Principal's Report
Welcome
Dear members of the St Raphael’s school community,
First Eucharist
Last Sunday we celebrated mass for our first communicant, Marco Malvaso. It was a very special mass and we thank Father Simon for making this such a special occasion for Marco and his family.
On Sunday 9th and 16th September, the children in Year 4 will be receiving the Sacrament of First Eucharist at 10:30am mass.
The Sacrament of Eucharist marks a key step in the initiation of the children into the community of the church, and it is most appropriate that the gathered community welcomes the children.
The celebration of Mass is not just a special occasion for the families of the children receiving the sacrament, but for the whole school and parish community to share and celebrate together.
We encourage all parents and children to join us on Sunday 9th and 16th September at 10:30am mass for this special occasion and to support and pray for the children in Year 4.
Father's Day
We hope that all of the fathers in our school community enjoyed a happy Father’s Day last Sunday. On Friday we had a wonderful turnout of dads for our new format Father’s Day celebrations at St Raphael’s. There were over 140 dads who attended throughout the day and the children thoroughly enjoyed having them in the learning spaces, playing outside with them, the sausage sizzle followed by the assembly in the school hall.
The new format was a change from previous years where the children and dads participated in a full day of activities at school and down at Zwar Park. This year's half day of activities aligns with the Mother’s Day celebrations. We have already received positive feedback from many of the dads on how much they enjoyed the day and the new format. We understand that this may have caused some inconvenience for some of our dads, but from the school’s perspective, the day ran much smoother and efficiently with the activities and serving of food conducted on the school grounds.
This decision was made earlier this year in consultation with our School Education Board and we will continue to look at various options to improve the format of the day. From a practical point of view, the new time format also meant that our volunteer mums did not have to be up at 5:30am to prepare the breakfast!
A big thank you to all of the volunteer mums who gave their time (many took time off work) to help throughout the day. On behalf of the children, their dads and the school, a special thank you to Liliana Varvarigos, Sally Di Martino and Fiona Legerrio-Christoff for organising the day, as well the mums who volunteered to assist with serving food and the fantastic Foundation mums who sourced Father’s Day raffle prizes in the weeks preceding the event. Also, a big thanks to our teachers for being so flexible with organising activities in such unpredictable seasonal weather!
NSIT School Review
As you would be aware, we have recently undertaken an extensive quadrennial school review. This review is mandated for all schools throughout Australia. Last year, we were approached by Catholic Education Melbourne to undertake a new, nation-wide review process which has been devised by the Australian Council of Education and Research [ACER]called the National School Improvement Tool [NSIT]. The NSIT describes the practices of highly effective schools in improving student learning, based on evidence from international research findings.
The NSIT has been used in schools across Australia and internationally as a framework for pinpointing where a school is on its improvement journey through gathering evidence of school practices.
It is used by schools as a basis for self-assessment and is conducted by highly-respected external reviewers to provide an independent perspective on areas for school improvement. The power of the ACER improvement tools is that they describe the most impactful practices for improvement, help create a shared language about improvement and make explicit different levels of performance which point to how to improve practice.
The NSIT covers nine interrelated domains:
- An explicit improvement agenda
- Analysis and discussion of data
- A culture that promotes learning
- Targeted use of school resources
- An expert teaching team
- Systematic curriculum delivery
- Differential classroom learning
- Effective teaching practice
- School-community partnerships
For more information on these nine domains please visit:
https://www.acer.org/school-improvement/improvement-tools/national-school-improvement-tool
The benefit of the NSIT is that it uses evidence-based information to benchmark a school’s performance against all highly effective, high-performing Australian schools and provides advice and information on areas for future school improvement over the next four years.
The following is an article on the NSIT in the July 2018 edition of Australian Teacher’s Magazine:
We were fortunate to have had two highly respected external reviewers, Mr Tony McGruther and Ms Meredith Nolte, conduct the NSIT review over three days here at St Raphael's in August.
Tony has over 33 years of experience as a principal in Queensland, is an educational consultant with Looking Glass Learning and is a Director of QT Mutual Bank. He was also the President of the Queensland Association of State School Principals (QASSP) for many years.
Meredith has over 30 years experience in Victorian education, including school and executive level leadership, and delivers expert consultancy and training in school accountability, school improvement, leadership development, curriculum and assessment, school education and training, community and stakeholder engagement, project management, policy development and implementation.
We have been fortunate to have secured Tony McGruther to present the findings of the NSIT school review on Wednesday 24th October at 7 - 8pm in the school hall.
This date was originally scheduled as a regular School Education Board meeting but we have decided to extend the invitation to all parents in our school community to attend this important meeting. We feel it is important that all parents are informed by the experts and hear the outcomes from this extensive quadrennial NSIT review. We ask that you make the time to come along and be informed about the school’s vision, direction for learning and areas for improvement over the next four years.
If you could please RSVP and reserve your place via this link:
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/nsit-school-review-with-tony-mcgruther-tickets-49879221093
In preparation for this meeting please download the attached PDF.
This PDF will provide you with detailed information on each of the NSIT domains and will assist you with understanding the report/ feedback on the information night.
