Year 8

This Week

Congratulations to all students for a strong end to some summer sports last Saturday and best of luck to all students competing in finals this Saturday! All students should have signed up for Winter Sports by now and will be preparing for their next season beginning shortly. Please check Redlands Pulse for all specific sport information.   

School Photographs

The following photographs will be taken by Advanced Life on Wednesday 11 March on the Senior Campus. Students are required to wear blazers.

  • Sibling photos in the Redlands Hall from 7.15 – 8.20am.  Junior School siblings are welcome to have their photo taken on 11 March if they were unable to attend the Junior Campus sibling photo day last week.
  • Cocurricular Dance and Debating during recess and lunch.

Order envelopes are available from the Secondary School Office and orders for photography packages can also be placed securely online at www.advancedlife.com.au using our School Order Code: NWL 4NR ETY. Portrait and group package orders are due by photography day. Should you have any queries concerning school photographs or online ordering, please direct them to enquiries@advancedlife.com.au.

Prue Salter Study Tips

Our school’s subscription details to www.studyskillshandbook.com.au are – Username: Redlands; Password: 68results

Top Tips for Memorising Notes

Many students find it really difficult to cope with the memorisation that can be needed for tests and exams. Of course, you can’t just rote learn and regurgitate, you need to be able to apply the skills of what you have learnt. However, there is also a certain amount of memorisation of content, formulas and definitions for example that will be necessary. So how can students make this process easier?

  • Make your notes as brain-friendly as possible, point form, tables, diagrams and no big long sentences or paragraphs.
  • Start the memorisation process of your notes early, don’t wait until just before the test or examination.
  • Memorisation involves testing yourself over and over and over. So read a section, then see what you can say or write down without looking. Then go back and see what you got wrong or didn’t know. Put a pencil mark next to these bits.
  • Now focus on the bits you didn’t know. Say them out loud, repeat them to yourself, write them down a few times.
  • Then test yourself on those bits again and see if you remembered more this time.
  • Do this over and over and over again. Then do it one more time again.
  • Make flashcards or use a flashcard App on your phone to create flashcards on the parts you find hard to remember. Review these every day before the test.
  • Make a list of the key concepts you find hard to learn and each night read through them just before you go to sleep and first thing when you wake up as these are powerful memory times.
  • Do lots of practice questions without looking at your notes or the answers to see if you can a) remember and b) apply the information. Review the things you did not remember again. 
  • Your job is to keep testing yourself in order to find out which bits have not stuck in your memory yet so you can review these until they do. 

Yr 8 Pastoral Program

This term, students will focus on developing their understanding of self-management and responsible decision making through setting clear goals, creating an evolving term planner to be added to and adapted throughout the term and by studying positive and negative risk-taking. Outcomes for this term include: understanding the connections between emotions and choices, identifying safe and unsafe risks, understanding how choices/impulses can impact personal wellbeing and resilience and an introduction to some of the consequences involved in these decisions. 

This Friday begins our first of several Fridays throughout the year focused on Wellness and Mindfulness in Yr 8. After a few trial runs of these options last year, strong student and parent feedback has supported this time to be a regular occurrence in our Pastoral Program and a much needed part of our personal awareness and social development. Students have selected activities from meditation and yoga to organised court games, depending on what they feel is needed this week for their own balance. 

Ms Alissa Ynson
Yr 8 Advisor
9968 9863
aynson@redlands.nsw.edu.au