Head of Junior School

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2022 Education Perfect World Languages Championships

We were thrilled to hear our Junior School students have become National Champions in this year’s Education Perfect World Languages Championships.

After answering a combined total of 342,115 questions, Redlands was placed as follows:

• 1^st in Australia for Spanish out of 852 schools
• 4^th in Spanish in the world out of 1476 schools

Credit Certificates for scoring 500+ points

Henry Campbell, Tara Clarke, Mateo Cotiga, Zac Fowler, Hamish Hopkins, Henry Hughes, Miriam Killin, Melanie Korolev, Richard Li, Zakari Mathews, Connor Price, Daisy Ruddick, Sahana Saraf, Samuel Shen, Matt Sinpraseuth, Ethan Spencer, Amelia Svensson, Joshua Svensson, Noah Taylor and Ellie To

Bronze Certificates for scoring 1000+ points

Agnes Andersen, Andrew Brown, Amelie Cadman, Paolo Corneli, Luca Cowlishaw, Amelie Doherty, Aidan Donnelly, Tristan Fournier Le Ray, Isha Gupta, Ollie Hosker, Aimee Kang, Emily Kesby, Calvin MacNab, Oliwia Polok, Lauren Rolfe, Pax Staley-Lobo, Ziggy Staley-Lobo, Sophie Thassim, Hayden Thomas, Oliver To, Enrico Viese Vivaldi and Sophie Williams

Silver Certificates for scoring 2000+ points

Charles Li and Milly Wu

Gold Certificates for scoring 3000+ points

Azina Garrido Bulnes and Gabriella Hachem

Emerald Certificate for scoring 5000+ points

Special congratulations to Ina Guan, who achieved an Emerald certificate with 5,799 points and finished in the top 1% of competitors around the world.

These amazing results were due to the hard work of so many students inspired by Senora Colagiuri.

Congratulations to all students who participated and have enabled us to shine once again in this international competition.

Redlands Hosts Yr 6 Interschool Tech Challenge

Redlands hosted two local schools, Loretto Kirribilli and St Aloysius, at our first Yr 6 Interschool Technology Challenge held last week.  Students from all three schools formed teams to tackle STEM related challenges ranging from the use of sphero robots to engineer solutions for complex terrain park challenges to the use of micro:bits to imagine, invent and prototype a solution to an everyday problem.  A highlight for our students was the rich collaboration and new friendships they formed while working on creative solutions with students from other schools. Our eLearning Coordinator, Ms Anagnostu, organised this initiative ably supported by our Year 6 student team who both co-hosted and participated in the event.  We acknowledge our Year 6 students: Jason Gong, Freya Carroll, Hugo McDonald, Sienna de Saxe, Eddie Williams, Kate Rintoul, Audrey Kwok, Aimee Kang, Arav Basu, Liam Randall, Amelia Sampaio-Little and Vivienne Matthews, for their contribution to and involvement in this event. 

Redlands UNICEF Fundraiser – Ukraine Emergency Appeal

Joining on from the fundraising that has started in the Secondary School to support the UNICEF Ukraine Emergency Appeal, Junior School students and families are encouraged to consider supporting this cause which I know has personally impacted some of our community considerably.

In particular, I was deeply moved to hear from one Redlands family who have relatives who normally live in Ukraine but are now in various countries across Europe with many who don’t speak English. The family have been trying to assist from Sydney during the night to help them try to find accommodation and deal with visa information as best possible, but the tyranny of distance is very hard.

As a school, we have set a goal of reaching $20,000 by the end of this term and we currently sit at a staggering total of over $9,000 in a few days.

Connected to this, some of our student leaders have organised the sale of slushies next Thursday 7 April for a cost of $2 with all proceeds going to this cause.

International Day – Tuesday 5 April

Next Tuesday 5 April, our School community will celebrate our global-mindedness and diversity through our annual International Day event. Students and staff can dress up in international dress or colours and for the day and teachers will have a series of themed lessons during the day. Parents are also encouraged to connect with their child’s class teacher if you are able to present or share your own backgrounds and experiences utilising the knowledge we have in our community and connecting home and school further.

Yr 3 Heritage Walk Excursion

In unforeseen sunshine, Yr 3 enjoyed an excursion exploring some of our local history on a heritage walk around the Balmoral foreshore. The walking tour enabled the students to gain a better understanding of how communities change over time, how significant people contribute to communities, how communities use the space they have and how that changes over time, and how we preserve elements of the past for future generations.

It was wonderful to have parent helpers too as the year group divided into small groups and my thanks are extended to Ms McPhillips for her coordination of the walk and to teachers and parents who assisted on the excursion.

Masks on Buses

A reminder that ALL students require a mask on Wednesdays for Sport when they are likely to travel to and from a venue on a bus. This remains a mandatory protocol currently.

Term Time Leave of Absence

Whilst I recognise and acknowledge that the opening up of international borders has allowed and will allow many of our Redlands community to reconnect with loved ones across the world, as we move forward, please do aim to minimise disruption to students’ learning by looking to travel in the designated holiday periods. Your support with this is much appreciated by teachers as they plan for learning for each student and if you do anticipate the need to leave term early, please do write to me to explain this as is part of our School process of leave approval.

COVID-19 Update

We received notification from AISNSW  this week that the isolation requirements have altered slightly for students who are household contacts, as highlighted below.

A household contact of a COVID positive person must isolate for 7 days. Following that time period, they are not obligated to self-isolate for the next 14 days, even if another household contact becomes COVID positive. This means a household contact does not need to self-isolate as a contact more than once in a 21-day period unless the person is diagnosed with COVID-19. In this case they will need to self-isolate again for 7 days as a confirmed case. 

If a household contact is notified of a new case within their household after 14 days since they completed their self-isolation, they will need to isolate again for 7 days unless they have previously tested positive, and it has been no more than 12 weeks since they ceased self-isolating as a positive case. 

2023 Term Dates

In order to assist families with their future planning, the 2023 Term Dates are listed here, on our Website, Redlands Pulse and the Redlands App:

The dates above are for the whole school. Please note that for Years 3-6 2023 current stuents, Term 1 will commence on Tuesday 31 January. 2023. 

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