Head of Junior School

National Swimming Success

We were thrilled to hear of the phenomenal swimming achievements again of Yr 6 student, Hannah Morton, who has been competing at the School Sports Australia Swimming Championships this past week in Hobart.

Hannah reached the final in all eight events that she competed in, winning an astonishing six medals. In the individual events, she won gold in the 50m freestyle, 50m backstroke and silver in the 100m freestyle. Of particular note, Hannah lowered her NSW backstroke record three times during the course of the competition. Hannah also competed in the relay team for NSW and was part of teams who won three more gold medals.

By any standard, this is a fantastic achievement and we congratulate Hannah and also recognise her dedication to her training and continuous improvement.

Junior School Library News

This term, Junior School students will look at the shortlisted books from this year’s Children’s Book Council Australia. Connected to this, students will explore the Picture Books of the Year in Library lessons, with the Arnold Library stocking the Younger Readers titles, Eve Pownall’s non-fiction titles, and the Crichton Award for New Illustrators titles. We will be following who wins each of these categories during Book Week.

This year’s dates for the CBCA Children’s Book Week are 18-24 August, with the theme, Find Your Treasure. Again, we will be organising a dress-up on the Friday of Book Week, where the students can come dressed as a character linked to the Book Week theme or their favourite book character.

Please note that the Premier’s Reading Challenge concludes on 31 August and many students are well under way in reading the required number of 20 books. Students should have their usernames and passwords in their Student Planners or saved on their iPads. 

And finally, we are extremely excited to be hosting the Australian Children’s Laureate for 2018 and 2019, Morris Gleitzman. Morris will visit Redlands to spend time with Yrs 3 and 4 on Thursday 30 August and then join Yrs 5 and 6 on the following day, Friday 31 August. Students are encouraged to read some of his books in advance of his visit. The Arnold Library will not be selling books on the day due to time constraints but if students do have personal copies of his books, we will do our best to have Morris sign them on the day, time permitting.

Staying with author visits, Yr 6 will also enjoy an additional author visit from Michael Adams in conjunction with the Secondary School Library on Tuesday 14 August.

Yr 3 Gallery Walk 

Our Yr 3 students were excited to share their learning with parents this week during their gallery walk. These important opportunities for parents to engage in their child’s learning are very important to us as home and school work in partnership to support each child. My thanks are extended to the students and their teachers for their preparation of an engaging morning for parents. 

Kids Need Books 

Next week, Junior School will be invited to support a book drive initiative for Kids Need Books (KNB), a non-government organisation based in Hanoi, Vietnam which aims to address the shortage of English language children’s books in Vietnam and build a community library to provide early exposure to English as a second language. The drive is being led by four Yr 11 Redlands students with a passion for literature and service. Any donations of second hand books for children aged 0-10 years will be sent directly to Kids Need Books in Vietnam. The organisation also offers a book lending and delivery service to expand access to reading books to rural Vietnam, where the average child only reads no more than one book per year. A gold coin donation would also be appreciated and the four students, Lindsay, Alice, Sienna and Jasmine, will share their idea with the Junior School in our assembly next Monday.

Online Junior Campus Canteen

Parents should have received a detailed letter introducing our new online ordering system for the Junior Campus Canteen called Flexischools, which commences next Monday 6 August.

We hope this step forward will support families with a more convenient and efficient process of ordering from the Canteen but Junior School students (Yrs 3-6) will still be able to buy items from the Canteen at recess and lunch on an ad hoc basis. In the early stages of this transition towards an increasingly cashless canteen, an iPad will be situated at the Canteen for families who haven’t been able to pre-order food online before the 9am daily cut-off.

Jeans for Genes

A reminder that tomorrow sees Redlands supporting the Jeans for Genes charity across all sections of our School. Students will be permitted to wear mufti clothing, with denim encouraged, in return for a gold coin donation. In addition to this, a group of our Yr 6 girls will be holding a bake sale to raise additional funds for this charity.

Grandparents and Special Friends Day

Mr Ari Guha
Head of Junior School
aguha@redlands.nsw.edu.au
9953 6022