Foundation Induction Evening
We had a fantastic evening on Tuesday 28th August as we welcomed our new Foundation children and their parents at our Foundation Induction Night. The children met their Year 5 buddy for the first time and enjoyed the activities with their new buddy.
We look forward to welcoming our Foundation students and their parents back to the school later this year for their orientation days.
Bunnings Sausage Sizzle
A big thank you to all the volunteers who assisted with the Bunnings Sausage Sizzle last Saturday at Bunnings, Northland. In trying conditions it was great to see all of our new Foundation families getting involved. The day was a huge success with over $2000 raised for the school.
We thank Sally and Lou Di Martino for coordinating and running this hugely successful fundraiser for our school.
Year 5/6 School Camp
Our Year 5/6 children have headed off this morning on their Melbourne Discovery School Camp for 2018. The Year 5/6s have already attended a Leadership Camp in February and this new camp initiative promises to provide the children with an exciting, enjoyable and invaluable learning experiences for all for the children as they discover Melbourne’s many wonderful hidden treasures! A big thank you to our parent volunteers and also to our dedicated and committed staff – Annie McNaughton, Jackie Moloney, Belinda Hirschauer, Melanie Pizzonia and James Downing – for giving up their own time and family commitments to provide the Year 5/6 children with a memorable experience.
Parent/ Teacher Interviews
A reminder that Parent/ teacher Interview will take place on Monday 10th September. School will close at 1pm on this day.
PDPSSA Athletics Carnival
Good luck to all of the children who will be representing St Raphael’s at the Preston District Sports Association’s Athletics Carnival next Tuesday 11th September at the Coburg Athletics Track. It is a fantastic achievement for all of the children who have made the squad and who will have the honour of representing our school at the carnival. We wish them every success and encourage parents of the children to come along and support them on the day. These are special moments in time and it is definitely worth making the effort to come along to see your children representing their primary school.
Feast of St Raphael's Family Fun Day
Don't forget to keep Sunday 21st October free for our St Raphael's Feast Family Fun Day. Great food, amusement rides, animal farm, pony rides, sporting (AFL, Soccer and Basketball) exhibitions featuring Essendon AFL footballers and more, entertainment, face painting, coffee and cakes and fantastic food trucks and stalls. Mass starts at 10:30am followed by festivities from 11:30am - 3:30pm in the school grounds. See you there!
Book Week "Find Your Treasure" with Kym Lardner
We had a wonderful visit from renowned children’s author, Kym Lardner, who visited our school as part of the Book Week celebrations. The theme for this year’s Book Week was “Find Your Treasure” and I’m sure many of the children have given you their positive feedback of Kym’s presentation. He certainly had all of the children engaged and was so taken by our children and the school that he has generously offered to come back at the end of the year to farewell our Year 6 children.
We captured his thoughts at the end of his day during Book Week.
School Concert 2018 Alice: Inside & Out
Preparations and rehearsals are well underway with our upcoming production of Alice: Inside and Out to be held at the Darebin Arts Centre on Thursday 20th September at 6pm (Cast 1) and 7:30pm (Cast 2).
The children have been really enthusiastic during rehearsals and it is all starting to take shape.
We ask that you purchase your tickets in advance and respect that it is an extremely difficult task for our office staff to try and accommodate everyone’s ticketing requests. Please contact Lynette in the office if you have any ticketing questions.
We have decided not to film the concert this year due to children’s privacy restrictions. We would like to remind all parents that Australian Privacy Laws can be breached if photos or footage of children are shared on social media without written consent from children’s parents. This responsibility and legal onus will be placed on the person taking the footage.
The school will not accept responsibility for any breach of these laws.
School Fees Due
A reminder that 2018 school fees are now due and we ask that all parents reconcile their outstanding accounts as soon as possible and no later than Friday 21st September (end of Term 3).
School Hall Upgrade & School Holiday Program
Further to our previous newsletter announcement to a negotiated funding agreement with our After School Care provider, Camp Australia, to update our hall.
Works will commence on the hall during the upcoming September school holidays and include repainting, carpeting and the installation of a new entrance/ exit door and foyer area off Breen Street and split system heating and cooling.
For the safety of the children, the school holiday program will be relocated during these holidays whilst the works are undertaken.
Playground Redevelopment Update
We are currently awaiting news on the outcome of a supplementary capital building fund application that was prepared and submitted late last year by members of our SEB, Andrew Aquilina and Fiona Garnham, in consultation with myself and members of the Playground Redevelopment Committee, Fiona Legerrio Christoff and Lisa Mancini, for a complete redevelopment of the ground works and playground equipment of our main playground area. This submission has taken many hours to put together and we have met with and received multiple quotes from playground providers. It has been important to find a provider who can complete the scope of works (including ground works) and can realise the vision of our school and the landscape master plan that was created many years ago.
As you would appreciate, the size and scope of these works require significant funding and we are reliant on the outcome of the decision of members of the Catholic Education Office's Planning and Infrastructure department.
The quote for our playground redevelopment proposal is in excess of $350 000 and we are confident that we have received a favourable hearing to fund part of this redevelopment through the CEM's supplementary capital fund process.
We continue to ask for your patience as we wait for an outcome and will inform you of the decision in due course.