Head of Preparatory School
PREP SCHOOL UPCOMING EVENTS
Thank You
Students and staff wore denim with pride last Friday as both Junior and Senior Campuses supported Jeans for Genes Day 2021. Ari and Katerina Abe-Apostolou provided beautifully articulated videos that outlined the purpose of the day which can be found on our Pulse pages. We are proud to announce that the Redlands community donated a huge sum of $8,894 in support of the Children’s Medical Research Institute. Thank you everyone for your generosity.
Little Sydney Lives Exhibition
Our very own talented artist, Sienna Lepone in 1 Blue has been chosen as a finalist in the online Little Sydney Lives Exhibition. Children aged between 3-12 can participate in the Little Sydney Lives photography competition and share their perspectives on city life. The competition represents an opportunity for young people to demonstrate how they are connected to, and contribute to, their world. Use this link to view Sienna’s photo.
Week 6 Information
16 – 20 August
Next week is National Science week and this is the inspiration for our Wednesday 18th August STEAM Challenge day. Our slogan for STEAM day this year is ”imagine, ideate, tinker and create”. Students can choose from a range of design and making challenges to imagine, build and test their ideas. Students have the option to work in Family, Sibling, Buddy or Solo teams to complete their chosen challenge and submit their designs. Optional “Create and Chat” sessions will be offered in Wednesday’s timetable for students who would like to hang out with their peers while they create. No special equipment is needed. Dust off the Lego, gather a pile of recycled material, tape, string, elastic bands in preparation for bringing ideas to life.
Parent Teacher Conversations
30 August to 10 September
K-2 Parent/Teacher Conversations will be taking place via Zoom, over a two week period from 30 August to 10 September. This will be an opportunity for you to meet for a 10-minute online conversation with your child’s teacher. Conversations will focus on student academic growth using both remote and face to face examples as well as next steps for your child’s learning journey. Students emotional and social development will also be a focus of discussion. Booking details will be sent to all families next week.
Week 6 Request for On-Campus Learning for Children of Essential Workers
Parents who are essential workers can lodge a request for on campus learning support for the week of 16-20 August. Booking requests close again at 8pm on Friday 13 August at 8pm to allow sufficient time for staffing to be organised based on the numbers.
Please click here to lodge your request.
Week 6 Wellbeing Tips
One of our Junior Campus counsellors, Ms Courtney Karpin has put together some helpful strategies to help parents deal with the anxiety that some children are feeling towards COVID.
Maggie Dent’s free podcasts on ABC – ‘Parental as Anything’
In these podcasts, Maggie discusses how to talk to children about coronavirus. Some of her key points are:
- Talk to kids in age-appropriate way
- Avoid talking about things out loud
- Kids need to know they have agency to stop spread of virus by doing protective behaviours like hand washing
- Chat with kids about good things that are happening – amazing scientists working together, for example
- You can help lower stress in family by focusing on what you can do
- Time to go slow, practice relaxation, create new habits (yoga, tai chi with kids)
- What new family rituals can you create – create pathways of memory so kids can remember their lockdown experiences way into adulthood (stargazing nights, teddy bear picnics, ‘make your own pizza’ nights)
- Life skills – our job is to teach children valuable life skills (grow vegetables, write a letter, teach them organisational skills by doing an early spring clean). Your children will have these tools for life
How to Work from Home with Kids
- People appreciate openness and transparency – they respect this. Put your working hours in calendar, communicate to others your boundaries and parameters
- Preserve your mental resources. Outsource your information, write lists
- Not the time to be enforcing strict rules
- Plan your bandwidth of the day -so you don’t have 4 family members needing to Zoom at the same time while another streams a movie
- Build a fortress around your focus. We are constantly hijacked with WhatsApp notifications, emails etc. This impacts our capacity to focus and rather contributes to our stress state. Disable alerts and notifications when you have to be in focused state
- Work in sprints rather than marathons. We cannot work for more than 90-minute increments. Taking 5-minute hourly breaks, and doing something active with that time, helps to bolster our attention
- Check emails only on your laptop, take them off your phone
- Wind down or have an ‘end of day’ ritual – write down 1 thing you did accomplish. We have a negativity bias and overlook what we have done. Write a milestone you’ve accomplished. You can also write down 1 goal for the next day and put it in your calendar
- When your children do try their best, thank them for their efforts
- Fill up their ‘love tank’ – kids want a moment of connection. What can you do before diving into work that can top them up? (Perhaps it’s getting them out, or feeding them)
- People perform poorly when objects are in their field of vision. ‘A tidy desk is a tidy mind’. Minimise visual and mental distractions (this doesn’t mean you need to tidy the whole house!)
- Maybe it’s using technology for yourself as a compensation tool. There is nothing wrong with watching (or binging) on a show to help you feel good, especially if this will put you in a better place as a parent
- Gather at morning tea /lunch and come together to connect.
- Prioritise your calm down time, even for 5 minutes (there are some great mindfulness activities that take only 5 minutes!) You might even be modelling and encourage your child to join you.
Mrs Ainslie Breckenridge
Head of Preparatory School
abreckenridge@redlands.nsw.edu.au
9968 9848