From The Principal

From The Principal

I trust that the recent term break provided an opportunity for you to spend time together with family and friends, while acknowledging that for Yr 12 parents, there would have been time focused on support and wellbeing in the lead up to the final examinations. Our HSC students have commenced positively this week, with the IB examinations not far away, and I am most grateful for the continued support and dedication of our Yr 12 teachers during this time.

During the break, along with other Redlands staff, I attended the Australian Council of Educational Leaders conference here in Sydney. It was a wonderful opportunity to connect in person with other leaders from both the schooling and tertiary sector. There were many significant presentations, with a highlight being Stan Grant’s closing address. He spoke with strength, emotion, raw honesty and deep integrity as he shared about his life growing up in various regional NSW towns and the impact of racism on his immediate family and his grandparents. It was a powerful, personal story of truth-telling.

Highly respected educational researcher, John Hattie, presented on recent research into positive mind frames that parents exhibit, which support their child’s learning and development. He has written a new book with his son that focuses on this topic. The 10 mind frames that he discussed are:

  1. I have appropriately high expectations
  2. I make reasonable demands and am highly responsive
  3. I am not alone
  4. I develop my child’s skill, will and sense of thrill
  5. I love learning
  6. I value the power of feedback and know that success thrives on errors
  7. I am a parent not a teacher
  8. I expose my child to language, language, language
  9. I appreciate that my child is not perfect, nor am I
  10. I am an evaluator of my impact

He spent some time focusing on Nos. 2 and 8, with key messages regarding the importance of listening and being responsive to what your child is communicating and the importance of reading to your child from an early age and exposing them to as much language as possible.

Tomorrow night, our alumni community will join together to celebrate the outstanding achievements of a number of Redlanders at our inaugural Redlander Alumni Awards Ceremony. We will be specifically recognising and presenting awards to five Alumni and five Young Alumni for their dedication, commitment and exceptional achievements in a very diverse range of endeavours. Next week I look forward to announcing the names of the ten very deserving winners of these inaugural awards.

Mr Stephen Webber

Photo Caption: Yr 11 students enjoying their camp at our High Country Campus outside Jindabyne.