Head of Preparatory School

Head of Preparatory School

PREP SCHOOL UPCOMING EVENTS

 

STEAM WEEK

What an amazing buzz in the Prep Seesaw Cyber space with our very first online STEAM Challenge Day.  Our whole school community engaged in the #family#group#buddy#solo challenges. Students explored their choice of #design, #build, #remix and #make challenges inspired by this year’s theme of ‘Imagine, Ideate, Tinker and Create’.   A virtual playground social space offered options to drop in to ‘Chat and create’ Zoom sessions. This provided opportunity for students to meet in groups of 2 and 3 with friends to collaborate, share and chat with Ms Anagnostu and our Yr 6 Technology leaders coordinating the sessions. 

A great example of the learning that occurs when students have the opportunity to explore, invent and discover, is the cubby which Emily and her brother Angus worked on together. They persisted through various collapsing designs, to come up with a successful design for a two level cubby, giving them not only a place to play but also “somewhere separate where we could have a little quiet time from each other”. Not only did they engage in the design process of coming up with an idea, testing and refining it, they also got to enjoy it all afternoon and even to have dinner in it!  Thank you to our teachers and families for supporting and sharing in this STEAM challenge day. We are working on a way to virtually share a gallery of student’s creations with our Prep community, so stay tuned for more information on this coming soon. 

BOOK WEEK 23-27 August – Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds

Each year since 1945 the CBCA has brought children and books together across Australia through CBCA Book Week. During this time schools and public libraries spend one glorious week celebrating books and Australian children’s authors and illustrators. Classroom teachers, teacher librarians and public librarians create colourful displays, develop activities, run competitions and tell stories relating to a theme to highlight the importance of reading.

This year, Book Week will be somewhat different as the children will not be able to meet with authors, celebrate with their peers at school or take part in any of those things we usually associate with Book Week. However, we can still celebrate books and reading! We have postponed our visiting authors and hope we will be able to enjoy them ‘in person’ during Term 4 and we have organised a celebration of books online for K to 2 students next week.

Each afternoon next week there will be a choice of activities on Seesaw for the children to enjoy. Mrs Roberts has tried to make them fun and pleasurable. We need to laugh and play as well as read. There will be mystery readers sharing a book, new authors to meet, craft activities, a serial to listen to and more!

Of course, Book Week is a good time for you to plan some special reading too. Start a new family reading ritual, begin a new nighttime serial, buy some new books, share favourite books from your childhood with your child, have grandparents read to your child on Facetime or vice versa have your child read to their grandparents, cook something together using a recipe, make a family photo book together, the list is endless. Happy Book Week.

Lucy Hill Library

Parents may have heard that from next week, the Junior Library staff will trial the option for Junior School students to borrow books from the Arnold Library in a COVID-safe manner. They will review the operations at the end of next week before looking further ahead.

I would like to advise our Prep families that our Lucy Hill Library will not be providing this service. I will certainly be watching how the Junior School Library team manage the exercise and I will review our Prep decision if needed. I hope that our Prep families support this decision.

Parent Teacher Conversations

Our staff are looking forward to having learning conversations with all their families in Weeks 8 and 9 (30 August–10 September). Please follow steps outlined in the letter emailed yesterday afternoon to book your preferred times. Our Conversations are certainly going to be a little different this time. The staff have been working this week on establishing a set of criteria and guiding questions that will help frame the precious 10 minutes together. Sharing will focus on where your child is at academically based on formative assessment information gathered this term, as well as their social and emotional development demonstrated throughout this unusual time. Conversations will then turn to ‘next steps’ in learning and how to further support learning at home. Of course, there will be an opportunity for a check in with families around Remote Learning experiences, and we will try hard to maintain the focus on the growth and development of the student. I encourage you to come prepared with some questions around your observations of how your child is learning. I would love to connect with any families as well, so please email me if you would like to have a discussion with me about your child’s learning.

K-2 Mathematics Curriculum Webinar Tuesday 24 August 5pm

On Tuesday 24 August at 5pm, our Dean of Teaching and Learning, Mrs Stacey Smith, will be conducting a parent webinar on K-2 Mathematics. This session will cover information regarding the upcoming new NSW K-2 Mathematics Syllabus, Number Talks, and how to use these at home and also provide you with some remote learning tips. We hope that you can join us.

https://redlands.zoom.us/j/94991374023?pwd=QkFKRUd6THdXYzZZSUVvOUlkVVNmQT09

Week 7 Request for On-Campus Learning for Children of Essential Workers

Parents who are essential workers can lodge a request by clicking on the below link for on campus learning support for the week of 23-27 August. Booking requests close again at 8pm on Friday 20 August at 8pm to allow sufficient time for staffing to be organised based on the numbers.

https://forms.gle/3q7fnb6thoWsZe5dA

 Week 7 Wellbeing Tips

Our Junior Campus counsellor, Mr Alessandro Digiacomo has put together some helpful strategies to help parents deal with promoting positive behaviour during this difficult time.

  1. Rewards are important – try to use their “currency”. This could be time playing the sport they like, TV time, gaming time. If they do not behave or meet the expectations, it’s important the parent doesn’t give in. If we don’t use their currency, what’s left for parents to use? The rewards need to be reasonable and inexpensive. 
  2. Get your child to keep a behaviour chart. This needs to have concrete behaviours you wish to improve, for example, not just “well behaved” but something more specific such as “sat quietly to do work” or “regulated emotions today”. Praise them for their positive behaviour in a very specific way, e.g. “you regulated really well today!”, “you sat down in front of your classes so well today”. 
  3. A “social space” refers to the space where the family gets together, e.g. the dinner table, the lounge room. People are not allowed to be upset or angry in these spaces, e.g. “That’s something we don’t do in this space!”. 
  4. If there is a meltdown: “I can see you’re really upset. I’m going to sit down on the chair in the room. I will give you a cuddle if you want, but we won’t do anything else until you have calmed down”. This can be discussed with the child beforehand. Where would the child like the parent to be, in the room or in another room? The first time they might scream for ages, but this is quite often reduced the second time round.
  5. A great time to discuss a problem can be the next day. “I’d like to talk about what happened yesterday. What happened when I asked you to clean your room? How can this look different next time?”

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