Head of Junior School

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Parent Seminars  

Over the course of any given school year, Redlands seeks to provide opportunities for parents to be part of both our learning journey and your child’s and we place great value in this partnership.

I am delighted to share three upcoming sessions for parents as summarised below with additional detail below and I hope some or all of the topics may be of interest to you. I look forward to attending all three sessions with both my school and parent hats on!

Learning & Technology Parent eChat

Our eLearning Coordinator, Mrs Winrow, and Dean of Teaching and Learning, Mr Coutts, warmly invite all Junior School parents to learn more about how technology is being used in our Junior School classrooms. The presentation will include information on:

• The new Science and Technology Curriculum
• Technology at School
• Google Classroom
• Technology & Wellbeing

Please do come along to attend the Learning & Technology Parent session in our Junior School Arnold Library on Tuesday 12 February at 8.30am after drop off. To help provide us with an indication on numbers, please RSVP for this session here. 

Parent Seminar: Helping your Child become Confident and Capable in their Schooling

In an ever-changing world, parents are constantly wondering how they can best support their child. As part of our on-going efforts to support parents and provide them with useful information and recent research on ‘best practice’, we are thrilled to announce that clinical psychologist and author, Dr Judith Locke, will be coming to Redlands to present two workshops for parents around how you can support your child to become more confident and capable. These workshops are designed to provide specific strategies to assist the young people we care for to achieve their personal bests, both within the classrooms as well as in other areas of life. Judith will provide advice as to how to support your child in a friendly and relatable way as well as providing specific strategies around how to help your child become more independent and make the most of their opportunities whilst at school.

Dr Judith Locke is a registered clinical psychologist, and former teacher and workplace trainer. She is now director of the training company, Confident and Capable, which delivers psychological solutions for parents, students and organisations. Judith works with families and individuals in her private practice in Toowong, Qld. She also undertakes research at QUT, investigating modern parenting, student and parent wellbeing, and their interaction with the academic environment. Judith is a member of The Australian Psychological Society (APS) and a Fellow of the APS College of Clinical Psychologists. She is also the author of the popular parenting book, The Bonsai Child: Why modern parenting limits children’s potential and practical strategies to turn it around.

As the areas of focus are different for children in the Junior School compared to those in the Secondary School, Judith is holding two separate workshops. The Junior School session will be held in Redlands Hall (Senior Campus) at 5.30-7.30pm on Tuesday 26 February with the Secondary School session held the day before on Monday 25 February. Please note these sessions are for parents only and you should not bring your children. 

Parent Seminar: Positive Behaviour Support For Learning 

Over the first week, our Prep and Junior School teachers, in collaboration with their students, have been developing classroom behavioural agreements. These agreements outline the explicit behaviours that support learning, develop positive relationships and ensure safe and well-organised environments.

You may have noticed these agreements published in your child’s classroom when you attended our ‘Meet the Teacher’ sessions. Our framework is based upon the Positive Behaviour Support for Learning approach (PBS4L). The underlying assumption of PBS4L is that children’s behaviour can change positively as a function of actions performed by others in a supportive and caring environment.

At Redlands, this approach complements our School Values, is supported by our culture of thinking pedagogy, and aligns with the core social and emotional competencies we aim to develop within this stage of childhood. If you would like to know more, I encourage you to join us at a parent seminar on Tuesday 5 March at 8.30am in the Arnold Library (Junior School), where Mr Nigel Coutts (Dean of Teaching and Learning) and I will be sharing our contemporary and innovative approaches that support your child’s learning and wellbeing at Redlands.

Junior School Sport  

It was wonderful to see our Junior School students enjoy their first summer sports session yesterday afternoon. The students have a wonderful range of team and lifestyle sports available to them and as they headed off to play basketball, cricket, tennis, golf, or swim, surf, sail or stand-up paddleboard, I must confess to having some envy as I went off to a meeting and then to finish this article!

Best wishes to our Basketball, Tennis and Cricket teams who begin their Saturday representative seasons this weekend. Have fun!

Choose Safety Over Convenience

Thank you for your continued cooperation as our families get to grips with new parking and pick-up arrangements. For families using the car line process, please remind your child to wait with the duty teacher at the Junior School gate and please also be reminded not to push into the line or double park for obvious safety reasons. 

Both parents and teachers have raised a concern about parents parking illegally adjacent to the pedestrian crossing and I remind you of the serious dangers that this raises.

Please review this summary from the North Sydney Council of some of the more important rules and the associated penalties for not complying with the rules regarding parking around schools. As demerit points are now attached to parking offences in school zones, it is important that parents are aware that breaches of these rules can lead to the suspension of their drivers licence.

Twilight in the Piazza

The first social gathering for all Redlands families is edging closer; our annual Twilight in the Piazza cocktail evening between 6.00-8.00pm on Friday 22 February on the Junior Campus. This promises to be another wonderful community event and to book tickets, please click on the image below. I look forward to seeing many of you there.

Staffing News

This week, we welcomed our new eLearning Facilitator, Mrs Argiro Anagnostu, who joins Mrs Winrow in our ICT eLearning team on the Junior Campus. 

Argiro will be familiar to teachers and students as she has assisted with a number of our STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths) projects in recent years whilst studying for her Masters of Learning Science and Technology, focusing specifically on research into ICT supported learning. She has also enjoyed facilitating inquiry-based projects for the Big Dig. I know that you will join me in welcoming Argiro to her new role at Redlands.

Year Parent Representatives

Thank you to parents who have sent their names through to Mrs Fairfax in the Junior School Office offering to be a Year Group parent this year. As mentioned last week, In a slight change from previous years, the RPFA are aiming to have one parent per class, who will collaborate with other parents from across that Year Group to organise Year Group events and foster greater connection across the parent group.

Year Group Parent Contact Lists

Year Group Parent Contact lists will be emailed to all Junior School families tomorrow (Friday). Please be reminded that these are strictly for school-based purposes and not for any aspect of commercial use.

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