St Raphael’s Catholic School Term 4, Week 4/B Newsletter 27th October 2014 making plans that will impact on the school, please notify the school office promptly.
Dear Parents Excursions abound: Our School Choir sang at the Albert Hall at Canberra for the United Nations on Thursday, Year 4 travelled to the Bathurst Goldfields on Friday, Year 10 leaders spent Friday at the Diocesan Leadership Day at Orange, rep cricketers are in Canberra tomorrow at the NSW Milo T20 School Cup final and on Saturday week a band of Year 9 students are setting off on the 2014 Outward Bound expedition.
Christmas Fair preparations are racing along at the moment. The collective benefits we receive from this event are enormous – therefore your participation in both the preparations and the event are a direct support for our children. To nominate as a volunteer, please visit the P&F website accessible through the school website at www.straphaelscowra.catholic.edu.au
Michael Gallagher Principal
Students preparing for the transition to secondary school and their parents have a couple of information and orientation type of events this week. This evening is an Information session for parents to come along to the school and see how learning happens and meet with staff. On Thursday Nov 13 Year 6 students from St Raphael’s as well as from our feeder schools will spend the day together in the secondary department, getting a feel for the changed routine and greater responsibility.
Matthew 5:1-12 The beatitudes are eight statements taught by Jesus. They are concerned with virtue and how a believer in Jesus Christ can achieve that virtue. The Beatitudes are a map of life, a series of directives helping us on our journey to be with God. They also designate the actual condition of people who follow God's guidelines.
Student Leadership roles for Year 9 and Year 5 students are being considered in detail Nominees will be named and ballots soon conducted. Although this process may seem early, the timing enables the new student leadership team to take up this role as the current Year 10 students move onto their Graduation. The Book Fair wrapped-up on Friday. Thanks to the hundreds who have been through and have made their selections. Thank you to Mrs Kerrie Skinner for bringing this exciting event to the families of St Raph’s. Year 9 students and their accompanying teacher (Mrs Inel Date) are readying themselves for the annual Outward Bound expedition beginning on Saturday for seven day in the mountains at Tharwa. I am thrilled that students of St Raph’s have the chance to access such a life-changing experience. Planning for 2015 dominates the administration agenda at the moment. Composition of classes, staffing, budget, supplies, resources, room allocations and timetabling all crowd in during term 4. If you are P.O. Box 7, Cowra 2794 Tel: 6342.2940
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven Email: straphaels@bth.catholic.edu.au School Website: www.straphaelscowra.catholic.edu.au
Monday 27 Happy birthday to Yoi Yap. Year 7 2015 Parent Information Evening from 6:30pm. Stage 5 Exams Week . Tuesday 28 Happy birthday to Ben Azzopardi, Kaitlyn Rutledge and Codie Thompson. NSW Milo T20 School Cricket in ACT. Wednesday 29 Thursday 30 Kindy Start. Friday 31 Happy birthday to Pyper Muddle. Primary Assembly led by 6S. Saturday 1 November Year 9 Outward Bound Students depart for Tharwa. Happy birthday to Elia Murray and Amelia Trudgen for nd 2 November.
Altar Servers’ Roster th Sat 25 : Julia Cains, Jeremy Cains, Eloise Cains. th Sun 26 : Katherine Johnston, Sophie Johnston. School Readers for Weekend Parish Masses: th Sat 25 : St Raphael’s School Leaders. School Eucharistic Ministers for Weekend Parish Masses: th Sun 26 : Mrs Bischof.
Distinction: Richmond Bush Credit: Jaimee Nixon, Madeleine Cain, Julia Cains, Mackenna Cusack, Amy Grant, Patrick Heilman, Darcee Nixon Year 7 (2015) Orientation Organisation th This evening, 27 October parents and students are invited to a Year 7 Information Evening, organised for students enrolling in Year 7 at St Raphael’s in 2015. The necessary details regarding tonight are below. Important details for the Information Evening. Attendance For both parents and students th Date: Monday, 27 October Venue: Initial meeting in School Chapel Times: - 6.30pm: Commencing in School Chapel - 7.00pm: Walk through the secondary classrooms - 8.00pm: Gathering, with a cup of tea, in St Brigid’s Hall This information evening will be followed by an th orientation day for the students on Thursday, 13 November. LIBRARY NEWS Thank you parents, students and teachers for the wonderful support you gave during our annual Book Fair. Students have selected the books they want for our library and enjoyed looking at the book selection. Thank you also to the monitors who assisted during the fair; especially with helping the younger students. Re-orders will be given to students as they arrive from Scholastic. Happy Reading. Kerri Skinner – Librarian Important K-2 dates to dates to mark in your diary Kindergarten A date to remember! Kindergarten Christmas Liturgy Tuesday 2nd December. Kindergarten, Year One and Year Two will be participating in a Swimsafe programme from Monday 17th November to Friday 21st November.
