Head of Preparatory School

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Light for Lismore

A message from Kelly Constable, facilitator of Light for Lismore:

‘Last Sunday, Rachel Riley, Redlands Head of Service, delivered your generous arts and craft donations, handmade storage boxes, and cards of support written by our Redlands students to the CEO of the Northern Rivers Children’s Services (NRCS) in Lismore. In response, Jane Isenhood cried when she saw the boxes and the beautiful caring messages from our students. She was overwhelmed by your generosity and the volume of donations that came from our Redlands families. These donations will support over 2000 children throughout the affected flood region for the months to come. We are grateful to the volunteers, the families, teachers, and administrators that made ‘Light for Lismore’ a reality for our neighbours in this devastated community. As Ms Riley described, she was not prepared for how devastated the town was and continues to be after the floods. The recovery will take over a year and lives will be impacted for the foreseeable future. We look forward to creating more opportunities for our students to learn about compassion and the impact of kindness and sharing with those in need.’

Kindness and compassion, two incredibly important characteristics to have! I am so very proud of our Prep students in how they responded with these qualities in bucket loads for our Lismore friends. As we talked together over the last few weeks, they realised that this tragedy had happened in area of the state that some of them enjoy sunny holidays, it brought it very close to home and they saw a connection that made everything so real. Thank you so very much to all the parents who generously gave to the donation boxes and for those RPFA members who put the boxes together for the drive north. Our students are experiencing ways to learn and think about the greater community and how they can contribute to it. We look forward to showing kindness again to our friends in Lismore again soon.

Term 3 Wellbeing Lunchtime Activities

At times the playground can be a daunting place for little people or there may be times when a child just wants to play quietly or do an activity with a few others at lunch time. Our Dean of Students, Mrs Clinton and I have been putting our heads together to work on ways we can provide opportunities for additional play and friendship time beyond the playground for our K-2 at lunchtime. The former afternoon Clubs program provided a springboard for us to use to achieve this. We have taken the essence of Clubs and increased the experiences but instead of an afternoon registration process, we have been able to use similar activities during lunch breaks where more students can access them on a flexible basis depending on their mood and need of the day. The two activities that will be capped at numbers will be the Tech Tuesday and the Chess Club due to resourcing and staffing. More information around the registering process will be shared with students and parents next week. Please be aware students may miss out on these two activities but both Mrs Anagnostu and Madam Merlot will do their best to accommodate the year 2 students in their last semester of Prep.

The choice of activities has been based this term on what our students have been wanting plus some activities that have already been in place.

The timetable below outlines all the activities available for our prep students not only at lunchtime but in their afternoon registered activities. This is shared with you to know what is happening across Prep and for you to highlight these activities with your child.

Please note that these are not compulsory activities, and it will be up the child on the day if they wish to go to the activity. There is certainly no expectation that they come every week either. Expectations around behaviour and the respect of property in teacher’s classrooms will be discussed at our Week 9 Assembly.

Extra-Curricular and Co-Curricular Activities in Prep School

Term 3/4 Departure Notice

As we are approaching the mid-point of the year, this is a reminder that those families who are planning on leaving the School during or at the end of Terms 3 or 4 are required to give notice to the Principal via an email to registrar@redlands.nsw.edu.au by the following dates:

Term 3 Departure:  Friday 24 June 2022
Term 4 Departure:  Friday 22 July 2022

As per the 2022 Schedule of Fees emailed to all families in December last year, there will be fees in lieu payable for any notices of departure received after this date.

Mrs Ainslie Breckenridge
Head of Preparatory School
abreckenridge@redlands.nsw.edu.au
9968 9848