From The Principal
Through joining a wide range of Zoom sessions across the School, I continue to be inspired by the resilience, positivity, creativity and collaboration throughout our school community. The Come Dine with Us community cooking event with Catering Manager Joel Squire was one such event, in which people came together to share in a love of food and to learn new skills. It was wonderful to see a number of our younger students thriving in the kitchen.
A strong focus this week has been on mental health and wellbeing through the promotion of R U OK? Day and strategies to provide and seek assistance. I greatly appreciated the messages shared by our Yr 12 leaders in their Secondary School assembly and then was blown away by maturity of the student messages in the Yr 2 assembly. Wisdom from our younger students regarding how we can support each other were particularly powerful at this time. We were also treated to live musical performances by Nathanial Hao and Katerina Abe-Apostolou, which were very impressive.
We are very proud of the way that our Yr 12 students approached their period of online trial examinations and the way they are working through analysing the important feedback. There was a phenomenal amount of logistical work behind the scenes by staff to make this possible, which was greatly appreciated. The Secondary School Leadership Team are looking forward to working with the students on options for their programmed return to campus in Term 4 and on creative ways that we can celebrate their time at Redlands, with them and their families.
The Executive team are focused on further developing our COVID-safe return to On-Campus Learning plans for Term 4, to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our school community. We are utilising research and experience from overseas schools who have been living with the Delta strain in their communities for some time. We also continue to collaborate regularly with a group of top independent schools through a key network. Next week we are undertaking a Rapid Antigen Testing (RAT) trial with the Junior School students who are attending on campus as essential workers’ children. Staff working with the students will also take part in the trial, which will be most beneficial in determining how RAT may potentially be utilised in various scenarios next term and into 2022.
2022 Peter Lennox Scholarship
I am delighted to announce that the 2022 Peter Lennox Scholarship has been awarded to Melissa Franco. Melissa is a currently a School Prefect at her Northern Beaches primary school where she has achieved a very strong academic record and has contributed to the full life of the School through Music (Clarinet, Piano and Voice), Drama, Sport (Football and Athletics) and leadership. Melissa is fluent in both English and Portuguese and is currently learning French. She is very excited to have the opportunity to join Redlands in Yr 7 next year.
I sincerely thank all parents, friends, alumni and the Class of 2020 whose generous donations made this means-tested scholarship and opportunity for Melissa possible. Due to the continued support of the Redlands community, we will be offering the means-tested Belinda Oxley Scholarship to a student commencing in Yr 7 2023. We look forward to being able to continue to provide a Redlands education to other exceptionally talented students, who would otherwise unable to attend the School, on an annual basis.
Mr Stephen Webber