Head of Junior School
UPCOMING EVENTS
Please note that all Upcoming Events for the Junior School are now on their own Note Day article/page.
This Head of Junior School page will consist of general information from the Head of Junior School.
Safer Internet Day – Tuesday 11 February
Next week, Redlands will participate in the worldwide Safer Internet Day. Safer Internet Day raises awareness and encourages everyone to play their part to practise and promote online safety. In our assembly next Monday, Junior School students will take part in an activity reviewing the three principles we practice for the safe and positive use of digital technology: engage positively, know your online world and choose consciously. I encourage you to ask your children to explain these principles to you thereafter which will hopefully further cement their understanding of these key premises.
To support parents with Helping kids to thrive online, the eSafety Commissioner will be running webinars on Wednesday 12 February and Thursday 13 February. These webinars are free and you can register for them at this eSafety Commissioner link here. The eSafety Commissioner also provides resources for parents on specific eSafety topics link here.
Representative Sport Kick Off
Our Saturday representative sports program kicks off this weekend and we look forward to fielding 19 Junior School teams across 4 sports this term. The majority of our sporting offerings are through the Independent Primary School Heads of Australia (IPSHA), which has some overarching principles for primary sport. The IPSHA Code of Conduct for sport is on Redlands Pulse and Mr Dunne and his team oversee ensuring that the students play sport competitively but always fairly and in the right spirit of the game. By helping students focus on their effort and improvement rather than the result, this cultivates a growth mindset.
For parents, there are a few expectations from my observations over 25 years as either a coach, supporter or more recently, as a parent, the main ones are remembering that children play organised sport for fun, respecting the officials’ decisions and not interfering with the running of the game, particularly parents who try to give their own children, or even other players on the team, instructions which are different to that of their coach.
I thank Mr Dunne and his team for all of their preparation and I look forward to getting around to cheering on all of our teams in the coming weeks.
Car Line Parking and Timing
As we head into the second week of term, our drop off and pick up processes are becoming more fluid and supportive of our focus on student safety. There are three points that need reminding and I ask that parents take heed of them so as not to compromise safety over convenience.
- Junior School parents should aim to join the car line at 3.20pm when school finishes as our Prep School car line operates until then. We have deliberate staggered departure times across the Campus to help with traffic flow at the end of the day. The duty teachers are there until 3.40pm so sometimes coming soon after 3.20pm is also acceptable.
- When dropping off in the morning or using the car line in the afternoon, please be as quick as is safe to allow cars to flow.
- Please do not leave your car parked on Allister St adjacent to the School before or after school and come into the school. This is a strict no stopping zone.
Bus Route 595N
Please note that bus route 595N, which departed from the bus stop outside the Adams Centre on the Junior Campus side of Military Road at 3.33pm weekdays, will now depart from the bus stop on the Senior Campus side of Military Road next to the Secondary School. The 595N will then take a left hand turn before McDonalds and loop around and travel back along Ernest Street. Hence, these students will need to walk over the footbridge to the stop near the Senior Campus.
Flexischools App for Canteen and Uniform Orders
There is now a Flexischools app to facilitate Canteen and Uniform orders. Please visit the Flexischools website which has a link on the home page for downloading the Flexischools app.
Embrace Knowing Less
I have always believed and shared with students and teachers that learning should be fun and engaging but that it also shouldn’t be easy; it is at the point of challenge and struggle that we grow as learners. Helping normalise the feeling of being ‘comfortable being uncomfortable’ is something that we spend deliberate time nurturing in our students and for them to understand that making a mistake is often the catalyst to a deeper learning moment.
Both I, and a number of Redlands colleagues, have followed the work of Professor of Mathematics Education at Stanford University, Jo Boaler, work for many years, particularly in the area of teaching Mathematics, where she explains Maths to not be a set of methods; but rather a set of connected big ideas. Her belief is that when students understand the big ideas in Maths, the methods of computation become more accessible. Last year, through a mutual friend, I was able to connect with Professor Boaler and shared aspects of our Mathematics teaching programs, which have been guided by some of her principles, for her to critique. Her feedback was very encouraging and continues to shape our teaching for understanding but she also highlighted the importance of allowing students to struggle in their learning.
Over the break, I enjoyed reading an article by Professor Boaler entitled Why Struggle Is Essential for the Brain – and Our Lives, and connects with a lot of the growth mindset language we use with our students here at Redlands. There are some key messages for adults too so I share the article below and hope that it may prompt some thinking for you, just as it did for me.
