From the Office 

News From the Principal

Lions Public Speaking Competition

Last Sunday, we had six of our students participate in the East Loddon Lion's Club Public Speaking Competition. To say we were extremely proud of all of them is an understatement. Each of our students delivered a well-rehearsed speech to the audience (which was large by Raywood standards), with clarity, confidence and most of all passion. 

A huge thank you to all of the family and friends that came along on Sunday to not only support their special person, but also cheer their classmates along. 

Mia was given the Encouragement Award for the Year 3/4 category, and was our youngest competitor. 

Congratulations to Link who took out the Year 5/6 competition and will now complete in the district final.  Runner up in this category was Kiara. (For those of you playing at home, this means we took out first and second in this age group). 

School Photos

Our annual school photos will be taken on Thursday August 10th. Order forms and

 instructions will be sent home with students tonight. Please return your completed order forms and payment by Monday August 7th. If you have any questions regarding school photos, please contact Lisa or Bree. 

Student Absences

Whilst we acknowledge that during the colder months, our students are more likely to fall ill with colds and respiratory illnesses, we appear to have quite a number of students missing days of school lately for a variety of reasons. I can not stress enough, how vital it is for students to attend school every day that they are well enough to do so. When students miss school, no matter what is timetabled in terms of curriculum, they miss the active teaching of the content. For most of our content, we simply can not provide a sheet as "catch up" work, as the active point of need teaching and rich discussions that take place in the classroom can not be replicated after the fact. Please be mindful of school hours when making appointments for your child or debating whether to send them with that runny nose. Rest assured, if you are deliberating whether to send a possibly ill child to school in the morning, we would always contact you should they be here and become more unwell (we would never expect a child who is unwell to be in class). 

School council News

School Council met on Monday evening for a brief meeting. Prior to our meeting we performed the demolition of the tyre structure and sandpit to accommodate the installation of Stage One of the new playground equipment (next Thursday). We are very excited but it is worth noting, that due to concrete needing to dry, the structure will not be usable for several days after installation. A huge thank you to Jarrod Blake and his bobcat for the demo work on Monday night and also to Bree, Hayden and Marcus Uren who joined in to help out last night.

At our council meeting last night, council agreed that we should proceed with finalising the design and ordering Stage Two of our playground and so we will get this happening over the next couple of weeks. Exciting times at Raywood. 

Cookie Dough Fundraising Event

Each family should have now received a paper copy of information and order form information- if these bits of paper are missing in action, please contact Lisa to arrange another to be sent home. A HUGE thank you to those that have already placed orders. Remember, we are not expecting our school families to necessarily to make purchases, but saw this as an opportunity to involve, annoy, coerce extended family and friends. All money raised will go towards offsetting the cost of our camps to be held later in the year. 

Ordering online is the most straight forward way for people to order, but if people would prefer we can place the order on your behalf (just let us know what you would like to order) and payment can be made directly to school via bank transfer or cash. 

As  outlined in the information  sent home, families can set up their own Fundraising Page to order from and share with family and friends. However, if families find it easier, they can use the link below to order from. It has been set up in a student's name, but rest assured any prizes gained from orders will be shared amongst our students and not necessarily go to this individual student. 

  https://cookiedough.com.au/campaign/64acc0cd0cb8e7015c3251cb/view

Any questions regarding this fundraiser can be directed to Lisa or Bree.

Melbourne Bound- Friday August 11th

Please do not forget to log into uEducateus to provide permission for our upcoming whole school excursion to Melbourne. We will visit ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) to explore an exhibit on Screen Culture as well as the other general exhibits. We will then head skyward to visit the Eureka Skydeck and experience their 6D cinema to get a unique tour of Melbourne. We will be traveling from Bendigo Station by V-Line Train, as it is easier to navigate to our venues this way. This is a low cost excursion as we successfully applied for travel subsidies. All the details families need are on uEducateus- we ask families to read, sign and organise payment before August 7th. We are looking forward to a fabulous day as a whole school! 

Enrolments for 2024

We are now accepting enrolments for next year. So if you know anyone in the local area that is looking to enrol a Prep for next year or looking at changing schools for their child/ren in any other year level, please encourage them to make contact with us.

We are happy to have families tour the school, facilitate "Come and Try Days", send out our information booklet or any other means that help families make a decision about their child/ren's education. 

We really have so much to offer our students in terms of a comprehensive and innovate curriculum, diverse programs  and extra curricula opportunities. I am confident that if we can encourage families to take a look at what we can offer, that they will be impressed. 

Sometimes you just have to....

BAKE!     Last week some of our students ( with the help of Mez), whipped up some morning tea for everyone to enjoy. We had some left over stewed apple and pears from Breakfast Club and so we made some fruit flavoured cupcakes, there was chocolate- pear, vanilla-apple and even some vanilla with pear and apple. Warm cakes were then served to all that wanted them at recess time! 

That's all for this week- Lisa Duffy

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