Sustainability at St. Raphael's

Garden club welcomes new members

Garden Club runs most Tuesdays and Thursdays during the first half of lunch and everyone is welcome.  In Garden Club, we look after our garden by watering and weeding, clearing out old vegetables to make way for new plants and care for our friendly chickens.  Our favourite thing to do is harvest fresh produce from our garden and prepare a snack for all to share.

In recent weeks it has been so exciting to welcome our foundation students to Garden Club.  They love to give our chickens a cuddle and help by watering our vegetables.

New fluffy friends

Students were treated to a lovely surprise on Tuesday morning with the arrival of some new fluffy friends.  'Mumma Chook' and her three chicks have moved into their own separate space within our chicken coop to the delight of many onlookers.  'Mumma Chook' is very protective of her little ones so there are no cuddles for now, however we all enjoyed watching the chicks scratch about and hide under their mum.  Our Garden Club members were very excited by their arrival and ran a snap poll to name our fluffy friends.  We will officially name them in our next newsletter.

Don't forget to "nude" your food

At St Raphael's we want to minimise the amount of waste we create.  Everyone has a part to play and you can help us by trying to 'nude' your food whenever possible.

What is nude food?

Nude food is simply food without excess plastic packaging.  By avoiding wrapping sandwiches in plastic and purchasing multi-packs or single use items, we can reduce the waste accumulated in our school and stop sending this waste to landfill.  This will also reduce litter in our yard and help control the amount of plastic ending up in our waterways.

Preparing nude food is easy:

 - Pack snacks and sandwiches in reusable containers

 - Use a reusable drink bottle and avoid single use drink boxes or bottles

 - Pack fresh fruit and vegetables

 - Use a thermos to transport leftovers to school

 -  Avoid single use packaging such as chip multi-packs, squeeze pack yoghurt or drink boxes