“As parents and teachers, we do just about everything we can to make sure that children don’t struggle. It turns out we are making a terrible mistake. Research shows that struggling is absolutely critical to mastery and that the highest achieving people in the world are those who have struggled the most. The more I communicate this message to parents and teachers the more stories I hear of complete personal transformation.
Neuroscientists have found that mistakes are helpful for brain growth and connectivity and if we are not struggling, we are not learning. Not only is struggle good for our brains but people who know about the value of struggle improve their learning potential. This knowledge would not be earth shattering if it was not for the fact that we in the Western world are trained to jump in and prevent learners from experiencing struggle. When students look at me and say:” This is hard,” I say, “That is fantastic.”
An international study of Mathematics teaching found that teachers in Japan put their students in places of struggle 44% of the time in classrooms—they saw this less than 1% of the time in U.S. classrooms. What do we parents and teachers do instead? We jump in and show the way, offering steps to a solution to help save our students from struggle. This is in large part because this new science is not widely available and we are culturally trained to feel bad, and to rush in and help, when this is probably the last thing we should do.
The research on the impact of struggle turns out to help adults too—in all sorts of jobs. I interviewed sixty-two people for my new book, “Limitless Mind.” Many of them shared similar accounts of how they used to go into meetings afraid they would be found out for not knowing something. After learning about the importance of not knowing and of engaging in struggle they now proudly show up and say, “I don’t know, but I will find out.” They display a mindset of discovery and curiosity, which has helped their lives in many ways.
Once we stop the charade of knowing everything, and embrace knowing less, with a willingness to sit with uncertainty, unexpected things happen.
When I was teaching middle schoolers in a research math camp a few years ago one girl stood out to me; she was nearly always wrong in her thinking, but she was always engaged, arguing her case, pushing to understand better. An observer of the class would have described her as a low achiever, but she improved more than any other of the 84 students we taught that summer. Her standardized test score in Mathematics improved by 450 percent after 18 struggle filled lessons. Our messages to the students—that struggle would be valued and mistakes are productive—had helped her feel good about struggle and embrace it.
When I tell young learners that struggle and mistakes are the best times for our brains it is freeing. Students no longer give up on problems when they find them hard—they push through the struggle to the wonderful places on the other side. When students look at me with a puppy dog face and say: “This is hard,” I say, “That is fantastic. That feeling of ‘hard’ is the feeling of your brain developing, strengthening and growing”.
We cannot achieve anything creative without being comfortable with mistakes and struggle.
In 2016, two young computer scientists rocked the world of Mathematics by solving a previously unsolved math problem, an event that many described as audacious. The two young men reflected that it was knowing less that allowed them to solve the difficult problem. It freed their mind to think in better ways.
I am not arguing that knowledge is bad or knowing answers is not helpful. What I am saying is that knowledge is less important than a mindset of discovery and curiosity. We cannot achieve anything creative without being comfortable with mistakes and struggle—and we should all embrace times of struggle, knowing they are helping our brains. When we adopt a limitless perspective, approaching different jobs and conversations with a comfort with uncertainty and struggle, with a willingness to learn from others and with a flexible approach to problems, outcomes improve—in learning and in life.”
Particularly at the start of a new school year, students’ excitement for new learning is infectious but this needs to be coupled with preparing them for challenges in their learning and struggle. As Boaler surmises, “Getting answers right is okay but being stuck and finding them hard is fantastic.”
Making a Difference
I was moved to hear of the empathy and actions of Yr 3 student, Sophia Moriarty, who shared her holiday fundraising efforts with me. Sophia’s grandmother had to be evacuated from her home due to the bushfires and although thankfully, there was no damage to her grandmother’s home, watching the television coverage and seeing so many people and families affected prompted Sophia to feel the need to take action.
So, Sophia baked over 200 biscuits and with some help, and the necessary permissions, organised a bake sale at Mosman shops on the last weekend of the holidays.
In total, Sophia raised a staggering $614.60, all of which was donated to WIRES (Emergency Fund) and the NSW and QLD Rural Fire Services. Thank you for making a difference, Sophia; we are proud of your compassion.
Unused Travel Toiletries?
As we have done in the past, we are pleased to be a collection point for Every Little Bit Helps, a registered charity with the specific purpose of supporting people in need and the belief that every Australian should have access to basic toiletries. So, if you have unused travel toiletries, please place them in the small red bins at Junior (or Prep) receptions. The last day for collection this term is Wednesday 26 February.
Mr Ari Guha
Head of Junior School
aguha@redlands.nsw.edu.au
9953 6022