Year 9

Burn Bright

As part of our Pastoral program, we were very fortunate to have the team from Burn Bright return on Monday to run their ‘Ignite’ program with our boys and their ‘Spark’ program with our girls. 

Both programs are designed to encourage students to develop self-efficacy at a critical time in their adolescent lives. The programs asked our students to consider their core values in a world where there is significant pressure from competing external influences – be it peer pressure, body image, the media, family expectations, etc. And the importance of strength, integrity and respects in the face of these pressures. 

The two key standouts parts of the day for me as an observer were:

  • ‘The Line Game’, a powerful reflective activity, asking the group to respond to a wide variety of prompts – a lot was learned about one another without saying a word.
  • The ‘Who Sit? Me Sir?’ game played at the end of the day.

Both parts of the day required community involvement with the key message of the importance of a ‘we not me’ approach and open and honest communication in fostering a positive culture within the Year Group. 

Year 9 were very impressive in their engagement with the presenters, and I feel both grew as a group and took a lot away from the day in personal reflection. 

Year 9 Tour Guides

Two weeks ago, Ms Susan Jones put out a call to Year 9 students to tour perspective families around the campus during an Open Morning held on Tuesday. Pleasingly, she was inundated with volunteers!  

I want to sincerely congratulate and thank all 52 students for their efforts. The way they presented themselves and the warmth with which they greeted and guided these families through the Secondary School was wonderful to see and there was nothing but positive feedback from several families that I spoke to.  

There are also a number of Year 9 students following this up with similar responsible this Friday morning for whom I’m sure will also put their best foot forward. 

Year 9 Da Vinci: Top 16 Results

The Top 16 schools in each subject of the Da Vinci Decathlon have now been published, and I am delighted to announce that, in addition to their brilliant 3rd place in Science, our Year 9 team also gained the following placings:

  • 4th in Cartography
  • 13th in Creative Producers
  • 15th in Mathematics

Congratulations again to Abby, Alex, Bowen, Charlotte, Sophia, Soraya, Will Thomson, and Will Vass for their fantastic efforts.

Year 9 Tournament of Minds

Congratulations to Tom Beatty, Charlotte Boris, Georgia Cavric, Amelie Dewar, Melissa Franco, Roman Jackson and Abby Stante for their selection into the first team to represent Redlands at Tournament of Minds since 2013. Tournament of Minds or TOM is a well-recognised cocurricular competition for gifted and high potential learners, which cultivates creative and lateral thinking as well as team-based problem-solving. Along with seven other students in Year 7 and 8, these Year 9 students will complete a six-week long Term Challenge in one of four disciplines (The Arts, Language Literature, Social Science or STEM) and a Spontaneous Challenge that requires them to present a solution to an open-ended problem in 5 minutes before a panel of judges. TOM is an initiative led by Dr Poon, our High Potential Learning Coordinator (7-12), with the help of staff from a range of faculties – Ms Bailey, Ms Cleghorn, Mr Holden, Ms Joo, Ms Kang, and Ms Wilson. I look forward to reporting on the progress of our TOM team in future Note Days. 

Mr Tobias Horan
Yr 9 Advisor
9968 9872
thoran@redlands.nsw.edu.au