St Brigid’s Primary School staff and students have arrived back with a smile in the first week of the 2026 school year.
From nervous Preps to senior Grade Six students, there was plenty to do and even more to look forward to upon the return to school.
Principal Tess Dwyer said this year is a very exciting year for St Brigid’s.
“This year is our 125th anniversary, so it’s great to be able to acknowledge that really important milestone and the kids have started off really settled, which is great,” she said.
“We are all very excited to be back at school, we’ve done a lot of work over the holidays too, I know I’ve been here a fair bit.
“But schools are not interesting places without the children; it’s much better when they’re here.”
The Preps started their day with some stretching and colouring-in, using pencils and crayons to design a crown celebrating their first day of school on Thursday 29 January.
Ms Dwyer said a good start to the year really sets the scene for the students and staff.
“It helps both staff and kids just feel settled, feel confident and really set themselves up well to have a great year,” she said.
“The beginning of the year for a student wellbeing side of things is super important, but also from a learning side of things, where you get all those structures in place so the children feel secure.”
With the feast day for St Brigid falling on Sunday 1 February, students throughout the school also celebrated the event in their first week.
Ms Dwyer said it’s lovely to see how excited families are when the kids are back and starting school for the year too.
“School holidays are fantastic and really important for kids, they are a great opportunity for them to spend time with their families but also I think sometimes parents find that getting back into that routine of coming to school each day is really important too,” she said.
“We’ve had parents working here all holidays, building a brand new playground area in our back garden area, and it’s phenomenal, which it just shows me what a great community we have, that they would come in every day of their school holidays to work and make the school a vibrant place for our kids.
“We’re continuing to work really hard on explicit teaching and really helping the kids to embed their learning, so that’s a really exciting learning sort of focus for us and we’ve got other special events coming up but the biggest one we’re looking forward to the most is the opening of our new building, we’re excited to be able to move into that in late February.”
