About Redfield

Redfield College is an independent boys’ school teaching the Catholic faith, situated on 10 hectares in Dural, in the north-west of Sydney. The College was founded in 1986 by a group of parents and teachers, the PARED (Parents for Education) Foundation, on the principles that parents are the primary educators and that schools exist to give parents every support. This support is found in the quality of the academic curriculum, in the way that staff work with students and parents in the unique mentoring system, in the emphasis on character development and virtues in the curriculum, and in the concern that staff and peer example be fully positive and supportive of parents. Home and school are united. There is ongoing input to parents through a variety of programs all designed to assist parents to be more effective. Students at Redfield work hard, with responsibility in studies seen as a key to character development.

The College places importance on the development of virtues seen as good habits, the building blocks of character. By developing strengths of character such as sound judgement, self control, courage and responsibility towards others, students are better able to use their freedom to make the right choices in life. Human and civic virtues are fostered.

The wider goals of education at Redfield strives to provide for each student a broad, liberal arts based education. The study of the Mathematics and the Sciences are complemented by an extensive reading scheme, instruction in a modern language other than English from Year 2 to 8, the compulsory study of History through to Year 10, an extensive study of the Catholic faith throughout schooling at Redfield, and a survey course in Philosophy in Year 11.

Our aim is to challenge each student to reach his full academic potential through effective classroom teaching and the development of internalised motivation and the virtues. The sound habits of responsibility, scholarship and respect for truth are held in high esteem in the College.

Each boy at Redfield is held accountable for his studies and is helped to realise that good education is something of significant value to society at large. This is, perhaps, best encapsulated in the Pope Paul VI's words from his Declaration on Christian Education in Vactican II:

A true education aims at the formation of the human person with respect to his ultimate goal, simultaneously with respect to the good of society to which he belongs and in the duties of which as an adult he will have a share.

Parents as the primary educators
Many schools today would agree that parents are the first educators in principle, but few are able to pay more than lip service because their contact with parents is minimal, superficial, or largely restricted to discussing academic progress. Yet, parents are the primary educators and schools should seek to give parents every support. In particular, schools have a duty to reinforce of the work of parents in passing on values and building character. We hold it to be the right of parents, except in genuinely exceptional circumstances, to set the agenda in the moral development of their own children. At Redfield a number of very practical approaches ensure that the College works very closely with each boy's parents, ensuring that parents are, in fact, the first educators.

Consistency between home and school
Children need consistency between parents, and between home and school. Parents need to ensure that the other inputs in the lives of their children are consistent with their own messages. If they fail to do so, there is the danger, that no matter how dedicated they are, their own efforts will be undercut by the competition. Children imitate those who take an interest in them… for better or for worse. Children imitate whoever they spend time with, even in chat rooms, on videos and on MTV. Just as responsible parents try to give the best example they can at all times to their children, teachers also have a duty to do so. The staff at Redfield strive and undergo professional development in order that they provide the best example, in their own professionalism and also in their wider attitudes and behaviour. The staff know that their personal example is important because children copy people they admire. The peer group can be the decisive influence in the life of an adolescent and parents comment also on the value of having a peer group that is a positive reinforcement. Parents are encouraged to get to know very well the parents of their own children’s friends.

Close Cooperation between home and school
Our aim is to create a school that works most closely with parents in the education of their own children, and the starting point of close cooperation is effective communication. Hence, Redfield teachers are attentive to home school communication and report on academic progress on paper at the end of each term. Parents at Redfield commit to attending four personal interviews with their son's mentor each year and to attend the three Key Parent Functions held in terms on to three.

Education tailored to the individual person
Effective education is personal – education must be of the whole person. Certainly a school must be concerned about ATARs and academics, but we know that happiness is more about character than intellectual achievements. Doors will always open to a good man who has learned to offer his best. The best education is the development of the whole person: head and a heart, mind and will. Effective education is also personal as opposed to institutional. The mentoring system guarantees that the needs of the individual are understood and addressed. Teachers meet regularly with mentors to review the progress of each student in each subject, the focus being on helping each individual reach his potential.

Virtues as the building blocks of character
In Redfield, great stress is placed on developing human virtues, or strength of character, because these virtues enable a person to be self-directing in life. Freedom is not seen as mere freedom from constraints but as a capacity to carry noble convictions into action. The family, where an overriding motivation is the welfare of the other members, is the environment par excellence for fostering virtue. Essentially, virtues are good habits. We place great emphasis on sincerity and generosity as key virtues for the intellect and the will; the College motto itself is Veritas Liberabit Vos, the truth will set you free. Symbolised on the College shield are the four cardinal virtues, that map out the key fields of human action: Prudence governing our capacities to assess situations objectively and honestly; Justice governing our interactions with others; Temperance or the capacity to manage our own impulses, appetites and passions; and Fortitude, our ability to strive against external challenges in pursuit of noble goals.

(Redfield) mentors are teachers, who apart from their classroom teaching take on an additional professional task that requires specific study and expertise. They are selected to fulfill this task according to individual preference, professional commitments, and personal suitability for working with individual students and parents. But all members of staff, whether they are mentors or not, are involved in a team approach based on the common awareness that they are educators of the whole person, above all, by their personal example of their own virtues.

