Head of Secondary School

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Feeling Anchored During Times of Distress

It’s a hectic time of the term for most members of the community. Whether we are managing our learning via assessment demands, our relationships with others and our changing self, the ongoing shifts which typically take place in our daily lives or something else such as competing demands or conflict, it’s important to be consciously aware of ourselves and others. At Redlands we use the terms ‘self-awareness’ and ‘social awareness’ as part of our Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) framework and we’re committed to supporting our young people to develop and deepen their skills in these areas. As we approach R U OK Day on 14 September our student leaders are already considering and discussing ways to support each other to access necessary help for their mental health, when they need it. They want to support students to more consciously understand:

• Help-seeking strategies
• Who to ask for help
• Where to go for support
• How to let friends and adults know things are not okay
• Responding to other people’s stress and distress
• When young people should seek adult support for a friend in need

We like using anchors as metaphors. Anchors may be our values, our sense of self, our core belief systems or our support systems. To achieve positive physical and mental health, we need to be able to move with, but not be carried away by, the waves of life. We need to be anchored – to the things we know are certain. In this way, we can develop the capacity to tolerate distress in the knowledge that despite the vicissitudes of our daily life, there are certain things, like our values, our sense of self, or our support systems, which remain constant. 

We like these images which represent old versus new ways of thinking about how we navigate stress and distress. Contemporary discourse teaches distress tolerance over resilience – we don’t simply withstand stress and distress like a fixed lighthouse, but we process and respond to the ‘stuff’ that life throws at us.

Recently the Pastoral Team developed some helpful cards for students and staff in support of our young people. Managing conflict is a normal part of life. Whilst we do our best to prevent situations of conflict for the students, we know they will inevitably find themselves in some form of interpersonal conflict at school. Supporting the students to navigate this has been made more helpful by the creation of these prompts, which provide a simple and logical framework to support students to articulate and process the conflict, be heard and move forward in a healthy way.

Fall Forward Awards

Heidi de Saxe (Y9)
Heidi represented All Schools for AFL. Playing for All Schools is an extremely impressive achievement. This is an extremely impressive feat and just one example of the many sporting talents we have at Redlands.

Angela Monty (Y11) and Annabelle Harman (Y11)
These two amazing Yr 11s ran Redlands’ efforts at the City2Surf! Their efforts culminated in the School raising $1167 for The National Breast Cancer Foundation.

Phoebe Sun (Y7)
Phoebe has consistently shown courage and dedication, performing an amazing dance piece at Gala Arts, as well showcasing her talent at various dance competitions.

ROAR Breakfast Panel

Last Friday morning we held the inaugural ROAR Breakfast 2023, celebrating Relationships, Opportunity, Advocacy and Respect; discussion points requested by our wonderful cohort of Yr 12 women. 

This breakfast was organised in parallel to a Man Cave session held last term for the young men of Yr 12. In listening intently to the needs of our Yr 12 cohort, we have facilitated a range of sessions, gendered and coeducational, to support their growth into adulthood and their transition to Yr 13. Specifically, our girls told us that they wanted an opportunity to hear the experiences of other young women, who they could relate to, and from whose advice and stories they could learn and grow. They told us they wanted to do this in an informal, adult environment which offered them a chance for sharing and reflection.

MC Katie Wightwick (Redlands 2022) posed thoughtful questions to our two panellists Angelique Wan and Lua Pellegrini, who responded with authenticity and openness, sharing their personal experiences since leaving secondary school.

Angelique Wan is the co-founder and CEO of Consent Labs, a youth-led not-for-profit that educates young people on consent and respectful relationships in schools and universities across Australia. Angelique co-founded Consent Labs when she was 19 and to-date Consent Labs has delivered programs to more than 50,000 people nationally. Angelique has been recognised as the 2022 NSW Young Woman of the Year, a 2022 40 Under 40 Most Influential Asian-Australian, a finalist for the 2021 Women of the Future and listed by Instagram as a Top 25 female entrepreneur.

Lua Pellegrini, a proud Wiradjuri woman who grew up on Darug country, was 2023 finalist for the NSW Young Woman of the Year Award and Chairperson of the NSW Youth Advisory Council from 2021-22.  Lua is a youth advocate and artist who has used her passion for art as a platform to uplift community and is most known for designing the 2022-2023 Sydney Swans Marngrook Guernsey “Duguwaybul Yindyamangidyal” which means “altogether respectfully”. Passionate about Indigenous education, Lua is a board member of Murray Toola-Damana Preschool in Mt Druitt, sits on the Moriah College RAP committee and has supported Redfern Jarjum College for eight years. Lua is currently the Artist in Residence at the Catholic Schools Guide and St Andrew’s College whilst in her final year of Fine Arts/Arts majoring in Indigenous Studies at UNSW. Lua works at the Office of the Children’s Guardian as a Policy and Child Safe Officer.

Ms Gemma Van de Peer
Head of Secondary School
gvandepeer@redlands.nsw.edu.au
9968 9811