Head of Secondary School

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It’s Okay to Make Mistakes… as long as you learn from them

This week I have worked in partnership with students, families and teachers on supporting students to better manage themselves, their emotions and their interactions with each other. At Redlands, we focus on Social and Emotional Learning, which supports young people to grow and flourish. SEL instruction focuses on emotional intelligence. The ultimate goal is to teach young people to understand and respect themselves and others. 

As you know, adolescence is a time of great learning, about oneself and others. Emotional intelligence develops slowly. It grows over time. Life experiences hone our skills and our understanding of ourselves and others. Recently, some of our students have been refining and developing their social and emotional skills, in light of some poor decision-making.

When students do make serious mistakes at School, they are treated in a confidential manner. The School has not, and would never, reveal the identities of students who experience personal and social setbacks. During their time at school, young people often make poor decisions, neglect their responsibility as students and require our support to ‘get back on track’. We recognise this as central to our role as educators and always prioritise a restorative justice approach to managing the contravention of School Rules.

How can we support our young people to learn socially and emotionally? I like to anchor my conversations with students in the Redlands values. Responsibility and moral courage are two powerful values which resonate with boys and girls.

Young people can exercise personal responsibility by:

• Being the best version of themselves
• Showing respect to each other and having respect for themselves
• Building relationships with their peers and their teachers
• Engaging in learning and finding ways to enjoy learning even when it is challenging
• Asking for help/guidance if they need it – not waiting for a teacher to ask if they need help, but stepping up and speaking up for yourself

Young people can demonstrate moral courage by:

• Stepping up and speaking up if they witness unacceptable behaviour
• Understanding that at Redlands, we have confidential processes and safe spaces to enable students to step up and speak up
• Asking students to discern how they can become a young person of character and strength, who is respected by others, and who in turn, respects themselves

Talking to Young People about Harmful Products

This week Ms Jansons spoke with some students about the dangers of vaping (smoking e-cigarettes). She outlined the following:

• Brain risks: Nicotine affects brain development in children and teenagers. This can make it harder to learn and concentrate. Some of the brain changes are permanent and can affect mood and impulse control later in life.
• Toxins (poisons): The vapour made from e-cigarettes is not made of water. The vapour contains harmful chemicals and very fine particles that are inhaled into the lungs and exhaled into the environment.
• Some young people have died, and many hospitalised with severe lung problems from vaping. Whilst vaping has been around for about 10 years, originally to be used as a way for smokers to quit smoking cigarettes, there has been a marked increase of vaping in teenagers over the last few years, and most concerning is, we don’t yet know how it affects the body over time.

When speaking with students, Ms Jansons posed specific questions about the impact of vaping on health such as:

• Did you know that one small USB like vape holds the equivalent of a packet of cigarettes?
• The seemingly healthy and appealing flavours of vapes such as strawberry and watermelon hide the chemicals which exist in vapes. They are designed this way to dupe young people, to trick them into thinking that vapes are safe. They are not.
• How do you think the need for nicotine might affect your ability to focus in school? What if you get agitated during the school day and find that you can’t listen during class? How might vapes affect your ability on the basketball court? Do you think it might interfere with your ability to get enough sleep?

By asking specific questions, we enable young people the capacity to consider the immediate and long-term risks to a person’s health. This is more effective than simply saying ‘vaping is bad for you’.

More information can be found at the ADF (Alcohol and Drug Foundation) website.

International Women’s Day

IWD is next Monday 8 March and as a school, we will be celebrating this day in a Student-Led Assembly on Tuesday. Our students and staff have been busy preparing this week, through their involvement in the creation of a short film designed to capture Redlands voices. Ably led by Anna-Luisa Feller and Julia Parker, a swathe of students from Yrs 7-12 have entered our recording space to offer their thoughts, hopes and insights. Yr 11 student, Iris Buisman, has confidently and competently worked with our wonderful IT/AV team to support the filming of our IWD voices. We look forward to sharing the Redlands IWD film with our parent community next week.

Thank You

On a personal note, I would like to sincerely thank the parents who attended the first SSPCG meeting this year. It was wonderful to welcome parents back onto the Senior Campus and share in the experiences of the School community at the start of 2021. It has been such a positive beginning to the year and I am very grateful for the well-wishes, constructive feedback and guidance I have received from the parent community.

Ms Gemma Van de Peer
Head of Secondary School
gvandepeer@redlands.nsw.edu.au
9968 9870