Newsletter 7 2022

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

National Reconciliation Week

Next week we celebrate National Reconciliation week. Every year we celebrate National Reconciliation week as a reminder to us to continue to build positive, respectful relationships between Australians, and to celebrate Indigenous culture. Each year there is a theme attributed and the theme for 2022 is Be Brave. Make Change. Tomorrow, the Year 4 class will be participating in Reconciliation Week activities at the City of Unley Town Hall, and will have the opportunity to share their learning with other schools attending.  

COVID Updates

Yesterday, during a press conference, the Premier, Peter Malinauskas MP, confirmed that the Emergency Management Declaration has been revoked. He also announced new rules with respect to masks in schools and early childhood settings which will take effect from the beginning of next week, Monday 30 May.

Whilst masks remain strongly recommended for staff and visitors and for Years 3-12 students in school and early childhood settings, from next week masks are no longer required to be worn whilst on the school site. See my letter to the community here.

Please continue to actively monitor your child/ren for any COVID-19 symptoms. If any symptoms develop (even mild symptoms) students must not attend school, and should access a PCR test for COVID-19 and follow SA Health instructions.

Building Program

As you know we have been in discussions with Studio 9 Architects and are pleased to share our concept plans with the community.  Our plans will be on display in our Parent Notice Board for your perusal. These are concept designs with a view to making our school entrance more visible and accessible by our parent community. We are in the initial stages of our planning and will share more details later.

Catholic Education SA Promotion

On Monday 23 May two of our students were selected to become part of a photo shoot to promote Catholic Education SA. Gabby G and Isaac V will be the new faces representing our school community. We thank their families for allowing their child/rens’ participation. This is a marketing initiative we have been involved with over the last few years and a great promotion for our school. You would have seen Isla A’s and James B’s images on bus shelters, backs of buses and on our school website. Now we look forward to seeing two other images of our beautiful children.

Translation of our Website and Newsletter

Did you know you can translate our school website and newsletter into 108 different languages?  Look for the Google Translate symbol at the top of this page and select the language.

With every best wish,
Mia Harms
Principal

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

Welcome to Week 4! I must say I have been admiring the changing leaves and array of colour the Autumn season brings and have really taken notice of the beauty of this change, particularly on morning duty around the school yard. Some of our young people have made the most of the abundance of falling leaves creating piles with which to entertain themselves. It truly is a wonderful sight to watch them engage with the natural elements of our world in this way. Along with our ever popular nature play space, we are fortunate to be able to encourage a variety of play experiences for our learners.

Speaking of varied play opportunities, we are pleased to welcome back our lunch time clubs at St Raphael’s School. During the week our learners visit indoor spaces for Lego Club, Chess Club, Drama Club and Knitting Club. All are well attended and allow different student interests to flourish during break time. In preparation for our Art Show in Week 9, we will also be running Art Club, for several weeks at lunch time. We thank Mrs Harms for sharing her passion with our students and look forward to seeing their self-portraits and landscape paintings.

Student Voice

Last week, our vibrant Student Voice group led a whole school assembly, sharing some of the initiatives that have been brought forward from year level class meetings. At St Raphael’s School we are passionate about student agency and providing our learners with opportunities to discuss, discern and initiate initiatives for our school. At the assembly, our representatives spoke about care for our nature play space, litter in the yard and explained the social justice focus for Term 2 which will be supporting  the Vinnies Winter Appeal. There was also an opportunity for student ‘celebrations’ as we witnessed in awe, Braxton in Year 5, quickly and effortlessly solve a Rubix Cube puzzle as well as congratulating recent sporting achievements of a number of our students. We look forward to seeing what our Student Voice team will action for the remainder of the this term.

Winter Woolies Week and Silly Sock Day

In Week 6, our Student Voice team will focus on raising money, awareness and collecting donations for the St Vincent de Paul Winter Appeal. During Winter Woolies Week, we, as a school, will make a concerted effort to bring in donations of quality clothing, blankets, jackets, socks and toiletries to support those seeking support from Vinnies. On Friday 10 June, students can wear ‘silly socks’ - the brighter the better- for a gold coin donation or a donation of a new pair of socks to place in our Vinnies bins located outside the school office. We thank you in anticipation for supporting our community outreach for Term 2.

Sacramental Program

Our sacramental journey is well underway and our young people have engaged meaningfully in the family group sessions. We are looking forward to our celebrations of Confirmation and First Eucharist in June at St Paul of the Cross Church. At our last session, our participants shared the saint name they have chosen for their Confirmation. It was wonderful to hear the thought, connection and reasons as to why their chosen saint inspires them. Each child has created a flame that is displayed in the Church for parishioners to sign as a mark that they are being prayed for – a lovely connection to our wider community. We continue to keep Georgia, Luella, Mia, Elaine and Leo in our prayers.

