Building Commences Today!

Yes! When we arrived at school today, we noticed that trucks had arrived and so had the builders. Exciting weeks ahead....

Premier's Reading Challenge - We Did It!

Yes, 2016 was our Biggest Challenge Ever in the Premier's Reading Challenge. 

Why? Because we were attempting the Challenge without a library! 

Just like a tightrope walker, performing without a net.

The Challenge finished last Friday and we had 257 students complete it. I just looked back on our school's performance in the past and found out that we have beaten our previous best by 7 students, even though we didn't have our own library this year!

How did we do it? Well, firstly we had so many generous people donate quality books to us after the fire, that we were able to accession these and get them out to classrooms really quickly. We had a huge band of parents covering books and Miss Mimi and Miss Nola helping me process books in the library workroom. 

We also had great support from Marrickville Library - we had bulk loans of books and also borrowed PRC books on our visits there. Parents went to their local libraries and signed their children up to be members, so they could borrow PRC books. 

Finally, and very importantly, our Kinder, Year 1 and Year 2 teachers made sure they read 30 PRC books to their classes, and the Year 3 - Year 6 teachers encouraged and assisted their students to enter the books they had read themselves online. 

I am one happy Teacher Librarian today. Thank you to everyone who helped us to win our Biggest Challenge Ever!

Our building program to commence soon!

After months of careful planning, we're pleased to announce that the building of our new school Library will commence soon, in fact, on August 29!

The good news is that we're not just replacing our Library. No, there will be other great changes too! 

The Library will be relocated to the ground floor, where the current Year 6 and Music/Drama rooms will be refurbished to become the new Library. This will make the Library more accessible to our whole school community and it will truly be the heart of our school.

At the same time, the old Library will be transformed into a contemporary learning space for our Year 6 classes. Here are some images of the way it is now, after the fire. I'll post updates as the rebuilding progresses.

So that building can finish before the end of the year, some students will need to be relocated for the duration of the building program. 

We've received a demountable classroom that has been positioned on the playground and Year 5 will move into it, since they have a least number of students. 

Year 6 will move into the present Year 5 classrooms and Music and Drama lessons will take place in the hall until the building has finished. The plans for these new learning spaces can be viewed in the office foyer.

Our Biggest Challenge Ever!

Each year we challenge our students at St Brigid's to complete the Premier’s Reading Challenge (PRC).  This year will be our biggest challenge yet - since we've lost all our library books in the fire! 

This could be a really good news story for our school. 

Imagine if all our students tried really hard to complete the Challenge this year. 

The headline could read School Loses All its Books and Still Completes the Challenge!

PRC books can be found at home, borrowed from local libraries or read online as eBooks. It's very easy to find PRC eBooks through Oliver. Simply type “premier 3-4” or “premier 5-6” in the search bar. 

For students from Kindergarten to Year 2, class teachers will read 30 PRC books to them and these are entered online. Each child will receive a certificate at the end of the year. 

When students reach Year 3, the onus is on them to read books independently and enter the titles online. Some students may need their parents’ help when entering titles online.

Students in Years 3 – 6 must read 20 books in total and of these 5 can be personal choice books, with at least 15 from the PRC list for their grade. All the rules for the PRC can be found on this site https://online.det.nsw.edu.au/prc/home.html , along with booklists for each level. 

I'll be encouraging students to get into the spirit of the Challenge and we will have a chart for each class, to keep track of their progress.

Don't forget this could be our BIGGEST CHALLENGE EVER!

Thank you Newington College, Stanmore

The Teacher Librarian at Wyvern House (the preparatory school of Newington College, Stanmore) organised a Book Drive to support St Brigid's Library recovery. The whole Wyvern House school community came together and collected a huge number of quality books to donate to us for our new school library. Not only did the Newington community collect the books for us, they also delivered them to our school.

The Year 6 boys from Wyvern House and our Year 6 students worked together to unload all the boxes of books and carry them to our temporary Library Workroom. 

We were so excited just opening the boxes, so I can only imagine the excitement on our students's faces when they're able to borrow the books from Newington. Our gratitude goes out to the staff, parents and students who contributed to this wonderful donation. 

The generosity continues.....

We've been so busy processing our new guided reading books that I forgot to tell you about other donations we've received recently. 

A huge thank you goes to the Primary English Teaching Association Australia (PETAA) for their delivery of many boxes of new books including much needed multiple copies of novels. They will also be sending us teacher resource books. We needed a whole class of students to help carry so many books up to our library workroom.

Our thanks also go to John at TeeJay Publishers, all the way from Perth, WA, who sent us some student books for Mathematics linked to the Australian curriculum. 

Finally, thank you to the P & C from Stanmore Public School for their donation of books for our students to read.

Marrickville Library Visits Begin

Last week, our classes began their visits to Marrickville Library. Class teachers will take their classes to the library every fortnight this term. Students will have the opportunity to read or search for resources they need, for example, non fiction books to support their learning. We have a library borrowing card and teachers are able to borrow any extra books they may need.

Also, the Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2 classes will attend a session of Storytime, conducted by the Children's Librarian, Peter. A big thanks from everyone at St Brigid's to the staff at Marrickville Library!

CC image by Phillip Martin