Head of Junior School

Staffing News  

This week is the final week for Yr 3 teacher, Mrs Leila Snooks, who commences her maternity leave. We look forward to hearing of Mrs Snooks’ impending arrival and wish her a restful time in the final weeks of her pregnancy. As Class 3S parents are already aware, we are delighted to welcome back Mrs Trisha Morgan to Redlands. Mrs Morgan is a highly experienced teacher who worked as a classroom teacher here in Yrs 3 and 4 between 2011 and 2014 before leaving to have her first daughter. She then worked as a casual teacher for us for a couple of years before relocating back to New Zealand for a period of time but is now back in Sydney again. I know she will be a familiar face to some families already and I know our community will join me in welcoming her back to Redlands.

Thinking Ahead

As a new initiative for Yr 6 last year, we welcomed the first group of Yr 6 parents to share their experiences of their professions, how their careers and industries have changed over time and what their professions may look like in the future, if they are likely to exist at all. This opportunity for parents to be an active part of their children’s learning in Thinking Ahead, as the sessions have been titled, has been wonderfully received by the students and staff and I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the sessions I have been able to attend. These sessions have continued this year and again, it has been wonderful for this year’s Yr 6 students to hear about a range of possible careers from the parent group.

Over the course of these sessions, what has been evident has been the importance of the need to develop the personal attributes we actively seek to foster such as resilience, communication skills, questioning, a collaborative mindset, problem solving, teamwork and the confidence to fail in learning. This week, one of our Yr 6 parents, Andrew Petering, spoke of his role as CEO of Nexus Hospitals, and in particular, I share the information below that Mr Petering presented to the students as what he sees have been some of the key shifts in learning and education, which he highlighted align with Redlands philosophies and approach as he has seen his son learning.

As always, I am grateful for the expertise and partnership with our parents as we combine to guide students’ thinking and learning and help them to become life-ready through a contemporary education. 

Father’s Day Breakfast  

We look forward to welcoming Junior Campus dads for breakfast tomorrow to kick start the Father’s Day weekend.

Book Week

Last Friday, the School was awash with a sea of colour and creativity as Junior School students enjoyed the opportunity to dress up for Book Character Day. Connected to this, our students joined Early Childhood and Secondary School to donate monies to the farming community and we were able to contribute $700 from the Junior School towards the School’s overall fundraising efforts. 

Tomorrow, we are extremely excited to be hosting the Australian Children’s Laureate for 2018 and 2019, Morris Gleitzman. This is a great coup for Redlands and most importantly, for the Junior School children and staff to hear from him about story writing and his inspirations for his writing.

Redlands Snowsports

Our Snowsports team of 80 students from all sections of our School competed with great energy and commitment for all of last week at the State Championships, competing against more than 300 schools in NSW. As well as acknowledging them, I also extend my sincere gratitude to staff and parents for their commitment of time and effort to supporting the students in their on-snow pursuits. 

As always, many students recorded personal bests and deserve the accolades for their significant achievements and with numerous podium finishes, we are delighted that a number of Junior School students have been selected to compete at next week’s National Championships as listed, a wonderful achievement for them all: Isabelle Bannon, Josie Bannon, Julianna Harrington, Ava Keller, Julius Keller, Gianmarco Pradel, Liam McFarlane, Mia McFarlane, Felicity Schlederer, Seb Speziali, Daisy Thomas and Penny Vincent-McGovern

From the snow, Mr Aghion who was one of our teachers present, shared a great example of school spirit as well as compassion with me, which was heartwarming to hear. As our Yr 6 boys’ team neared the end of their Alpine race, the team was perfectly poised to take a top 3 finish. With one run to go, Gianmarco Pradel was skiing his final run with great speed and determination but approaching one of the final bends, his excited team mates saw him take a fall and come off his skis. The boys’ first thought was of the welfare of their teammate and Mr Aghion watched Julius Keller and Liam McFarlane race up to check on Gianmarco, completely oblivious to the final team placing which was of little interest to them now in comparison to their friend’s safety. Mr Aghion said it gave him great pride as it showed a genuine act of compassion, irrespective of the importance of the race and was a wonderful demonstration of our School Values to the rest of the field.

HICES Athletics Carnival  

Congratulations to our Junior School Athletics team who competed at Tuesday’s HICES Athletics Carnival. Competing against 15 other schools from across the State, our girls and boys ran, jumped and threw superbly and narrowly finished as runners-up in Division 1. From here, a number of our Redlands students have been selected to compete for HICES at the Combined Independent Schools (CIS) Carnival and we wish them all the very best at this next level of competition.

For the second year in succession, Redlands hosted this prestigious event and I acknowledge the outstanding planning and preparation from Head of Junior School Sport, Mr Carter, ably supported by PE colleagues. In addition, we had a number of students from Yrs 5 and 6 who acted as student helpers on the day. Mr Carter received numerous positive comments of feedback from visiting officials and teachers about how wonderful a job they did, not only as an important support for the carnival but also as representatives of Redlands.

Jump Rope for Heart

It has been wonderful to see the students enthusiastically practising their skipping tricks at any given opportunity throughout the day, showing so much improvement over the course of the term. Next week, I will spend time being a student in Class 4M which was one of the outcomes when we reached the $20,000 fundraising mark as a school. With our current total at $33,003 for the Heart Foundation, we are very excited to welcome Skipping Australia in towards the end of term for a performance. Thank you for your fundraising efforts for this worthwhile cause and please continue to share your child’s Jump Rope for Heart page with friends and family. The students are very eager to see many of the teachers skipping at assembly when we reach the $40,000 mark!                                       

Flexischools and Healthy Canteen Menu

As you would be aware, our Junior Campus Canteen moved to the Flexischools online ordering system a number of weeks ago and we are pleased with the positive feedback that has been received from families. As we begin to look at the second iteration of our Healthy Menu on the Junior Campus, I do encourage you to share any feedback on this online ordering system or the menu itself via email to me for us to consider as we plan for Term 4.

Mr Ari Guha
Head of Junior School
aguha@redlands.nsw.edu.au
9953 6022