Principal News

In this newsletter:

• Thanks and Farewells
• New School Video
• School Review 2022
• Parent Involvement 2023 ~ Community Liaison Committee (CLC)
• Staffing News
• Start of 2023 School Year Arrangements
• 2023 School Calendar
• Other News

Dear Members of the St Raphael’s school community,

Another school year has ended, and we are incredibly proud of all of our achievements this year, including getting through the year without disruptions to the children’s learning and having to revert to remote learning. 

Thanks and Farewells

As we come to the end of the 2022 school year, I would like to thank a number of people for their support and assistance throughout this year.

We have managed to get through this year without any lockdowns or interruptions.

Congratulations to our graduating Year 6 students. The last few years have been extremely difficult for you all, but you have shown great leadership and character. We had a beautiful Year 6 Graduation ceremony last night. 

We wish you all the very best for the years ahead and hope that you pursue your dreams with vigour. Remember, take every chance, every opportunity and above all, be courageous. 

We will be watching from a distance with pride in the knowledge that we have been given a special, privileged opportunity to play a small part in your lives and in shaping the person that you have become.

"Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places." (Roald Dahl, The Minpins)

We are incredibly grateful for the assistance and cooperation of our parents in keeping our whole school community safe throughout this year. To our departing families, we wish you every success in the future and thank you for your ongoing support of the school during your children’s time at St Raphael’s. Thank you to all of the parents who volunteered and have assisted in various ways throughout this year. Your support is invaluable, and we look forward to your involvement in the school next year. 

To the teachers and support staff at St Raphael’s. Your dedication, commitment, and professionalism to support the children’s return to school reflect your deep passion for teaching. A special thanks to Rosalba Squarci, Shane Giese, Lynette Gamble, and our school leadership team members. We all gratefully appreciate your dedication, commitment, organisation and passion for teaching. 

Fr Simon Grainger - a huge thank you for your tremendous support and spiritual guidance of the staff and students in the school community. 

To our departing members of the School Advisory Board - Roan Poltz, Pauline O’Connor, Tracy Pace, Lisa Mancini and Cara Fonua. Thank you for your advice and input over the last few years. As the parent voice of our community, it has been great to work with you as we have worked on whole school improvement and to realise the school's strategic direction. We welcome our new School Advisory Council parent volunteers. We will introduce all new members at the start of the 2023 school year, and we look forward to working with you on the 2023 - 2027 School Improvement Plan.

A special thanks to the Uniform Shop volunteers who have provided this important service to our school community. These parent volunteers spend an enormous time sourcing good quality uniforms from ethical supply chains. 

A huge thank you to Rose Drazic and Maria Menillo, whose children are graduating in Year 6. Rose and Maria have been responsible for the hugely popular Sushi Lunches and many other lunches during their time at St Raphael’s. 

Yesterday's Christmas Lunch was a wonderful and joyous celebration. All of the children loved the pasta lunch, and the parent volunteers did an amazing job of feeding over 300 people. 

We especially thank Rose Darzic, Monica Tommasin and Grace Chiodo for coordinating the event and all the parent helpers who assisted and made yesterday's lunch so successful. 

New School Video

We have also recently received an updated School promotional video and are very proud of our school. Please share this with your family and friends and celebrate the wonderful school community that we all belong to!

https://vimeo.com/780247942

School Review 2022

Throughout the year, we completed our quadrennial school review. The school review is an extensive and exhaustive process that takes a deep dive into five aspects of all Catholic primary schools - learning and teaching, leadership and management, education in faith, student wellbeing and school community. 

We have recently received the final School Review Report and feedback from the Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic School Northern Region Leadership Consultant, Mark Workman. Mark presented the outcomes of the school review to a recent gathering of our existing and new members of the School Advisory Council. There were many positive results from this review, and we are extremely proud of this achievement. All parents present at the meeting were impressed with such outstanding results from the independent reviewer.

