From the Principal
This term I have asked members of the Executive to “shadow” a student or group of staff for a day so that we gain deeper insights into the experiences of students and staff at Redlands. This professional learning experience allows us to “walk in the shoes” of students or staff and develop a deeper understanding of areas of the School by joining them for their classes or various activities for a day.
On Monday I had the great privilege of joining Kindergarten White for a day of their learning as part of my shadowing experience. After the Father’s Day events in the morning and a quick “sip and crunch”, Mrs Guha went through our InitaLit readers for the week. We then had our PDHPE class with Mr Carter and Ms Longworth. Mackenzie, Saskia and Violante helped me navigate the various circus skills stations, and then I got quite a workout playing the Shark v Fish tag game. (However, I did feel that the sharks were picking on me when I was one of the fish, but I got them back when I became one of the sharks!)
As we were refuelling and rehydrating at morning break, Violante taught me some Italian words and then I got to see the amazing climbing ability of many of the Kindergarten students on the climbing frame.
We then listened to a scary story and answered some comprehension questions before writing our own beginning, middle and end sentences of the scary story. The Tricky Word Tree was really useful to help us correctly spell the words in our stories, and I appreciated Willow and Kathy sharing their stories with me.
We then moved to our numeracy activities and Ronan, Reimi, Violante and I used our mini whiteboards to come up with as many ways we could add, subtract or group numbers to make the number of 12. It was beneficial using the mini teddy bears to help us come up with the different possibilities. As we finished a bit early, I joined Bowie working through the Maths extension problem that was displayed on the wall.
We then broke into our literacy groups and I joined Matthias and Violante as we tested ourselves on the flashcards to spell out some of the tricky words. I think we did pretty well. I did have a few minutes at the end to join some other students working on the 300 piece jigsaw puzzle and we were getting close to finishing it. Unfortunately, I had to leave at lunch but look forward to spending more time with Kindergarten White soon.
I would like to thank Ms Guha, Mr Carter, Ms Longworth and, most of all, the amazing students of Kindergarten White, for allowing me to be a member of their class for the day. I can honestly say that not only was it a highlight of this week, but also of my year to date.
Redlands Parent/Carer Arnhem Land Midawarr Trip
Two weeks ago week we informed our community about a truly unique opportunity for parents and carers to visit Arnhem Land for a cultural immersion with the Yolŋu community from Sunday 26 – Thursday 30 May 2024. After years of developing our relationship with the Yolŋu community through Culture College and providing this amazing experience to our students, we are now offering it to parents and carers.
You can now see a video produced by Culture College of our Year 9 students’ experience earlier this year here and, if you are interested in potentially partaking in this experience next year, you can reserve a place at our information evening on Thursday 14 September here. Places for the Arnhem Land trip will be limited so please express your interest to attend early to reserve a place.
New Redlands Uniform
Over recent weeks staff representatives of the Uniform Steering Committee have met with parent representatives across all three sections of the School to get feedback on the new uniform and help inform some decisions. We look forward to launching the new uniform before the end of term with an e-brochure, video and detailed information on the transition.
Mr Sean Corcoran
Photo Caption: Our Snowsports team had a great showing at the NSW Interschools Championships at Perisher last week, with 8 Top 5 places and a total of 28 students qualified for the National Interschools.