Head of Junior School
UPCOMING EVENTS
Please note that all Upcoming Events for the Junior School are now on their own Note Day article/page.
This Head of Junior School page will consist of general information from the Head of Junior School.
Spanish News
Redlands Junior School students participated again with great enthusiasm in the recent Education Perfect Language World Championships. I was thrilled to hear of our involvement and results which were outstanding and congratulate and all of our students and Senora Colagiuri. As a school, Redlands placed:
- 1st in Spanish in Australia out of 65 schools
- 2nd in Spanish out of 1,054 schools worldwide
- Redlands finished 26th globally for all languages out of 1,644 schools.
Many of our Junior School students achieved certificates in the competition as outlined below:
- 22 Credit certificates (500 points)
- 17 Bronze certificates (1000 points)
- 7 Silver certificates (2000 points)
- 11 Gold certificates (3000 points): Jolon Chan, James Emmett, Finlay Scott Brown, Rabiah Singh, Cooper Rinaldo, Ruby Sommer, Victoria Rivera, Rowan Petersen, Liam Petersen, Zoe Noakes and Grace McSweeney
- 4 Emerald certificates (5000 points): Roy Rivera, Caitlin Edwards, Annabelle Hwang and Alexander Kraszewski-Francia
- 3 Elite Certificates (10,000 points) Krishna Gupta, Christopher Stevens and Michael Havryk
The highest scoring students in each Year Group received a $30 iTunes voucher from Education Perfect and we recognise and congratulate all of the students for their amazing effort and commitment to language study.
Certificates will be distributed as soon as they are received from Education Perfect and the ten highest scoring students from each Year Group also enjoyed a well-deserved churros and pizza party this week!
Lower North Shore Science Competition
Once again, the Junior School was delighted to host this year’s Lower North Shore Science Competition, organised by Eye Heart Science.
The competition invites primary school aged students from schools in the local area to present a Science experiment and it was wonderful to see many of our Junior School students involved this year, sharing both their curiosity for Science and a problem-solving mindset connected to real-world issues.
Eye Heart Science founder, Dr Alana Wylie, has a wonderfully infectious passion for Science and we have enjoyed a strong connection with her since 2011 when she became our Scientist in Residence through a CSIRO Scientists in Schools’ program. This long-standing connection was a catalyst for Dr Wylie to change careers and she now works solely to inspire the next generation of scientific thinkers.
Congratulations to our Redlands students who were involved in this event:
Yr 3: Sienna De Saxe, Ollie Hosker, Isaac McIntosh, Liam Randall and Lily Van Hulsen
Yr 4: Charli Amm, Tom Brown, Emma Cruttenden, Ruairi Lambert, George McIntosh, Grace McSweeney, Max Nicholson, Jay Roger, Sebastian Suit Solari and Zetong Shen
Yr 5: Julia Cooper-Hor, Kira Delaney and Freya Stasko
Yr 6: James Gray, Ben Hanning, Carolina Pedro Inacio, Alessandro Scali and Aiden Van Hulsen
I know, for many of them, beyond the challenge of making their scientific thinking visible, the challenge of presenting to visiting students, parents, teachers and judges was one that they overcame with great success and I loved talking to them about their experiments as they explained their thinking, reasoning and also the ‘great’ mistakes that were made along the way to get to their final presentation.
New Learning Hub ‘Topping Out’ Ceremony
Yesterday afternoon, I was delighted to be invited to attend the ‘topping out’ ceremony in the New Learning Hub on our Senior Campus. The practice of ‘topping out’ a new building can be traced to the ancient Scandinavian religious rite of placing a tree atop a new building to appease the tree-dwelling spirits displaced in its construction. As part of the event, a small tree was placed on the rooftop and we were then given an opportunity to see some of the internal work that is happening on the Visual Arts and Design and Technology level. As we went from floor to floor up on to the roof space, I was awestruck by the sheer scale of this new student learning hub, scheduled for occupancy in mid-2020. The contemporary educational facilities will truly transform our Senior Campus and our current Junior School students will enjoy these learning spaces in years to come.
Cashless Canteen from Term 4
As previously communicated last term, both our Junior and Senior Campus Canteens have been moving towards being cashless operations this year and will no longer take cash from Term 4. After the successful introduction of Flexischools last year, we now have very little incidental sales at our Junior Campus Canteen. The change has improved efficiencies and enabled our Canteen staff to spend more time on other aspects of their catering roles and has given them greater visibility on volumes of products being sold which has in turn, helped reduced food wastage as we have been able to collate data on sales.
As well as Flexischools, another option for families with Junior School students, which I know some students are using already, is to acquire a prepaid debit card such as Spriggy, which may also give students the opportunity to learn important budgeting skills.
Kids’ Cancer Project
Last Friday, we were delighted to support Yr 5 girls Stella Cunningham, Zoe Hicks, Chloe Hitchens and Charlie Hoskin, in their fundraiser for the Kids’ Cancer Project Fundraiser. The girls have been active fundraisers for this charity in recent times and we were delighted to raise a total amount of $774.70 through merchandise and raffle sales. This fantastic amount will support the charity’s focus on medical research and the girls have certainly raised awareness of this important cause in the Childhood Cancer Awareness of September. Well done on making a difference again, girls.
Junior School Lost Property
Please note that any unnamed items not collected by the end of term will be passed on to the next Second Hand Uniform Sale. Mrs Fairfax and Miss Wickham have repatriated a significant amount of lost property (named and unnamed) but there are still a number of items that have been in our Junior School Lost Property section for a lot of this term. Our lost property is located at the bottom of the Yr 3 stairwell in the Parkes Building should you or your child be on the hunt for missing items.
Reminder
Please be reminded that Tuesday Cocurricular Clubs and our Maths and English peer support groups (Wednesdays) do not take place next week. All Music practices do continue as do after school Extra Curricular Performing Arts activities.
Uniform Shop
In the school holidays, the Uniform Shop will be open on Monday 30 September, Thursday 10 October and Friday 11 October between 9.00am – 3.00pm. If you wish to make an appointment, please click here.
Mr Ari Guha
Head of Junior School
aguha@redlands.nsw.edu.au
9953 6022