Feast of the Ascension

The Feast of the Ascension falls this Thursday and commemorates the Christian belief of the bodily ascension of Jesus into heaven. It is celebrated on a Thursday traditionally as it is the 40th day after Jesus’ Resurrection. Interestingly, this feast is one of the few (Passion and Pentecost) that is ecumenical, that is universally celebrated, with other Christian churches. When talking to our young people, we can describe this feast as a time when Jesus and his disciples gathered together for the last time and while together, Jesus was taken up to Heaven body and soul to be with the Father.  For our young people, the important part to understand is that Jesus is always with us even though He is not here physically. Jesus, our friend, is there to offer comfort, love and courage…..we just need to ask.

Lord Jesus,
Right before your Ascension you told your apostles to be your witness on Earth,
May we be similarly inspired to spread your message, both in word and action,
And be your heart and hands in our troubled world.
We ask this in your name,
Amen.

Wishing you a wonderful week ahead!

Go well,
Kelly Manera
Assistant Principal Religious Identity and Mission

Year 6 Podcasting and Year 4 STEM Punks

Both our Year 6 and our Year 4 classes are working in collaboration with CESA staff to engage in exciting projects this term.

Year 6 are working with the Arch D Podcasting Program to create their own podcasts and achieve Level 1 podcasting credentials.  Anthony Sicari has worked with personnel to identify a topic – 'One Idea that can Change the World' which is integrated with other learning they are already doing to enable a deeper and more meaningful learning experience.  We look forward to sharing their podcasts which provide an excellent vehicle for our learners to develop and showcase their literacy, collaborative and creative skills.

After expressing an interest in a STEM pilot program, Clare Deverson was selected as the representative from the Eastern region.  Clare attended the first of two days professional learning with the team from STEM Punks earlier this week and the Year 4 class engaged in an incursion with the team on Tuesday.

The Year 4 learners were fully engaged in the learning experience which saw them using a design thinking process to design a habitat for living on the moon.  They then developed skills in TinkerCad, an online 3D design program, to create their designs. When created, learners engaged in another online program, Co Spaces, to insert their creations and to build a 3-dimensional environment. Now the learners have developed skills using these programs, they can utilise them in their everyday learning to create, innovate solution-build and problem-solve.

Marianne Farrugia
Assistant Principal – Director of Learning

Next week we begin our 5 week Little Raph’s New Reception Transition Program and we welcome Charlie B, Jake B, Aaniah C, Polly C, Claudia G, Ethan S and Juro U to our school community. These little people will ‘officially’ begin their educational journey with us in Term 3. We wish our new students and their families all the best and we look forward to working in partnership with them, as we do with all our families.

What a busy start to the term! It has been great to see Inter School Sport back up and running. We have several Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 students participating in the Kelly Sports ‘Amazing Autumn Program’, on a Tuesday after school. Students have been engaging in netball and AFL, which has been led by our Kelly Sport coaches.

Our soccer teams have been doing well. Played on a Saturday morning, the Under 9 team won their first game 8-1, and our under 11 team drew 0 all in their first game. We look forward to hearing how the rest of their season goes.

For the first time in a while, we have a St Raphael's School netball team. For a lot of our Year 4, 5 and 6 students this is the first time they have ever played netball. All games are played on a Thursday after school. Even though we have not won a game yet, we are working well together as a team and learning lots along the way.  

We wish both Aiden (Year 6) and Braxton (Year 5) all the best this week as they participate in a three day AFL Carnival representing our school in the South East SAPSASA Team! We look forward to hearing how it all goes!

Hannah Reid
PE Teacher and Sport Coordinator

Year 5 students commenced their learning in Mathematics this term by inquiring into the relationship between three-dimensional (3D) objects and their two-dimensional (2D) representations.

Below left: Loraine, Nicholas and Ivy engaging their Curious Disposition to explore solids (real and models) in order to work out their key properties.

Below middle: Braxton, Mia and Nathan investigating which nets make certain solids.

Below right: Elaine, Braxton and Jessica thinking creatively whilst working on the presentation of their learning.

An activity for parents to do at home with their children involving building sibling bonds is available here. 

You may also find interesting an American based mental health campaign where celebrities and children talk about mental health. Please click here to go to the website. 

Sarah Byrne
School Counsellor