Newsletter 3 2023

Dear Parents/Caregivers, Students, Staff, and Friends of St Raphael’s School, 

On Sunday we held our first Car Boot Sale and nothing was going to dampen the day, including the inclement weather! We had a few trickles of rain throughout the day with the sun shining in between. A tremendous thank you to the Pike family, Gill family, Fletcher family, Ricci family and Fernando family for their cooking skills as they managed the BBQ and cake stall. Thank you too to families who baked some goodies for us to sell. 

We were fully booked with over 20 stall holders, with a stream of visitors arriving on the day. A few families chose to have a stall and a very enterprising little person was also selling delicious lemonade to visitors. I must say, it was a flavour I had not experienced before and was delicious none the less.  I even bought a few bargains myself.  Our intention was to build community, and this happened in spades on the day. Thank you to the Parents and Friends Committee, and in particular Katrina for all her behind the scenes work in ensuring that the day was a tremendous success!  

School Board Nomination Forms  

It is not too late to nominate to become a member of the St Raphael’s School Board. Board elections will be formally included at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Tuesday 21 March. If you are considering becoming a Board Member, please complete the nomination form available here or you can contact me for further information. All parents/caregivers are invited to attend the AGM.  I refer to Courtney Hood’s article, entitled ‘Board Talk’ where she too encourages parents/caregivers to consider nominating for the School Board.  

The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy Assessments 

The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy Assessments, (NAPLAN) involving all students in Australia in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 will be administered next week. This year these assessments are taking place earlier. In past years NAPLAN was conducted in early Term 2. As part of their learning, students have been preparing for these assessments. Our students are encouraged to do their best on the day and we remind parents/caregivers that the NAPLAN data collected demonstrates a small snapshot of student learning and understanding. We use many forms of assessments to gauge where our children are at with their ongoing learning and progress. Parents/Caregivers will receive their child/ren’s NAPLAN results later this year. 

I wish you all a safe and happy long weekend ahead. 

With every best wish,
Mia Harms
Principal

Dear Parents,

Welcome to Week 6. It has been a wonderful start to the term and we continue our focus on our promises that were made for Lent and keep the discussion going about our commitment to these promises as we journey towards Easter.  During Lent Catholic schools show their support for Caritas Australia.

Here is some information about Caritas Australia, to help families understand where money goes and what the fund-raising supports when we ask for donations for Caritas and Project Compassion during Lent.

The Caritas Australia Mission

Who we are and what drives us?

We are the Catholic Church's international aid and development agency in Australia. We are committed to working alongside the most vulnerable and addressing the imbalance of power by including the people affected in the decisions impacting their lives.

We have been committed to tackling poverty and inequality in Australia and overseas since 1964. 

When a crisis hits, we work hand-in-hand with local communities and churches to bring aid and relief to people whose lives have been devastated by natural disaster or conflict. 

Today we serve in 20 countries, working through 61 partnerships to bring hope, support and compassion to the world’s most vulnerable people.

As part of our mandate, we also seek to engage all Australians, especially the Catholic community, to advocate and act for equality and justice for all.

The way we work

By partnering with local communities we support them to build better lives for themselves - improving access to sustainable livelihoods, clean water, sanitation and education.  

We have learnt from our work over the years that for those living in poverty, locally-led development programs can create lasting change in communities. That’s why we work with communities at the grassroots to eliminate poverty, by focusing on local strengths to promote positive change.

Caritas support at St Raphael's School

To support Caritas and Project Compassion during Lent, we will be celebrating Harmony Day on Tuesday 21 March.  Children can wear a touch of orange to mark the day of unity and harmony and bring a gold coin donation.  We will also be selling orange ribbons to wear, these will be 50cents.  Look out for further information.

Sacramental Program

If you feel that your child is ready to begin the Sacramental Journey to receive the Sacraments of Reconciliation, Confirmation and Communion.  Please contact me hcard@raph.catholic.edu.au, and I can put you in touch with our Pastoral Associate at our parish and you can find out more details about starting this journey with your child.

Blessings to you all,
Helena Card
Assistant Principal Religious Identity and Mission

Girls in Tech

Last week I had the pleasure of taking the Year 5 girls to St Peter’s Girls for a Girls in Tech excursion. The girls were invited to enjoy a variety of activities based on potential career paths they can take using technologies. Some of the activities included: being an engineer, where they had to solve a town water challenge, using a variety of technologies in the innovation hub, escaping from an escape room and flying drones. The girls had a fantastic time and enjoyed the various activities. Here is what each of the girls said:

Ebony- It was so much fun and exciting to see what we were going to do, and my favourite part was definitely the drones and water pipes.

Celine- I thought it was really fun and the fact that I only get to experience this once I thought it was really nice.

Caroline- It was great fun with all the activities

Amy- I liked the video games and drones.

Anna- I liked the activities and my favourite one was the one with the water tubes.

Isla- I liked how you could do video games and the drones.

Corey-Lee Lewis
Assistant Principal – Leader of Learning

As the current Chair of our School Board, I wanted to give all new and continuing families within our community some insight into what important topics for your child/ren we discuss within our meetings and can take the opportunity to nominate for the 2023/2024 School Board ahead of our first meeting on Tuesday 21 March 2023!

Our School Board is made up of parents, representatives from the Parish and teaching staff, as well as our Principal Mrs Harms. We meet twice a term on a Tuesday night from 6-7.30pm either as a group in the Loft or via Teams if needed (however, snacks are included if attending in person!). We even have an End of Year Christmas Dinner celebration at the Parkside Hotel for our last meeting in December each year. 

Important topics we have covered lately include - whether we should commence a Vacation Care Program, change the school uniform, our marketing strategy, the money coming into our school and its flow into our budget, the progress of the massive multi-million dollar building project to commence this year and... our call for new members!

