Newsletter 6 2022

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

Welcome to our second week of school this term. As the cooler weather has begun to take effect, please ensure that students are wearing the correct uniform and not a combination of both summer and winter uniform. For additional warmth, students may wear a navy, grey or black jacket as well as a blue, black or grey beanie.

Catholic Education Week  

This week marks Catholic Education Week, and this is a time to celebrate our sector and what it offers to our families and students.  A focus this year is on saying ‘Thank you,’. Last week, students were given a homework task to thank a staff member. We received many responses from our students and they are currently displayed in the school foyer.  Thank you to families who supported this initiative.

New Vision Statement

We are pleased to launch our new school vision. We are hoping to have our newly created vision blessed at the Opening and Blessing of our newly completed upstairs refurbishment. We are currently waiting on a date to be confirmed and families will be invited to attend when we have more details.  We do, however, intend to see our vision embedded in our learning spaces and articulated by our students.  You will find a full update in Marianne Farrugia’s article.

Marianne Farrugia News

We congratulate Ms Marianne Farrugia, Assistant Principal, Director of Learning, on her recent appointment as Principal, St Joseph’s School, West Hindmarsh. Marianne has been an integral part of our school community since the beginning of 2020 and we wish her well as she embarks on a new leadership journey with the St Joseph’s School community. Marianne will begin her position, as Principal, in Term 3 and we will have an opportunity to farewell her later this term.

A letter informing our school community was emailed on Monday and you will find the letter here.

NAPLAN

This week is a significant week for our Year 3 and Year 5 students as they engage in the NAPLAN (National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) for the first time. NAPLAN was cancelled in 2020 as this was the first year of the COVID -19 pandemic and our current Year 5 students did not sit the tests back then as a result. This national assessment is a series of tests focused on basic skills, in numeracy and literacy that are administered annually to Australian students in Years 3,5,7 and 9.  NAPLAN results will give us a snapshot of student learning as we use other tools and regular school assessments to gauge progress and ‘real time’ learning.

Trivia Night

We have postponed our upcoming St Raphael’s School Trivia Night due to COVID. Although a disappointment to many, we are committed to holding this community event later this year. I thank the P&F Committee and in particular, Gemma Cooper who was leading the Trivia Night. The P&F have organised a few other school events for this year, and we are always looking for ways to connect our community. If you have ideas that you would like to share, please contact Gaia Ricci, P&F Chairperson to share your thoughts.

P&F News

We thank our P&F members and especially, Nayomi Peiris, Margaret Thornton (Violet and Leo's grandmother) and Pam Waters (Kyle’s grandmother) who helped run the recent Mother’s Day Stall. Thank you to Gaia Ricci for purchasing the gifts on our behalf. This is one of the services our P&F provide to our community.

With every best wish,
Mia Harms
Principal

I extend a warm welcome to your all as we commence Term 2. I hope all our mothers and mother figures had a wonderful Mother’s Day on Sunday. As a community, we celebrated a Liturgy to thank our mothers and special women in our lives. We honoured all the women who care, love and guide us and we also remembered Mary, Jesus’ mother who continues to inspire us today. It was wonderful to have Fr Denis and Sue Schulz join us, as well as a number of parents for both our Liturgy and morning tea. Our dedicated Parents and Friends Committee organised a Mother’s Day Stall where students could purchase gifts to present their mums and caregivers. We hope you enjoyed your surprises!

Sacramental Program

Our Sacrament of Confirmation and First Eucharist preparation sessions resume this week. May we pray for Georgia, Mia, Luella, Elaine and Leo who continue their initiation into the Catholic community. The children have prepared prayer cards that are displayed at St Paul of the Cross Church so that parishioners can pray for them during their journey. Our young people will celebrate their Confirmation on Tuesday 14 June at 7pm at St Paul of the Cross Church and they will celebrate their First Communion at one of the weekend masses on 18 and 19 June. We keep all of our young people in our prayers during this special time.

Father Denis visits

We are so pleased to have Fr Denis resume his weekly visits to our classes to share stories and wisdom in relation to year level Religious Education learning. This week he will meet with our Year 4 students to break open the Eucharist in more detail and the following week, his presentation with our Year 5s will explore the healing miracles. His commitment to share and connect with our young people is a wonderful gift.

School/Parish Art Show

This term, we are preparing to present an Art Show at the Monastery. Our learners will create pieces to display at this inaugural event. Please diarise either Friday 1 July 4pm- 8pm, Saturday 2 July 10am- 1pm or Sunday 3 July 10am-1pm to visit the St Raphael’s School display and enjoy a refreshment at the beautiful Monastery building and grounds. We look forward to seeing what masterpieces our learners will create!

Southern Cross

Please find the latest edition of the Southern Cross at https://thesoutherncross.org.au/

Wishing you a wonderful week ahead!

