Taking on the role at the start of the new term, Michelle Deschamps said she has enjoyed her time at the school so far.

"It's a wonderful school, I'm very, very stoked to be here," she said.

"There are such amazing teachers here... honestly I've never seen such hard working teachers.

"They are very, very committed and the students are amazing. There's just so much heart and soul and real sense of community."

Originally hailing from Sydney with more than three decades of teaching experience, Mrs Deschamps was previously working in the Parramatta Diocese before making the move out to the country.

"I was very privileged to be part of lots of really exciting learning experiences for myself and being able to lead significant cultural change and learning change within the schools," she said.

"We took the plunge. My husband got the position first at Blayney... and we bought a property at Millthorpe and thought we were going to live in Millthorpe forever and I commuted to Sydney for work.

"I was going to come out here but because I was involved in leading enormous change in the school I was in, I stayed to see that through further and when the position came up last year, I obviously applied out here.

"So I was really thrilled to have this opportunity to come out to the country where my heart really is to really impact change in the school."

Mrs Deschamps said she hopes to continue building a sense of community at the school.

"I'm going to be inviting parents and families into the school, in particular we've got Catholic Schools Week coming up," she said.

"They can see us in action, see classes in action during Catholic Schools week."

With the lifting of COVID restrictions on schools, Mrs Deschamps said there will also be more extracurricular activities for the students.

"Because I come from a production background, I've directed about 46 productions in my career, I have a great passion for drama so we will be doing a school production this year... but we are also bringing back a lot of things," she said.

"We're introducing equine... our Duke of Ed program is really forging ahead. We've got a student-led professional magazine that is happening, there's lots of things like internal debating. There's a whole variety of things.

"I'm really behind really forging ahead with sport so I know that they conveners at Bathurst Diocese have said that they've never had so many St Raph's students go for the tryouts for Diocesan sports just in the last five weeks."

In terms of student learning, Mrs Deschamps said the school is focused on comprehensive knowledge of each student.

"I really want us to be shown for the phenomenal school that is already is, so building on top of that," she said.

"I really envisage being able to have student learning for every single student, mapped from kindergarten all the way through to Year 12... we call it putting face on the data.

"No matter what they're ability level is, how can we really push their learning so they go beyond their expectations as well?"

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