As a Board Member you are given confidential Board Reports ahead of the meeting to review at your leisure ranging from reports from the Principal, Finance, Staff, Parish, Work Health and Safety, OSHC to Marketing Communication. You will then have the ability to have an informed discussion on agenda items and vote on decisions made by the School Board. 

If you want to ensure your child's year level is represented within Board discussions, please let Mrs Harms know you are interested and she can assist you with the nominations process. All parents and caregivers are welcome. 

All parents and caregivers are also welcome at our Annual General Meeting on Tuesday 21 March 2023 at 6pm and the first School Board Meeting with 2023 members will commence immediately after at 6.30pm.

We as the School Board members look forward to seeing those of you who are equally as interested in ensuring our school community is meeting the needs of our most important asset, our children.

Finally, as mentioned above we are looking into whether it is viable to commence a partial Vacation Care program at our school - so that we have specific data to analyse and can vote as a School Board, I urge you to please complete the new survey that was electronically sent to you last week. It's only with your input that we can assess new ideas put forward to continue to improve our school. Thank you in advance for completing the survey.  

As always, any questions or if you want to discuss becoming a member of the School Board, please feel free to approach me.

Courtney Hood
School Board Chair 2022/2023

Year 4D are lucky enough to be part of a Makers Empire CESA project. We are excited about this new opportunity and have all completed our basic training using the Maker’s Empire platform. We are now exploring some of the CAD features, which will enable us to draw up our 3D printing solutions (we can’t wait to print, using our new 3D printers!). We have been exploring the design process by looking at ways to improve a Pringles container. Understanding the design process will help us understand the steps we need to undertake to solve our real-life problem.

We are also part of the STEM MAD (make a difference) competition. CESA STEM MAD is designed to acknowledge and promote STEM learning initiatives that address real-world problems and demonstrate how students in Catholic schools take action that matters. Student teams are invited to design a product, service or innovation to Make A Difference (MAD) to others or the environment.

We are very excited to be involved in this learning. We hope you will be able to attend our showcase, later this year!

Sports Day

Sports Day will take place on the school grounds on Friday 24 March (Week 8) at 9:00am and conclude at 1:00pm approximately. Students will be expected to arrive at school at normal time. OSHC will operate as usual (before and after school care) on this day. 

Sports Day will be a rotating ‘activity station/tabloid’ format (6 stations in all), followed by baton relays (Reception – Year 6) and tug-of-war (Year 3 – Year 6). A distance race also will be held for selected students in Years 3-6. Parents are encouraged to move around the stations with their child’s class.

If a designated parent/caregiver is present at the conclusion of the events, there is the option to take your child/children home early. If not, students will remain at school until normal dismissal time at 3:10pm.

Sports Day Raffle

We kindly ask every family in the school to donate one or more items in their child’s team colour. All items will be collected and placed into themed Sports Day colour gift baskets, which will be raffled on the day. A few basic suggestions could be a red drink bottle, a blue cap, a yellow beach ball or some green tennis balls. Be creative, thinking of items that will excite and surprise! If donating food items, non-perishable is the way to go. We would appreciate it if all items can be brought in by Monday 20 March. They can be deposited in your child’s classroom or the Office.

Hannah Reid
P.E. Teacher and Sports Coordinator

The first day of Term 2, Monday 1 May is a Pupil Free Day. If we get enough bookings to make it viable, OSHC will be available from 8.00am-5.30pm on that day. We intend having an OSHC Pyjama Party themed day.

Please book through the OSHC Fullybooked family portal. If you haven’t already enrolled your child you will need to do so before they can attend. To enrol them, please use the link below.

https://straphaelsos.fullybookedccms.com.au/family/login

If you have any problems or further queries email Anne at oshc@raph.catholic.edu.au

Success

Thank you to all our parent volunteers for their efforts on Sunday at our wonderful Community Car Boot Sale. Despite the inclement weather we had lots of customers, and our oval was full of stalls selling everything from handmade spice meal kits, hand crafted earrings, hand knitted beanies, plastic fidget toys, beautiful large artworks on canvas, clothes, and trash and treasure.

We are so grateful to our vibrant local community for coming out to support each other and our school - THANK YOU!  

Volunteers Needed

To help with Sports Day this year we require your help to wrap the Sports Day raffle baskets and make the sports team colour ribbons to be sold on the day.  Please meet Tuesday March 21 from 2pm at the front office if you can.

Join us

Our Parents and Friends Committe meet online once a term via TEAMS.

These meetings are a great way to connect with our school and find out about fundraising and community buildings events taking place.

There are no expectations to join the group or actively participate unless you choose to. Your contribution can be as little as volunteering once to help sell sausages at a BBQ, to leading an event. It's up to you. What you can give is very much appreciated. To register your interest, find out more, or to make a comment or suggestion, please email Katrina at ktucker@raph.catholic.edu.au

Next meeting will be Tuesday Term 2, Week 1 6pm on TEAMS. Invites will be sent out closer to the day.

Katrina Tucker
Marketing and Communications Coordinator

If you haven't heard of Karen Young, founder of 'Hey Sigmund', do yourself a favour and visit her website. Hey Sigmund is about building courage in children and teens, and provides lots of resources for parents and families requiring support around anxiety and mental health.

Karen says "Every day there are stunning new insights into the human mind and the way we work, love, play, behave, relate, think and feel. We are learning more and more about what it means to be human, and how to master the art. Now more than ever, anybody who is any version of human has something to gain from the science of psychology...." https://www.heysigmund.com/about/

Sarah Byrnes
School Counsellor

Mercedes College invites the St Raphael's School community to join them to celebrate 55 years of the Mercedes College International Student Programme, which links the college to the world through their IB curriculum.

Find out more here.