Mark's feedback and comparisons with other schools highlight the wonderful learning opportunities that we offer and successfully implement here at St Raphael’s. Mark has kindly put together a short video presentation explaining the outcomes of the recent school review, and I encourage you to share this with your networks. 

https://vimeo.com/780249848/43fc761a9c

Parent Involvement 2023 ~ Community Liaison Committee (CLC)

In addition to the parent volunteer roles on the School Advisory Council, an expression of interest has been sought for parents who would like to join the newly created Community Liaison Committee (CLC). The CLC is headed up by two mums, Rachael Harman and Kristen Bordin and the intention is to support effective communication and connection between all members of our school community. We are so grateful to Rachel and Kristen for taking on this new role.

The following is the CLC’s first newsletter communication.

Community Liaison Committee (CLC) - Introductory Morning tea

Thank you to everyone who attended the CLC introductory morning tea on Wednesday 7th December. It was a fantastic opportunity to come together in an informal setting to share ideas for 2023 on rebuilding our sense of community and belonging at St Raphael’s.

We had an abundance of suggestions from the group on what 2023 events and volunteering opportunities could look like, with a strong focus on ensuring everyone has an opportunity to get involved.

A key takeaway from the meeting was to differentiate “CLC volunteering” from the existing “parent/classroom helper” role.

Parent/classroom helper roles are weekly or fortnightly 1 hour timetabled assistance within the classroom environment.

CLC Volunteering is broader, providing parents with the opportunity to assist across a variety of events and tasks, some of which could be completed from home with as little as 30 minutes of your time.

More information will be made available on how and when volunteers are needed in the new year via the newsletter and schoolbag.

In the meantime, if you would like to register your interest, please send an email to: clc@srprestonwest.catholic.edu.au

Staffing News

We say goodbye to our Year 5/6 homeroom teacher, Maxwell Allen. Max commenced at St Raphael’s in 2020 amid the uncertainty of the pandemic and has been an excellent teacher and mentor to many Year 5/6 children. We wish Max every success as he sets off to travel the world.

We also farewell Anna Fedele, an Education Support Officer in our school for many years. In the last few years, Anna has been instrumental in running the Italian program throughout the school, which has been hugely successful. In addition, she has worked with many children with additional needs over the years, and we wish Anna all the best for the future.

We also farewell another of our education support officers, Belinda Trajkovska, and wish her all the best for the future.

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Erin Longuet (Year 5/6), Lucia Moloney (Foundation), Ariane Bradley (Year 1), Megan Quinn (Year 3/4), Carina DiNatale (Year 3/4), Ye Ma (Year 1), Georgia Bonamassa (Italian/ESO), Ned Nihill (ESO) and Megan Williams (ESO) who will be joining our staff in 2023. We look forward to working with these teachers and staff, and I am sure that you will join me in welcoming them into our friendly school community next year

Staffing for the 2023 school year:

Leadership Team

Damian Howard - Principal

Rosalba Squarci ~ Deputy Principal/ Religious Education Leading Teacher

Shane Giese ~ Deputy Principal/ STEM Leading Teacher

Annie McNaughton ~ Student Diversity/ Student Wellbeing Leading Teacher

Melanie Pizzonia ~ Literacy Leading Teacher

Emma Sbizzirri ~ Maths Leading Teacher

Lorraine Uzunovski ~ Walker Learning Approach Leading Teacher

Homeroom Teachers

Foundation: Lucia Moloney & Michelle Slattery

Year 1: Samantha Phillips/ Arianne Bradley & Ye Ma

Year 2: Kaitlyn McMillan & Linda Pham

Year 3/4: Belinda Hirschauer/ Lauren Bell, Megan Quinn, Georgia Cavin, Carina DiNatale

Year 5/6: Matthew Vernal/ Emma Sbizzirri, Anastasia Dullard & Erin Longuet

Specialist Teachers

Art: Phoebe Tune

Science: Julie Garbutt

PE: Matthew Vernal

Teaching Support

Year 1: Rosalba Squarci ~ Intervention/ Extension

Year 3/4: Lauren Bell ~ Intervention/ Extension 

Year 5/6: Shane Giese ~ Intervention/ Extension

Annie McNaughton ~ Student Diversity/ Student Wellbeing

Melanie Pizzonia ~ Literacy

Emma Sbizzirri ~ Maths

Alfie Colosi ~ Reading Recovery (Year 1 only)

Supported Play in Childhood Education (SPiCE) Program ~ Lorraine Uzunovski

Education Support Officers ~ Georgia Bonamassa, Maria De Cata, Aidan Baynes, Shae Murphy, Will Ryan, Ned Nill and Megan Williams.