School Computer Roster th Sat 25 : St Raphael’s School Leaders. th Sun 26 : Mrs McMurtrie.
Primary Assembly st The next primary assembly will be held this Friday, 31 October. It will be led by Ms Slaven’s class, Year 6S. If your son / daughter is to receive a class award a note will be sent home early this week. Parents are always most welcome to attend any primary assembly. Secondary Mathematics Certificates UNSW Mathematics Competitions Congratulations to these secondary students on being awarded special acknowledgement awards due to their very good results in the Mathematics tests organised by the University of New South Wales. The distribution of certificates is based on: Distinctions (top 10%), Credits (top 35%) and Merits (top 50%). P.O. Box 7, Cowra 2794 Tel: 6342.2940
Netball – Schools Cup State Finals th On Tuesday 16 September, our Stage 4 netball team competed in the state finals of the Netball NSW Schools Cup at the Anne Clarke Netball Centre in Lidcombe. The girls were competing for a spot in the top 8 of all NSW schools. The pool matches saw the girls come up against Carroll College Broulee, Narrabri High School and The Hills Sports High. The girls had convincing wins over both Carroll College and Narrabri High and were defeated by a very skilful Hills Sports High in their third pool game. After finishing second in their pool, the girls progressed to the semi-finals where they played St John’s Woodlawn. A close and hard-fought game saw the girls narrowly defeated 14-9. They then played Wadalba Community School in the play-off for third Email: straphaels@bth.catholic.edu.au School Website: www.straphaelscowra.catholic.edu.au
and fourth. The girls ended the day with a placing of fourth in the state. A fantastic achievement! A big thank you to Liz Pattingale and Bron Johnson for their extra assistance and time. Thank you also to the large number of parents who travelled to Sydney to support the girls. They were excellent representatives for our school and should be very proud of their achievement!
excitement and trepidation. Our hiking boots have been "walked in" and we are ready for what lies ahead! It has been a busy year of activities and fundraising. Congratulations to the students and their parents for all their hard work and taking on the fundraising activities. We would like to thank the school community for supporting our cupcake drive, sausage sizzle, school social, pie drive, wood raffle, subway lunches, "monster raffle" and the movie night! We could not have raised the large sum of money without the support and sponsorship from the following businesses and professionals in our community. A BIG THANK YOU to the following: Cowra Medical Centre, Lachlan Furniture, Cowra Community Chest, Cowra Council, Cowra Services Club, St Raphael’s Presbytery, Cowra Rotary, Grant Chamberlain, John Langlands, Breakout River Meats, Geronimo Farm Equipment, Cowra Tyre and Brake, Elders, Coles and French's Store. Many thanks! Ms Inel Date and the Year 9 Outward Bound students.
Primary Physical Education Lessons Wednesdays th This Wednesday, 29 October students from Years 2, 5 and 6 will need their sports uniforms. Next th Wednesday, 5 November students in Years 1, 3 and 4 will need to wear their sports uniforms. Sporting Events Primary Oct 28 Stage 3 Cricket teams (State Cup in Canberra) Nov 18 Summer Sports Trials (Dubbo)
School Magazine Orders – The CROCUS If the old adage of "a picture is worth a thousand words" is true then this year's THE CROCUS school magazine would have in excess of 900,000 words or would be over 4,500 pages in size. Invest in your child's history. Order a copy of this year's magazine by week 7 of this term. Please complete the order form at the end of the newsletter with your numbers wanted. If 100 copies are ordered the cost will be $34.50 per copy If 200 copies are ordered then the per copy cost drops to only $23.50 Orders to date ONLY 18 Outward Bound 2014 has arrived! Outward Bound students leave this Saturday for their 7 day adventure hike in the National Park near Tharwa, ACT. We look forward to this experience with P.O. Box 7, Cowra 2794 Tel: 6342.2940
Photo of year 9 Outward Bound (missing Darcee Nixon and Riley Barron)
TIME TO GROW with the "KINDIGARDEN" The first step begins this Tuesday 28th October in the development of a productive food garden area within the playground. A small step in what we hope to be the development of our playground into something spectacular! The first stage of this project is a "Kindigarden", situated in a courtyard area outside the kindergarten rooms. Two upcycled mobile pallet beds have been sourced with the aid of the Cowra Mens Shed, along with some old tyres which will be utilized as containers for herb plantings. Through this educational experience of planting, nurturing and harvesting produce, children will learn how produce is derived and the resources required to produce it will be learned. This Tuesday will be the first day of gardening, we welcome any parents or grandparents with green or even brown thumbs to come along during lunch break and help with this project. Please have a chat with your children to see if they would like to help during the lunch break this Tuesday. It may be their one opportunity to get out of the face of an electronic gadget and get down and get grubby.....