Extract from “Parents for Education”
Virginia Monagle in Kappa Delta Phi Record (Fall 1993)

The personalised Mentoring System is the most distinctive feature of Redfield. The mentors support parents in exercising their privilege and duty as primary educators. An individual mentor, from amongst the teachers of the school, is appointed to each student as his mentor and given the necessary training to do the job.

The mentor meets with the boy in regular fortnightly sessions, and meets each term with the parents in interviews to review progress and establish priorities. The focus is on leading the young person to think for himself and to work on acquiring the balanced strengths that he will need in adult life. Through his rapport and friendship with the student, the mentor provides an effective service of personal example, guidance, and advice. He helps the student develop positive habits and qualities in areas of character development such as responsibility, thoughtfulness and good use of time.

Australia’s future requires leaders of strong character and skills to successfully guide and direct the nation and its institutions for the good of all Australians. With effective leadership education, our leaders for the future can be nurtured from an early age.

The Redfield Leadership and Community Service Program is setting out to achieve this. We hope that other schools pick up on the integrated and developmental structure of the program, on the insistence on character education, and on the need for ongoing experiences of service, and so that this program can be a beacon for others to follow.

The Program is a continuation and further development of the extant character education program at the school. It has grown from the conviction that the most effective leadership education must incorporate a strong emphasis on character education and on service to others.

Class councils should be held at the very minimum, twice each term. A class council is held during class time and in a period convenient to the class teacher. Only under extraordinary circumstances should it run more than forty minutes. The class council is composed of the class teacher, a class secretary, sub-secretary, four team captains and on a rare occasion one or two invited members from the class.

Aims:
To make the students feel responsible to some degree for the running of the class; a forum for students to learn to work co-operatively with others towards a common goal: the good functioning of their class. to make students think about the good of other people, their classmates, teachers and their school. to educate the students in how to participate effectively in meetings and the dynamics and procedures of such gatherings. to help students respect other people's opinions.

Objectives:
To ensure the good functioning of the class. to discuss problems in the class and attempt to find effective solutions for them.

Class Camps and Seminars

All school camps, seminars and Father/Son camps organized by Redfield are formational activities which reinforce the teaching of virtues, in particular, the spirit of service to other people. They give everybody, who participate in these camps and seminars, the opportunity to get to know other people in greater depth. In addition, Class Camps facilitate the effectiveness of the mentoring system as they provide mentoring opportunities and assist mentors in getting to know the character of each boy in depth. Finally the nature of the camp and its location are used to provide appropriate educational experiences & activities.

• Years 4-6 participate in a school camp each year. The class teachers are responsible for these camps.
• Year 7 participates in a school camp each year, designed especially for their class. The Year 7 teachers are responsible for this camp.
• Year 8 participates in a school camp each year, designed especially for their class. This camp usually involves the visiting Japanese students. The Year 8 class teachers are responsible for this camp.
• Year 9 complete a 3 day survival camp along the Great North Walk. They carry their own packs and food and develop their leadership skills and resilience.
• Year 10 complete a 6 day work camp in Griffith, New South Wales. They support local farmers and community groups and work includes fence building, landscaping, painting and sheep shearing.
• Years 9-12 participate in a class seminar each year. The respective class teachers and the Director of Formation are responsible for these seminars.

Community Service in the College

Students from Years 2-12 are involved in a wide variety of community service experiences. Theory about serving others is insufficient; young people need to develop the wherewithal to be persons of action and not end up being nice armchair idealists.

The aim is to build not only nice attitudes, not only conscience, but to also provide regular positive experiences of service, so that students experience the happiness of helping others and develop well established habits of compassion. Good intentions never put bread on a table. We are told in the Gospels, He went about doing good, and it is not a coincidence that, even before the birth of Jesus Christ, Cicero observed, Men were brought into existence for the sake of others, that they might do one another good. The proof is always in the doing… whether you are Christian or non-Christian.

Rationale
The overall aim of the community service at the school is to develop in the boys a spirit of generosity in thinking about the needs of others. The programs require the boys to give up some of their time to do something for others in the community.

The Programs
The various community service activities that are organised under the auspice of the Leadership Program, and that involve all boys in a wide variety of experiences, include:

Fundraising
Scheduled community service weekly for Year 9 at nursing homes and at the Children’s Hospital Westmead to run a quiz show for patients.

Weekly visits to local area nursing homes.

Year 10 Workcamp - a live-in one week camp where the boys in the class carry out a defined construction or maintenance task in the Service of a community needing assistance in rural New South Wales

• East Timor Workcamp 2000
• Bourke Workcamp 2001
• Trangie Workcamp 2002
• Brewarrina Workcamp 2003
• Cobar Workcamp 2004
• Wilcannia Workcamp 2005
• Monteagle Workcamp 2006

Redfield has frequently hosted visits from, and sent students to, Mikawadai College in Nagasaki, Japan, and three schools in Spain: Colegio Viaro in Barcelona, Colegio Gaztelueta in Bilbao and Colegio Los Robles in Oviedo. In recent years boys from Monte VI in Montevideo Uruguay and Colegio Penalba in Valladolid have also visited each year as well as a class of students from Tak Sun College in Hong Kong. Boys are billeted with families.