Office/ Administration

Lynette Gamble

Christine McNiece

Start of 2023 School Year Arrangements

The school will reopen on Friday 27th January. This is a day for staff only to prepare for the new school year.

Monday 30th and Tuesday 31st January will be testing and assessment days for the children. Every child will be allocated a time slot via the PTO portal, which is being sent out to all parents today. Children may wear casual clothes on these testing days.

School for all children will officially commence on Wednesday 1st February. Formal school uniform must be worn.

In preparation for the new school year, the school leadership team have planned for and allocated the following dates for 2023 whole school closure days.

Term 1: Wednesday 8th February 2023 (Wednesday of Week 2)

Term 2: Monday 24th April and Wednesday 26th April (the days before and after ANZAC Day)

Term 3: Monday 10th July (the first day of Term 3)

Term 4: Monday 6th November (the day before the Melbourne Cup public holiday)

The availability of external presenters and facilitators determine these dates. We have managed to secure these presenters and tried to minimise disruption to families by choosing days before/after public holidays or at the beginning of each term.

These days will be used to conduct professional learning and commence the implementation of the Berry Street Education Model. The Berry Street Education Model (BSEM) provides strategies for teaching and learning that enable teachers to increase engagement of students with complex, unmet learning needs and to improve all students’ successfully:

• self-regulation
• relationships
• wellbeing
• growth
• academic achievement.

The BSEM pedagogical strategies incorporate:

• trauma-informed teaching
• positive education
• wellbeing practices

The BSEM has come from a recommendation from our recent 2022 School Review and will be implemented throughout the school over the next four years as a major strategic focus of our 2023 - 2026 School Improvement Plan.

2023 School Family Calendar

The 2023 School Family Calendar is being finalised by all staff and will be sent out to all families next Monday 19th December. We want to ensure that all dates are correct, and this calendar will give families plenty of notice to plan ahead for the 2023 school year.

Other News

I would also like to share some personal news that I have just been elected as the Chairperson of the MACS North Central Zone Catholic School Principal Network. This is a huge honour, and I look forward to being the executive committee chairperson in 2023 and representing 30 Catholic primary schools from our North Central Zone, which encompasses Catholic schools from Collingwood out to Wollert. 

I was also recently reappointed as the North Central Zone Catholic Schools' representative on the Victorian Association of Catholic Primary School Principals (VACPSP) Executive Committee. The VACPSP is a representative body of all Catholic primary school principals throughout the four dioceses of Victoria, and it is also a huge honour to be elected to this role. This year, one of the highlights of this role has been the invitation to provide advice and feedback to the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria regarding the negotiations for the pending finalisation of the Enterprise Bargaining Agreement for all Catholic school employees.

In addition, earlier this year, I was listed in the Top 50 of The Educator Australia's 50 Most Influential Educators for 2022. https://www.theeducatoronline.com/k12 

This was a lovely, unexpected surprise, and a very humbling accolade.

It has been a hugely successful year that has had many challenges and highlights. I am really looking forward to a relaxing holiday break with my family. 

The school office will officially close at 4 pm next Monday 19th December. 

If there are any urgent matters over the holiday period, then please email me at: principal@srprestonwest.catholic.edu.au with the heading "URGENT:______________". 

I will be checking my emails sporadically throughout the holidays.

I trust that everyone has a safe, happy, Holy Christmas and new year and that you all have a chance to spend some time with our family and friends to celebrate, rejuvenate and reset with optimism for the upcoming 2023 school year. 

We look forward to many exciting initiatives planned for 2023 for the children and the broader school community.

May God bless you all, and we look forward to welcoming you back safely at the end of January 2023.

Regards,

Damian