Email: straphaels@bth.catholic.edu.au School Website: www.straphaelscowra.catholic.edu.au
Afternoon Collection of Children After consulting with parents and staff members it has been decided to keep the afternoon collection for children at the school gate in the Rose Garden. The greatest benefit of this location is that the exits on the western and southern boundaries are both supervised. Memorial We remember and are immensely grateful for the dedicated work of the Josephite, sisters, the Brigidine sisters and lay teachers of St Brigid’s and St Raphael’s Schools. The memorial blessed by the Bishop earlier this month in the Convent Courtyard is a lovely recognition of our predecessors.
ITEMS FOR CHRISTMAS HAMPER RAFFLE For the next 4 weeks, we will be requesting donations for the Christmas Raffles. Each week we will give you a theme and would be very grateful if you could purchase an appropriate item and send it to school with your child. This week’s theme is “something for the kitchen” The themes over the following three weeks will be: something for the laundry, something for Christmas, and finally something of your own choosing. Some parents have indicated knowing this in advance means they can purchase everything in one go and not scramble madly each week to buy each item. A special thank you to Jamiesons Joinery who again kindly donated a wheelbarrow for this hamper The Book Stall Annie Henchman and Therese Johnston are again running this year’s book stall. They both did a fantastic job with 'Got Books' last term. They have graciously volunteered to run the book stall and are requesting donations of Young Adult Books and Fiction/ Non Fiction for adults. If kids give them to their homeroom teachers or leave them at the front office, they will be collected each week.
Canteen Update This week’s roster is as follows: Tues 28 Raelene Nelligan
Wed 29 CLOSED
Sky Muddle
Thurs 30 Sharon Groves
Fri 31 Laura Proctor
Mon 3 Angela Kollas
Lisa Robertson
Mal Bird
Sally Bruncher
Nicky Hudson
Call for Volunteers As always we are looking for volunteers to provide help with the many facets of the fair. If you are interested please contact Ona Lawrence at onalawarnce@gmail.com or on her mobile phone 0409 608 118 Log onto our website: www.straphaelspnf.wordpress.com
WELL DONE Congratulations to the following students who have achieved the next level on the Behaviour Management Programme.
It is a little over 4 weeks to the St Raph's Christmas Fair which is to be held on the 28th November so please save the date. We will be asking for families again to help us with the Jazzy Jars, raffle prizes and Pick a Box donations as well as people to help coordinate stalls and events so please watch this space for information in the newsletter each week.
P.O. Box 7, Cowra 2794 Tel: 6342.2940
Level 6 Joe Sullivan Level 7 Amy Grant
6C
Erin Vale K1
K1 Your Teachers are very Proud of You!
Email: straphaels@bth.catholic.edu.au School Website: www.straphaelscowra.catholic.edu.au
Cowra Swimming Club will be holding a “Go Swim Day” th On Tuesday 4 November at 6pm at the Cowra Aquatic Centre. Come along and give Swimming Club a go for free! Parents can find out more about what swimming club involves with our Club information session.
Further enquiries call 0428 600 450
St John’s Anglican Church Book Fair Extended over 2 weeks with bargains galore! th th Dates: Friday 14 Nov and Saturday 15 Nov st th Friday 21 Nov and Saturday 18 May Doors open at 8:30am For donations please contact Bruce Pietsch on 0427 722810 or email bpietsch28@gmail.com School Magazine Order Form Name: _____________________________________ Phone: _____________________________________ Child: ______________________________________ Class: _____________________________________ Number ordered: _____________________________
School website: www.straphaelscowra.catholic.edu.au
Fantastic website with coming events, surveys, parent support, photo gallery and many other useful items
Bookings for Parent/Teacher Discussions.
All school events with up-tothe-minute details of what when and where
P.O. Box 7, Cowra 2794 Tel: 6342.2940
Email: straphaels@bth.catholic.edu.au School Website: www.straphaelscowra.catholic.edu.au
Pictures tell a thousand words‌ School memories documented forever in the 2014 school year book.
For more information or to place an order, contact the school office or complete the order sheet in the school newsletter
P.O. Box 7, Cowra 2794 Tel: 6342.2940
Email: straphaels@bth.catholic.edu.au School Website: www.straphaelscowra.catholic.edu.au