Principal News

Dear Members of the St Raphael’s school community,

As we enter the final week of this term, I would like to thank everyone in our school community who have supported the children during the last six weeks. 

We have not received any information regarding the children’s return to on-site school, and we will keep you updated if/ when we receive further advice.

For now, it appears that we will be continuing remote online learning into next term, and I would encourage all of the children to have a good break from devices and screens throughout the upcoming school holiday period. Also, with the weather improving, I encourage everyone to get their children outdoors and involved in healthy activities during these school holidays.

It has been an extremely trying time for all, especially the children. So, as a fun way to finish off the term, we have booked the magician, Alex Unexplainable, to entertain the children on Friday 17th September at 1:30 pm. We encourage all children to join Alex online for a fun 45-minute magic show. There will be some items the children will need if they wish to participate in the fun. These items will be shared by your child’s homeroom teacher on their Google Classroom page. 

We look forward to welcoming our 2022 Foundation students to an online induction session this Wednesday from 5pm. 

Please stay well, enjoy the upcoming school holidays with your children, and we look forward to next term and hopefully returning to on-site school.

School Closure Day

We had previously planned to have a whole school closure day on Friday 13th August to commence the planning for the quadrennial 2022 School Review. School reviews are an extensive and exhaustive process and require the whole school staff to prepare and provide input.

With the subsequent move back to remote online learning, we postponed this day until later in the school year. With lockdown restrictions continuing indefinitely we changed the date to the first day of next term, Monday 4th October. We have decided to proceed with this date as a whole school closure day. 

There will be no on-site supervision of children of authorised workers. Theircare will be open on this day and bookings can be made directly.

We have been conscious of scheduling this day at the beginning of the term to ensure minimal disruption to the children's learning for when we do eventually return to on-site school.

NAPLAN 2021 Results

Each year, students in Years 3 and 5 complete the National Assessment Program of Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). NAPLAN is the only national assessment that all Australian children undertake that monitors students’ ongoing literacy and numeracy progress. 

The results provide parents and schools with an understanding of how individual students performed during the test. NAPLAN is only one form of assessment, and the results should be considered with our school-based assessments and reports. 

The NAPLAN tables below indicate the following results:

• Students in Year 3 are above the State and National benchmarks across all assessment areas; Reading, Writing, Grammar and Punctuation, Spelling, and Numeracy.
• Students in Year 5 are above the National benchmarks across all areas.

As a school, we celebrate students’ achievements in NAPLAN and stress the importance of using these results in collaboration with our ongoing school-based assessments and reporting. 

The NAPLAN results will support our ongoing direction for professional learning and the development of improved targeted teaching. In addition, the trends are used to support the design of whole-school strategic planning for future direction. 

Online Behaviour and ICT Acceptable Use

School Fees

All family statements were emailed out on Monday, 13th September. If you didn't receive your statement, please email lgamble@srprestonwest.catholic.edu.au for a copy.  All school fees are due and must be paid in full by the end of this term (Friday 17th September). As always, if anyone is experiencing financial difficulties, I urge you to reach out to the school to discuss alternative payment arrangements and support.