God bless,
Kelly Manera
Assistant Principal Religious Identity and Mission

St Raphael’s School Vision

We are proud to share the new St Raphael’s School vision with the community.  This vision was constructed as it became apparent that our previous vision, mission and values no longer captured the direction our school has been taking in the past two years as we have strengthened our learning focus and re-identified ourselves as a school community.

Thanks to Amy Thornton, mum of Leo, for this initial design work.  We are now in the process of finalising the look of our vision for publishing on our website, documents and around our physical school site.  We hope to formally launch and bless our new school vision when we have the official Opening and Blessing of our refurbished learning spaces later in the year.

Our learners, with the help of their teachers, are already engaging with our new vision, developing a clear understanding of who we strive to be as a Catholic School community. As you can see, our vision incorporates our St Raphael’s School Learner Dispositions as well as our new Mercy values, both of which our whole community has had the opportunity to co-construct.  

Whilst we believe that the diagram tells the story, please see below the worded version, helping all to understand the new St Raphael’s School Vision.

We strive for high levels of learning and belonging for all
We are curious, collaborative, resilient, responsible and thoughtful learners
In the Mercy tradition, we are respectful, just, and compassionate
We are inspired by Jesus and enriched by faith
In community and for our world

Thank you

As you will have read, I will be leaving St Raphael’s School next term to take up the position of Principal at St Joseph’s School, West Hindmarsh. I will begin transitioning into this role in the coming weeks for one day per week, allowing me a wonderful opportunity to get to know the community at St Joseph’s School without yet having to say goodbye to the beautiful community at St Raphael’s School. In the meantime, I wish to thank you for welcoming me into your community over this past couple of years, for the friendly greetings, the conversations and, in particularly, for allowing me to get to know your gorgeous children and for entrusting them to me at the gate each morning!  I look forward to continuing the privilege of working with, and for this community as this term unfolds.

Marianne Farrugia
Assistant Principal – Director of Learning

SAPSASA AFL Football

A huge congratulations to Aiden (Year 6) and Braxton (Year 5) who both tried out for the Adelaide Southeast SAPSASA Football team, both boys have been selected and will represent our zone in the State Metro Carnival in Week 4. We know they will both represent our school with pride.   

Kelly Sports

Kelly Sports started this week for our Reception – Year 2s and it was great to see so many students taking part in the Amazing Autumn Sports Program. This term they will participate in the following sports; football, soccer, basketball and netball. If you would like to register your child, there is still time.

School Netball

We officially have a St Raphael’s School Netball Team up and running. This team is made up of Year 4-6 students who will be playing their first game on Thursday, 4.30pm at Netball SA Stadium. Trainings will be held at recess time on Wednesday. Good luck team! 

School Soccer  

This term we have amalgamated our school soccer team with St Joseph’s Memorial School. We have 3 students in the U9 team (Joshua, Leo and Isaac ) and 3 students in the U11 team (Oliver, Nicholas and Nathan). Training starts this week with our first game this Saturday, we wish both our teams good luck.

Hannah Reid
PE Teacher and Sports Coordinator

St Raphael’s School uniform is ordered using the Qkr App.  If you place your order before 9:00am it will be sent home with your child that afternoon. Orders placed after 9:00am will be processed and sent home the following day.

If the sizing is incorrect, please return the item/s the next day (do not remove tags) to be exchanged for your preferred size.

We are unable to fill uniform orders without prior notice.

At the end of Term 1 we worked with two gardeners from Bunnings to do some new season planting in our veggie patch. First, we needed to mix in some new soil. Next, we dug holes and planted lots of seedlings. Lastly, we watered the plants. We are excited to watch them grow over the coming months.

Welcome to Emmeline Mercia a beautiful baby sister to our students Quade and Jacob. 

Mother’s Day Stall

Last week’s Mother’s Day stall was a huge success with children choosing a special gift to give to their loved one on Sunday.

Thank you so much to our Parents and Friends Committee volunteers for their organisation and help.

We hope all of the mothers and mother-figures in our community enjoyed a very Happy Mother’s Day!

Trivia Night News

Unfortunately due to COVID 19 restrictions we have decided to postpone the St Raphael’s School Trivia Night on May 14. We understand this may be as disappointing for you as it is for us.

With the Premier of South Australia’s confirmation that masks will continue to be required to be worn by staff and adults in schools for the first four weeks of Term 2, we felt this event could put our community at further risk. It was a difficult decision, however, after careful consideration we believe it's in the best interest of the attendees, organisers, and all those involved.

We apologise for any inconvenience and are looking forward to running the event later this year, thank you for your patience in the meantime.

Next meeting

Week 3, Tuesday, 6pm – 7pm online via Teams. If you would like to attend please email ktucker@raph.catholic.edu.au to be sent an invitation.

If you do have any urgent questions about the Trivia Night postponement please reach out to us on ktucker@raph.catholic.edu.au

Thank you for your support and understanding!

Katrina Tucker
Marketing and Communications Coordinator