Year 7

Year 7 Exams

We would like to take a moment to commend our Yr 7 students for their dedication and resilience during the recent Yearly Examinations. We are incredibly proud of the positive, mature and collaborative approach shown by many of our students throughout this formal assessment period. Exams can be a challenging experience, yet when students equip themselves with the tools to rise to the occasion, the results are truly inspiring. Great things can happen, and we are excited to see our students’ continued growth and success into Year 8.

Y7 STEAM – Bee-yond the Hive Lessons

Bees play a crucial role in our ecosystem as vital pollinators for both wild plants and many of the crops we rely on for food. By transferring pollen between flowers, bees help to ensure the growth of fruits, vegetables, and nuts, supporting biodiversity and healthy ecosystems. Their work is so essential that it’s estimated one-third of the food we eat depends on pollination by bees and other insects. However, bees face numerous threats, including habitat loss, pesticides and climate change. Supporting bee populations by planting bee-friendly flowers and reducing pesticide use can make a big difference. 

1. Busy Workers: A single bee can visit up to 5,000 flowers in one day.
2. Communication Experts: Bees perform a “waggle dance” to communicate the location of flowers to other bees.
3. Honey-Makers: To produce just one pound of honey, a hive of bees must visit two million flowers!
4. Essential to Diversity: Bees pollinate around 80% of the flowering plants on Earth, supporting a wide range of species.
5. Incredible Flyers: A bee’s wings beat about 200 times per second, which helps them zip quickly from flower to flower.

We have been so fortunate to be expertly led by the team at Rooftop Bees who specialise in corporate beekeeping services in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. They install and maintain beehives on corporate buildings, industrial estates and campuses to help drive sustainability and corporate social responsibility goals.

Over the next 2 days we will be exploring the following:

Exploring AI 

Students will develop a ‘classifier’ algorithm to help computers make agricultural decisions, such as creating a beehive sentry.  

Arduino Beehive Sentry 

Students will gain hands-on experience building an Arduino-based system to automate the detection and capture of beehive pests. 

Rooftop Bees Tour 

A guided tour of the beehives on the Learning Hub rooftop will teach students about the importance of bees, their challenges and their role in ecosystems and sustainability. 

Science Experiment 

Students will investigate honey composition using a refractometer to measure sugar content. They will compare different honeys for sweetness, viscosity and colour, while discussing nectar sources and their impact on honey characteristics. 

Honey/Coffee Scrub 

Students will create a Honey/Coffee ground scrub using locally sourced ingredients and explore ingredient sourcing and the principles of a circular economy. 

Research 

Research packs and questions will be provided to deepen students’ understanding of bees’ life cycles, pollination, threats, conservation, and habitats. 

Important Dates 

NSW School Vaccination Program 2024

Each year NSW Health works in partnership with schools to offer the vaccines recommended by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) for adolescents as part of the school vaccination program.

The following vaccines are offered free to Year 7 students at school on:

• Thursday 7 November – Year 7 – diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (dTpa)
• Thursday 28 November – Year 7 – human papillomavirus (HPV)

Students who miss the first clinic date will be offered a catch up opportunity on Thursday 28 November.

Vaccination will only be provided at school if consent has been received.  To provide consent for vaccination online go here, you will need:

• your ServiceNSW log-in details, or to create an account with ServiceNSW if you don’t already have one
• Medicare details for parents/carers and your child

Please note parents/carers will need to provide separate consent for each of the two different vaccinations.

Benefits of online consent for parents/carers:

• SMS notifications when vaccinations are given
• easy updating of your child’s details online
• faster upload of your child’s vaccination records to the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR)

If you or your child do not have a Medicare card, consent can still be provided by requesting a paper-based consent form directly from the Year Advisor.

To help answer questions you may have regarding providing vaccination and online consent, please visit the NSW Health website.

Ms Abby Walker
Yr 7 Advisor
9968 9818
awalker@redlands.nsw.edu.au