Welcome back to the 2024 school year at Redlynch State College - to returning families, new families and especially to our new Prep students! It is such an exciting time of year for these students and I look forward to meeting and spending time with them throughout the year. I hope that you all had a chance to relax and enjoy the festive season. Welcome also to the new staff at the College. We have 13 new teachers on the secondary campus and we will feature them in the next newsletter.

Our thoughts are with the many staff, Redlynch families and community members that were impacted by the recent weather events. Unfortunately, these events saw a number of staff have significant damage to their property with some losing everything. A big thank you to the many generous members of our community who helped and supported the people impacted. All the staff impacted are back at work. Thank you for your commitment to our school community!

At the time of writing this, we have counted 1906 students in our Day 8 (census day) count. That is very close to the number of students we started with last year. All these students should now be in regular attendance and working to achieve their potential in their classes. I look forward to visiting classrooms and meeting with the students throughout the year.

MOBILE PHONE POLICY

The Redlynch State College Mobile Phone Policy has been emailed to parents. As has been reported in the media, “Phones are Away for the Day.”  I spoke to students in the first week of term on the full Secondary Campus parade and made my expectations very clear with them. As we already had a mobile phone policy in place, the new policy only has minor changes. I thank you for your support and sincerely hope that students adhere to the policy. 

P&C Association

The Redlynch State College Parents and Citizens Association is made up of a small number of highly committed parents and community members. The P&C, in partnership with College Executive Administration, collaborate to continue to make improvements to how we deliver education at the College.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the AGM will be held on Tuesday 26^th March (week 10) starting with a meet and greet at 6:00pm at the RSC Community Centre at the top of the Primary Campus, with the meeting to commence at 6:30pm. Can I encourage you to attend and contribute if you are able to? I would encourage all parents to become members of the P & C. To join or to renew your membership please follow the link below.  There is no requirement to attend meetings however being a member ensures you receive all communications from the P&C in regards to upcoming meetings and events.

https://forms.office.com/r/fpT0FyQsB7

Road Safety

Road safety continues to concern me and the number of students blatantly disregarding the road rules on their e-scooters is very disturbing. I have already heard of a number of near misses where students have failed to stop at a red light, riding without a helmet and not paying attention to the roads they are riding on. Can I implore you to make your expectations regarding this very clear with your children. We all want to ensure that our students arrive at school and get home safe.

Student safety is our number one priority and as a College Community we can all work together to keep our students safe at pick up and drop off by always using the marked pedestrian crossings, not queuing across the pedestrian crossings, by not parking on the grass verges surrounding the College, not stopping in the no standing or stopping zones and adhering to the 2-minute wait time in the kiss and drop zone. All students will be safe if we all work together.

BYO Devices & NAPLAN

Redlynch is a BYO device school – Year 1 to 4 device is an iPad and Year 5 to 12 is a laptop. To ensure these devices are used to their full advantage and to support student learning we please ask that the device is fully charged and is at school every day.

NAPLAN is scheduled for Weeks 8 and 9 in 2024 for students in Years 3, 5, 7 & 9. NAPLAN tests the sorts of skills that are essential for every child to progress through school and life, such as reading, writing, spelling, grammar and numeracy. It is important to remember that NAPLAN is not about passing or failing, but about assessing learning progress.

ATTENDANCE

Every day counts towards a quality education. If your child misses just one day per fortnight this equates to missing four weeks per year which equates to one year missed over their school career. It is imperative that students aim to keep their attendance above 95% to ensure they are successful at school.

Mike Hansen
Executive Principal