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TERM 1
Monday 1 February - Thursday 1 April / 9 weeks
TERM 2
Tuesday 20 April - Friday 18 June / 9 weeks
TERM 3
Tuesday 13 July - Friday 17 September / 10 weeks
TERM 4
Wednesday 6 October - Wednesday 8 December / 9 weeks
Opening Times During the School Term
The College Uniform Shop, operated by Midford, is the only authorised supplier of Redfield's school uniform apparel. The shop is located on ground floor level of the Primary Building at Redfield College.
The Uniform Shop will be opened 8.00am to 4.00pm each Tuesday during the school term. EFTPOS, VISA, MASTERCARD, CHEQUE or CASH are accepted.
Contact
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The College delivers parenting support through evenings each term for all parents in the school, through seminars such as the First Steps Course (a case study based parenting education program for parents of younger students) or with guest experts. In addition all parents have the advantage of individualised feedback and suggestions through the interview each term with the mentor of their son.
Parental involvement at Redfield means, first of all, involvement in the education of one's own son through the Mentoring System. The Mentoring System helps to ensure that parents do not lose their key role in overseeing the education of their son. Parents are encouraged to talk frequently with the mentor of their son, thereby keeping track of priorities in their son’s development as a student and as a complete young man.
When parents work closely with the mentor, the College is better able to address the specific needs of each individual boy. This is way parents are better able to direct their own son’s upbringing and his character formation.
The specific commitments asked of parents on coming to Redfield are:
Additionally, Redfield parents often do contribute tremendous energy and expertise to sports coaching and managing, give their time generously to occasional working bees, and help out at the various College functions and activities during the year (Mother’s Day Stalls, fund-raising activities, performing arts nights, etc.). Nevertheless, the absolute priority is in booking up and meeting with the mentor of one’s son, and in attending the Key Parent Functions.
Some parents also contribute their time to the PARED Foundation in various ways, for example on Finance or Promotion Committees.
A day orientation program is scheduled early in the first term of a family’s involvement in the College. The program includes information about the history, ethos and features of the College as well as a review of practical parenting approaches. The school requires both parents to attend. On site child-minding arrangements assist parents.
In Terms I, II and III the school hosts two parent functions, one for primary and the other for secondary parents. These are known as Key Parent Functions. The functions are normally held on a Friday night and run from 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm, concluding with supper. The evenings feature educational material intended to enhance family life and news and information sessions on policies and happenings at the College. Parent evenings contain information on academics as well. At these Key Parent Functions primary class teachers are expected to give an update of what is happening in their classrooms during the term.
Staff members are required to attend one of the two sessions each term. These Key Parent Functions are an excellent opportunity to meet parents informally over supper.
Class parents promote the family spirit of the college by fostering amongst all of the families with boys in their own son's class a truly extended family. They will support the efforts of their fellow parents in the education of their children by fostering unity and communication between parents, and between parents and college, and by coordinating support to foster the establishment of deep personal friendships between the parents of the various families in the class, seeing true friendships as the most effective means to forge this unity and offer this support. At the end of each year couples from each class group are appointed to act as class parents for the following year. Appointment is for one year, and on mutual agreement may be renewed.
The regular meetings between parents and their son's mentor are a valuable assistance to parents in the exercise of their privilege and duty as "first educators". The parents receive the mentor's full support through...
The greater the cooperation, confidence, and ultimately friendship, which exists between the parents and their son's mentor, the more effectively the parents will be able to carry out their own responsibility of directing the integral, whole-person, development of their son.
The success of the Mentoring System rests on this parent-mentor trust and on the regularity of the meetings with the mentor.
Redfield strives to keep in circulation the best collective wisdom and to create a genuine support network for parents. Schools have a line into hundreds of homes and are ideally situated to reach families. Every family has strengths and areas in which it needs to grow. There is practically no parent that does not wish to be the best father or mother he or she can be, but many lack the experience, the know-how and the skills. The interviews with one’s son’s mentor, the Key Parent Functions and the informal social life between families are all pathways for parents to access this collective wisdom.
‘Good character consists of knowing the good, desiring the good, and doing the good … habits of mind, habits of heart, and habits of action.’
— Dr Thomas Lickona, State University of New York
Build good habits if you want your child to be happy
Character equals good habits. If you are systematic and persevering in sculpting good habits of thinking and acting in your child, you will have a happy child and a happy adult.
Parenting is the art of preparing a young person for happiness in adult life. Ensuring that your child has a deep, loving respect for others is the living rock on which these habits will thrive. And with such habits your child will take control of his or her own life and connect with others in lifelong relationships.
Never forget that you are sculpting for life. This is the essence of parenting for character.
Provided food, shelter and family love are not lacking, happiness in adult life is largely determined by the good habits we have in our character – habits of optimism, generosity, honesty, loyalty, self-control and clear-headed problem-solving. It is upon our own habitual behaviours and attitudes that the relationships we form will flourish or flounder.
Happiness does not depend on feelings, or on what others do or don’t do, so do your best to raise your children so that they are not tossed around by impulsive reactions – outbursts, overeating, putting things off, dominating fears, grudges that destroy – based on passions and emotions working to their detriment. Raise them so that their good intentions are not thwarted by ingrained habits of laziness. Raise them from their youngest, most formative years with a sure sense of what will enrich them as human beings, and with the gumption to walk away from anything that will diminish them or lead to use others for their own gain.
My experience is that parents who keep their focus on these priorities, patiently and lovingly, give their children something of incalculable worth. The Talmud, a type of ancient Jewish guidebook for life, sums it all up: ‘The one great requisite is character’. Plutarch, the famous Greek historian writing in Roman times, knew how to cut to essentials: ‘Character’, he wrote, ‘is simply strongly established habit’.
A child needs:
Get the behaviours and the underlying motivations right
It’s not difficult to make children happy – just take them to McDonalds, or put them on PlayStation. That will make them happy – now. But that is not the end point of parenting. It is much more important to equip the young people in our care to find happiness as adults.
There are two simple ingredients in this process of equipping children for adult life. They are universal principles. The great writings of the East, classical literature, the great books of the religions, all emphasise these perennial co-constituents of good parenting:
These values, in turn, are the foundation for well-grooved habits of responsible behaviour.
On these co-principles parents have successfully raised children since Adam and Eve got it right with Abel. The happiness of children, and let's not forget it - of parents themselves has hinged through every culture and age on having strong habits driven by loving motivation. Habits need good values. Habits alone are insufficient. Stalin and Genghis Khan had well-developed habits of action, but little conscience … the results were horrific.
Nor are good intentions enough. Think of the times you have hit the snooze button, fibbed to get out of a fix, left the sink untidy, eaten too much. Our values gnawingly remind us what was best for us; when we fail in behaviour, we lose our peace of soul, and our happiness. Don’t confuse values with good habits. They are not the same. Character education will not be achieved through sugary bedtime stories or by videos of rainforests. In your own family, a parental focus on building good habits will equip your son or daughter not only with wisdom and peace in their hearts but the capacity to act as they really wish to. Your aim as a parent is to consolidate in your child these life-skills – virtues, to use a word that now labours under excess baggage – in the deepest sense.
Extract from Andrew Mullins Parenting for Character (Finch Publishing, 2005)
FEA is a non-profit organization that started in 1986. It aims to help parent couples become effective educators of their children by (1) examining the values at the heart of family life and character development and (2) reflecting on how best to live these values in their unique family circumstances. FEA delivers parent education courses in reference to the ages of children. The First Steps course covers 8 topics and involves case study, small group discussion and an informative talk. Courses are organised and delivered in all capital cities of Australia and New Zealand.
Coordinators
