Kia ora koutou e te whānau te Kura o Hato Pirihiti,

Welcome to the 2023 school year and Happy St Brigid’s Feast Day! I hope you have had a wonderful Christmas and summer holiday with your families and friends, enjoying the stunning weather that we have been so fortunate to have!

The Staff and I are looking forward to a great year ahead at St Brigid’s. Over the past week, the teachers have been busy setting up their classroom environments and planning programmes of learning to begin the year. They have also been involved in Mathematics & Assessment Professional Development and enjoyed a wonderful retreat together at the Home of Compassion in Island Bay.

You may have seen that the construction project at the front of our school is finished and it looks fantastic! There are now bifold doors from Rooms 1 & 2 out to a shared and shaded outdoor space. Having an extension of the junior classrooms to an outside space is an asset to the learning environment. We are very grateful to ADW for funding the total cost of this project.

Welcome to our new students

We are thrilled to have 22 new students and their families start at St Brigid’s this week. I know that they will settle in quickly and be welcomed by our friendly and warm community. We look forward to officially welcoming our new whānau at our school Whakatau on Tuesday 7 February at 10.00am.

A very warm welcome to:

Room 1: Harper Adams, Jasper Hasibuan, Freya Pert, Willow Ruakere, Abigail Sundarapperuma

Room 2: Lois Bowker, Emilia Paul, Eve Robinson, Drija Sutariya, Jaime Ureta, Samuel Zheng

Room 6: David Wilkinson

Room 7: Jaiden Joby, Max Karl

Room 8: Ria Elizabeth Rinil

Room 9: Judith Joby, Joshua Wilkinson

Room 10: Matthias Karl

Room 12: Alejandro Clavijo-Auer, Eleanor Fouhy, Eugil Mayo

Room 13: Maxine Nacario

The 2023 School Year

One of our school goals for this year focuses on reconnecting with our whānau and wider community. 2023 gives us the opportunity to strengthen our school, reconnect with each other and get to know members of the community we do not know already.

The teachers are looking forward to connecting and building relationships at Whānau Conferences today and tomorrow, and having all students back at school together on Friday.

Our Whānau Conferences allow time for connections to be built between home and school. The more successful that connection, the more our learners taste appropriate challenges and success. Research clearly shows us that tamariki need to experience challenge and tolerable levels of stress in order to build the strength of their resilience - which becomes a lifelong skill. Staff, in partnership with parents and caregivers, can work positively together starting with getting to know each other at the conferences, building trust and supporting tamariki to set goals for the year.

Finally, there is a list below of key dates to start the new year. We hope you are able to come to our first school event, our School Picnic on Tuesday 7 February 5.00pm - 7.00pm in the ‘Big Courts’ playground; the staff and I look forward to seeing you there!

If you have any questions about the start of the year, please feel free to get in touch with Lynne or Denise. We look forward to connecting with you soon.

Ngā manaakitanga,

Jennifer

Principal/Tumuaki

• Whānau Conferences - Tuesday 1 February and Wednesday 2 February
• First Day of School for all students - Friday 3 February
• Whakatau - Tuesday 7 February 10.00am
• School Picnic - Tuesday 7 February 5.00 - 7.00pm
• Year 8 Camp meeting for parents - Tuesday 7 February 6.30pm
• Year 8 Camp - Tuesday 14 February - Friday 17 February
  

Term One
Wednesday 1 February – Thursday 6 April

(NB: 1&2 February are Whānau Conferences)

Term Two
Monday 24 April (Teacher Only Day – School closed due to Staff Professional Development)

Tuesday 25 April (ANZAC Day)

Wednesday 26 April (classes resume) – Thursday 29 June

Friday 30 June (Teacher Only Day – School closed due to Staff Professional Development)

Term 3
Monday 17 July – Thursday 21 September

Friday 22 September (Teacher Only Day – School closed due to Staff Professional Development)

Term 4
Monday 9 October – Friday 15 December – School finishes at 1.00pm

As we start our school year, we remember St Brigid as the Patron Saint of our school and community whose feast day is today Wednesday 1 February. She is a great role model for us today in our busy lives to remember to help one another to spread love and peace.

It is important to us to welcome St Brigid’s into 2023. As the church is closed until 19 February and is becoming St Francis of Asssi Parish Ohariu due to the closure of St Andrews and St Benedicts churches, we will be having a welcome liturgy in the school grounds on Friday 10 February at 9.15am.

