Head of Preparatory School

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Dr Pirotta’s Visit to Prep

The Prep School ended STEAM week last Friday by welcoming wildlife scientist and science communicator, Dr Vanessa Pirotta to speak to our students and families. Dr Pirotta’s zoological background has taken her around the world for wildlife research. Notable projects Vanessa has worked on include leading pioneering research in collaboration with industry experts to develop custom-built, waterproof drones to collect whale snot (lung bacteria) for an assessment of whale health. Vanessa is also a primary investigator on a major wildlife trafficking detection project with Rapiscan Systems, the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment and Taronga Zoo. Vanessa is also working collaboratively with the local First Nations rangers, the Gamay Rangers, in Sydney to document marine mammal presence.

Our Prep students were engaged and fascinated as Dr Pirotta’s shared stories about whales, the noises they make to communicate, and they especially loved her stories of visiting Antarctica.

We were privileged to have her sign a copy of her new book, The Voyage of Whale and Calf, which follows the migration of a young calf and his mother from the east coast of Australia to the icy waters of Antarctica. If you would like to read the book, please ask Mrs Stokes and she will help you borrow it.

After hearing from Dr Pirotta, a few of our students asked questions on behalf of the cohort. Dr Pirotta was very impressed with the depth of questions asked and the engagement of all the students.

If you would like to know more about Dr Pirotta’s work, please click here.

Book Week in the Prep School

All week we have truly lived the 2023 Book Week theme as we have read, grown, and been inspired by all things books! The enthusiasm of Mrs Bertinshaw and Mrs Stokes has been contagious across Prep. The Lucy Hill Library has been a busy place of activity with lunchtime clubs, guessing competitions, book cover jigsaws and many more book related fun.

Our Kindergarten and Year 1 students were treated to stories being read to them by Mr Corcoran and Ms Partington. A book week is not complete without dressing up as a character from a favourite book. On Tuesday our students and staff looked amazing as we welcomed everything from unicorns, Dog Man, Harry Potter to giraffes and paper bag princesses to school. A big shout out to all our families and carers who helped create such fun costumes for our young learners.

Next week we will be welcoming our visiting Australian author Jane Godwin to the Prep school to talk about her many books and what it is like to be an author.

Superstar Prep Staff

It was wonderful to have two of our Prep School teachers take part in the ABC Education Story Time initiative, recording their videos at the studio a few months ago. With the recent launch of the Story Time performances as part of Book Week, our Prep teachers Ms Singh and Mr Price showed their outstanding performances to their classes on Tuesday.

You can view Ms Singh and Mr Price’s presenting their teaching and learning activity to students all around Australia here.

A Flight Plan For Growing Resilience

We were thrilled to welcome so many K-6 parents and carers on Wednesday to hear our Junior Campus Counsellors speak about guiding our students through turbulent times by building resilience. Alessandro, Leah and Will shared how resilience can be learned by adopting strategies and language that can expand a child’s window of tolerance and learn how to confront conflict and problem solving using simple and consistent language that helps them identify, define and scale problems. Assertive communication using positive self-talk and ensuring we as adults are trying our hardest to be positive role models to learn from was certainly a takeaway message for me as an educator and as a parent.

If you would like to view the slides, you can find them on the Prep Pulse page.

Uniform Shop

Winter Uniform Clearance – 30% Off Selected Items

As we will be introducing our new Redlands uniform in 2024, we are having a Winter Uniform clearance sale with 30% off the following range, whist stocks last:

• Blazers
• Knitted Jumpers
• Girls Skirts
• Girls Blouses
• Boys Long Sleeve Shirts

Online Orders

Thank you to parents, carers and students for your prompt collection of online orders. Just a reminder to that there are some online orders that still need collection. 

Opening Hours

The Uniform Shop will be closing at 4pm on Thursdays until further notice. 

Mrs Ainslie Breckenridge
Head of Preparatory School
abreckenridge@redlands.nsw.edu.au
9968 9848