Since 1989 Japanese students have been hosted at Redfield in class groups. Their stays, usually in late July to early August, are limited to a fortnight during which time Redfield organizes a welcome concert, some special classes and activities, and a camp with Year 8.

Lately, students from Colegio Gaztelueta in Bilbao and Penalba in Valladolid have visited Redfield over the mid year break and into the first weeks of August. While in school, they have special language classes but for the most part, they attend normal classes. To all intents and purposes they are normal Redfield students while here and should be treated as such.

In recent years small groups of Redfield students from Year 9 travel to Europe, Asia and South America for period of 6 or 7 weeks. The aim of the trips to Spanish speaking countries is to increase the boys’ facility with the Spanish language, enable them to experience a culture that has similarities to our own but very big differences also. It is also a chance to experience another Christian culture. The boys are typically billeted with families having boys in schools our boys attend while on exchange. At the end of the stay in Spain the boys travel as a group to Rome and spend a week there at the heart of Catholicism and western civilization.

Participants of the Asian Study Tour typically spend a month in each of Nagasaki and Hong Kong, attending Seido-Mikawadai Middle Boys School and Tak-Sun College.

Secondary community service program that requires the boys to log up completed hours of community service. Boys are asked to use their initiative to carry out community service tasks. Students are expected to accumulate at least five hours of service in these tasks during each school term, and to register these contributions in this logbook. The goal of the program is to facilitate practical support for those in need around us and to foster in each student positive habits and experiences of service to others. The community service teacher is responsible for reviewing the tasks selected by year 10 and 11 boys.

Through the various service activities the school hopes that the boys will learn to develop an awareness of the needs of those around them and of the community, whereby they then feel confident in addressing those needs in later life.

• On the background of red, the heraldic lion of the New South Wales' coat of arms denotes courage and strength of principle.
• The three stars upon the diagonal bar represent parents, teachers and children.
• The columns symbolise the four cardinal virtues, prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude, the basis of all virtues.
• The College motto 'Veritas liberabit vos' (John 8:32), 'The truth will set you free', reminds us to search always for the truth and to see sincerity as a necessary foundation stone for building character.

The inspiration behind Redfield
Josemaria Escriva was born in Barbastro in Spain in 1902. As a teenager he had the conviction that God was asking something special of him and so he decided to study for the priesthood. He was ordained in 1926. During a retreat he was attending, on 2 October 1928, he received a vivid and wholly supernatural understanding from God in his soul that he should found Opus Dei. The name means “Work of God”. Opus Dei’s mission is to promote among men and women of all walks of life a profound awareness of the universal call to holiness, that all Christians have been called by God to make the Gospel known and to seek holiness in and through their daily work, family life and social relations. Opus Dei’s members come from all backgrounds and occupations. About 98% are lay men and women, most of whom are married. In 1982 Pope John Paul II established Opus Dei as a prelature of the Catholic Church. Josemaria Escriva was beatified by the Pope in 1992 and canonised in a ceremony in front of some 250,000 persons in St Peter’s Square in 2002.

Saint Josemaria on Family and Education
In line with Catholic teaching and indeed common sense Saint Josemaria Escriva taught that parents have a duty to oversee the education of their children. He taught that schools are primarily a support for parents who are the primary educators and that parents should work in active cooperation with the schools their children attended. These teachings have now inspired the development of over 150 schools across dozens of countries, the first of which opened their doors in the early 1950s.

Opus Dei began in Australia in 1963 when Sydney’s Cardinal Gilroy invited Saint Josemaria to open a residential college on the campus of the University of NSW. In 1980 a group of parents and teachers, some of whom were members of Opus Dei, set up the Parents for Education Foundation with a view to starting schools that could work in close support of parents. In 1982 Tangara School for Girls started with 17 girls, and in 1986, Redfield began. Following a request of the Board of PARED, Opus Dei appointed a priest of the Prelature as a chaplain to each school; in all other aspects the schools are the responsibilities of the Board of PARED or their own administrations. The schools remain the full responsibility and initiative of the parents.

The mentoring system, largely as it operates in Redfield today, commenced in the 1950s in a school called Gaztelueta in Bilbao, Spain, at the suggestion of Saint Josemaria. He recommended that the school be structured so that each boy could talk regularly with one of the teachers, and that the teacher should be a good friend of the parents of the boy.

“...I would also encourage them (the boys) to speak with their mentor, who keeps a professional silence, and can help them in many ways: spiritually, psychologically, materially..."

More videos

• What is spoken about in a mentor meeting?

The Redfield Chaplaincy offers spiritual support for the parents, teachers and students of the school community. Mass is celebrated in the College Chapel on weekdays at 10.20am.

The sacrament of Reconciliation is available daily from 8.00-8.30am, after weekday Mass, during religion periods, and by appointment with the Chaplains.