From the Principal

A very warm welcome back to all families as we commence Term 2. I extend a special welcome to the new students and their families who have joined our community from the UK, Canada and Luxembourg and from local schools, and to those who have commenced their education at our Redlands House Preschool.

ANZAC Services

On the first day of term we remembered those who have served our country with our Secondary School ANZAC Service, and Junior and Preparatory Schools’ ANZAC Assemblies. Redlands parent, Lieutenant Colonel Craig Delaney ADF (retired), spoke to both Secondary and Junior School students about the Army values of Courage, Initiative, Respect and Teamwork and how they can be embraced in a school environment. Junior School students also learnt about the history of the slouch hat and the bugle. Lieutenant Colonel Delaney urged students not only to reflect on the ANZACs but also on all the soldiers who have served Australia in other wars, thereby contributing to shaping our great nation, and their families; and all those who have undertaken peacekeeping operations. They have all contributed to maintaining the ANZAC spirit and tradition.

At the Secondary School ANZAC Service we also reflected on an excerpt from the 1918 edition of The Redlander, the School Year Book, describing the excitement of the day 100 years ago when the Armistice was signed. Upon arriving at School “We all went into Assembly. Everybody came! Everybody cheered! Everybody smiled! On this day of days the words of Hark, the Herald Angels Sing seemed to come by inspiration. After Assembly up went the flag, and with it three hearty cheers.” The excerpt encapsulates the mood of the day, but finishes with a more sobering message: “It was a great day! A splendid day! A day it will be hard to forget. Heaven help us when we do! For when the world is able to forget the joy and infinite blessing of Peace, another war is close at hand”.

Staff Professional Development/Parent Life Ready Symposium

While Term 2 commenced on Tuesday for students, our teaching staff participated in a day of Professional Development on Monday. At the first session, which was attended by all Redlands staff, Dr Helena Popovic, an expert on brain function and neuroplasticity, gave a very motivating and entertaining presentation on how to Boost your Brain. Following morning tea, Mark Church, co-author of Making Thinking Visible, who works with some of the project teams in the ongoing work of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and who visited Redlands several times last year, led our academic leaders from all three Sections of the School. The theme of these two sessions and of a third on Tuesday afternoon, was to introduce these middle leaders to an Action Research model which is being used in a number of schools worldwide with whom he works. He will be returning in June and again later in the year to see how the Action Plans are developing. Our Subject Coordinators on the Senior Campus and our Year Coordinators on the Junior Campus will lead their direct reports in pursuit of these specific Action Research investigations, which aim to look more deeply at a chosen aspect of their development of our Culture of Thinking and its practice. Dr Burgess and I joined our Middle Leaders for all three sessions with Mark and greatly enjoyed learning and thinking about learning with our academic leaders.

Following that afternoon session, Mark stayed on to be the guest speaker in the first of a series of Life-Ready events which Dr Emma Burgess is planning for 2018. We were delighted by the large audience in Redlands Hall who came to hear Mark speak and then to put questions based upon his talk to a panel comprised of our three Heads of Section, Mark and me. The interest among those attending led to some very perceptive and good questions which kept the panel on our toes. The first question asked the panel to respond to how ready our teaching is to equip our students for a rapidly approaching future world of Artificial Intelligence and robots and the final question asked for more information upon how parents can support their children and our teachers in developing their thinking. Thank you to all who came along and participated in the evening. It is incredibly heartening to Redlands teachers to see the keenness among our parents to want to learn themselves about their parenting opportunities to help their children become excellent learners with powerful dispositions to learning.

New Learning Hub Update

During the School holiday period, the restorative work was completed on the New Music Centre, including the replacement of the timber floors in all three Music rooms. which were impacted by surface water last term. The area outside the building has also been substantially completed and this has allowed the area beneath the Lang Gymnasium to be connected with that external area, thereby increasing outdoor space and providing easier access to the New Music Centre and the other classrooms within the building. Significant progress was made on the piling and earthworks in preparation for the laying of the base of the New Learning Hub.

This month’s report from our project managers and builders has again confirmed that the scheduled completion of the New Learning Hub by the end of Term 2 2019 remains on time, with the building expected to be available for classes from the start of Term 3. The final works of Stage 1, landscaping from the NLH right across to Gerard St over the top of the New Music Centre, and the access road for the campus along the western boundary, will then continue and are scheduled to be completed in time for the start of the 2020 school year. 

Dr Peter Lennox

Main photo caption: Lieutenant Colonel Craig Delaney ADF (Retired), Victor Danko, President of the Mosman RSL Sub-Branch, and Commander Phillip Anderson OAM RAN (Retired), with Secondary School students who spoke at the ANZAC Day Service and other SRC members.