God bless,

Bryony McConnochie

DRS

The Parish organising committee would like 20 St Brigid's children in school uniform to form a guard of honour at the beginning of the mass.

The children will need to meet at school no later than 10.30am. Pat Collier from the Parish will be in charge of organising the children from there and escorting them down to the church in good time.

Please email Bryony at Bryony@stbrigids.school.nz by Friday 10 February to confirm your children will be available to attend the opening mass and form the guard of honour.

Each year the Board of Trustees review the donation structure to make sure that donations, while voluntary, are still affordable and at a fair cost for every family.

The Board has set the 2023 school donation to $100 for the first child and $60 for additional children. This small increase is due to increasing costs for the school, for example, swimming costs have increased as well as bus and transportation costs for class trips. We are committed to providing valuable learning opportunities and experiences for our students.

School donations are used to help bridge the funding gap and are vitally important to help provide valuable resources and enhance our learning environment. In addition to funding trips and activities for our students, next year’s donations will contribute to funding extra teacher aide hours, classroom furniture, outdoor improvements, digital devices and additional learning support.

There are several different ways that you can make your school donation. Parents or caregivers may also make donations of a different value, which are always gratefully received.

For example:

1. A single full payment of $100 for one child and $60 for additional children

2. A payment per term of $25 for one child and $15 for additional children

3. Fortnightly, weekly or monthly payments (can be arranged with the school office)

4. Some workplaces also offer ‘Workplace Giving’ where you can arrange for the school donation payment to be deducted automatically from your wages or salary, with your workplace calculating all the tax allowances as well.

Internet banking - Please transfer funds to: St Brigid’s Operations Account 12-3041-0341681-00, with your child’s family name as the reference. When the donation is paid, you will be emailed a receipt from Lynne.

Did you know that school donations are a tax-deductible payment and you can claim 33.3% of the payment amount? Any payments made before 31 March 2023, can be claimed after your tax return is filed.

Information on how to get your tax rebate can be found on the IRD website - https://www.ird.govt.nz/income-tax/income-tax-for-individuals/individual-tax-credits/tax-credits-for-donations/submit-a-donation-receipt

We thank all our school families for their continued support.

St Brigid’s School Board of Trustees

We use SchoolAppsNZ to send out our weekly school newsletters/notices every Tuesday. This is a key form of communication with our school community so please download the app and stay up to date with our school news.

In addition to the weekly school newsletter/notices, SchoolAppsNZ allows us to send alerts to our parent/caregiver community, links to our website and you can use it to send notification of your child’s absence.

Please download the app by taking the following steps:

1. Go to the app store and search for SchoolAppsNZ and download.

2. When you first open it, it will ask you to search for the school you want.

3. Once you have confirmed St Brigid’s you are good to go!

4. If you already have this app on your phone for a child at another school, just go to ‘add a school’ and add St Brigid’s.

Copies of the school newsletters can also be found on the school website www.stbrigids.school.nz under the A-Z Directory tab.

School calendar – our school calendar (on the school website) has information about school/class events.

We have changed our school uniform supplier for 2023 and will be working with NZ Uniforms from this year. Feedback from our parent community has indicated that parents want to be able to view and purchase in one shop, and therefore we have made the change to NZ Uniforms.

NZ Uniforms is conveniently located at 168 Thorndon Quay, Pipitea, Wellington, 04 238 4727.

Two ways of accessing the NZ Uniforms site to order online:

To go to NZ Uniforms main page (nzuniforms.com) and search for St Brigids in the top search bar

Or

using the link: https://stbrigids.nzuniforms.com/catalog/browse-by-category-1106341.htmx

NZ Uniforms are currently producing our school uniform and are aiming to have stock by the end of January. As not all products are readily available yet, parents can use the website and order, however, there will be delays until they get the stock.

Please note: that we have some brand new stock at school so please contact Lynne at lynne@stbrigids.school.nz if you are interested in purchasing anything.

You can also use the St Brigid's Friends & Whanau Fundraising Page to request secondhand items from the school community.

NZ Uniform Shop Open Hours

Monday - Friday 9:00am - 5:30pm

Saturday 9:00am - 4:00pm

Sunday Closed

We now only have 7 student desks available (height 70cm) to those who would like them for home. They are in OK condition and can be spruced up! Pick up from the office this week. A koha donation would be appreciated to go towards purchasing new collaborative classroom furniture. Thank you for your support.