app to access PAM on your preferred
device/s. Search 'SIMON everywhere' in the app store and download. Once
downloaded, click on the 3 lines in the top left corner, click on 'add school',
select 'St Brigid’s Primary School' then enter the login details that you set up
for PAM in Step 1.

Step 3:
Please complete the medical profile for each of your child/ren and upload any action plan if applicable. Please Note: It is the parents/guardians' responsibility to update their child/ren's profiles, to inform the school of any changes. This profile will be the main school medical reference for camps and excursions. 

If you are experiencing any difficulty with the setup process, please contact the office.