Principal’s Blog 014 Enrolment, Musica Viva and our first Kindy for a Day

Hello, and welcome to the fourteenth of my monthly Principal's blogs. This month I provide an update on the school playground, highlights of our school excursion, Kindy for a Day and more.

Update

Our playground installation is being scheduled for the school holidays, as are the final construction works which were delayed due to ongoing investigation and repair of a minor roof leak. I am pleased to say these items have both now been resolved and we look forward to completing the scheduled works during the holiday period. 

The Board of Directors and I recently held a productive Strategy Planning Day, where we reviewed parent feedback of how the school is progressing and established goals and priorities for the school moving forward based on these responses and the collective experience of our team. We look forward to further developing our Strategic Planning documents in the months ahead and sharing them publicly once complete.

Enrolment

Enrolments for Richard Gill School are always open, and in 2022 will open to Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2. Our prospectus, enrolment form, parent info and fee information can be found here.

Kindy for a Day

Today we have hosted our first-ever “Kindy for a Day” program for prospective Kindergarten students. It was very exciting to have another group of students in the school, as we start to envisage how the school will look as we grow in size in 2022. The group of children who participated had a wonderful time. The current students loved having new friends to meet and play with too!  

School Events

It has been a busy month at RGS where our students have participated in a Musica Viva concert “Wyniss” hosted at Muswellbrook PS, hosted the Power FM School Breakfast with live broadcast held here at the school in addition to a visit from our local Police Liaison Officer, Constable Gray.

Donations

With the end of financial year approaching, we have received a number of enquiries about donations to the school. A reminder that we are a registered charity and can provide a tax-deductable gift receipt for any financial contributions made to the school which we can allocate towards scholarships, building works or teaching resources.

An enormous thank you to Greg Butcher and his wife Kathy for their donation of a 2-octave contrabass Marimba from Optimum Percussion. This will be a wonderful addition to our Orff ensemble. It has been wonderful to chat with Greg about his own musical experiences and connection with Richard. 

Media

I recently read an excellent article about the importance of play in the early development of children. Many of the points made by the author, who is talking in response to a 2020 meta-analysis of 78 different research papers spanning four decades of research published in Developmental Review, resonated with me, such as “Physical play creates fun, exciting situations in which children have to apply self-regulation.” 

Read more here

To share with you a snippet of our vision document composed by Richard in 2018, it states “We need to allow the children to be children for as long as possible without compromising their learning and without the imposition of endless testing.” It would seem Richard was ahead of the curve in this area, as he was in so many other areas. 

Yours in Music,

Chris English – Principal, Richard Gill School

Principal's Blog 011. School’s commencement, our special event and new donations

Hello, and welcome to the eleventh of my monthly Principal's blogs. I will be sharing a new blog post on the first Friday of each month and in this post, I will provide an update of the school’s official commencement, our special event and new donations.

Update

Firstly, a clarification: my previous blog posting (Feb 5, #010) did not make it clear that the former teacher at the RGS resigned for personal reasons before the school opened. Naturally, we thank that teacher for her constructive contribution and wish her well in her future endeavour.

Staff

This month has seen Miss Tracy Main, a local SLSO and administration support officer join our team on Wednesdays and Fridays. Welcome, Tracy!

We also send our best wishes to our General Assistant, Adam Stair, who has needed to move on for personal reasons, and whom we are seeking a replacement for 1 day of work per week. Interested applicants should email the school at admin@rgs.nsw.edu.au with their CV and contact details of 2 referees.

Enrolment

Enrolments for Richard Gill School are always open, and in 2022 will open to Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2. Our prospectus, enrolment form, parent info and fee information can be found here.

Teaching

We have now completed the first 5 weeks of school and the children have been busy learning about many new things. Every day begins with whole school singing and Music lessons with Mr English, followed by learning across all key learning areas (KLA’s) with Miss Presland. The children have been doing daily physical activity, growing seedlings in cups, learning to write their names and count to 100, amongst other things. Our children are especially enjoying their science lessons and finding opportunities to sing and move throughout the day.

Today, all Richard Gill students, parent volunteers and staff participated in ‘Clean Up Australia Day’, spending over 2 hours cleaning rubbish from the vacant block behind the school and along the street frontage on Maitland Street, which helps the children develop a sense of pride for their school and for the environment. The students enjoyed being out in nature and doing their part in keeping our community and planet clean.

Special Event

To officially celebrate the opening of Richard Gill School, we welcome all to attend our Community Open Day on Saturday, March 13 between 10am – 1pm. There will be a range of complementary attractions including a jumping castle, merry-go-round, face painting and live music, plus of course the opportunity for prospective families to visit the school and inspect our newly constructed classrooms.

More information on the event can be found here.

I look forward to sharing information about our special celebration in my next blog.

Donations

Thank you to Heather-Rose for her generous donation of a near new upright Beale piano. We now have 3 uprights and 1 baby grand at Richard Gill School, all of which have been donated, for which we are terribly grateful!

Thank you also to Stan Ray for donating his time, resources, and timber to create a lovely set of natural seating and balancing equipment for the children in the playground.

Thank you to Gideon Douglas for donating a defibrillator wall cabinet to the school, and to Brett Carr, Louise Rogers and Mel Elks at Swansea PS for partnering with Richard Gill School and providing additional support to our classroom teacher Miss Chelsea Presland.

A particular thank you to our parent body who have also been very active this month supporting the promotion of our Open Day event, driving our temporary school bus and assisting with an environmental grant.

Media

There have been several articles shared about the school this month, as word of the school continues to spread across Australia. More information about these articles can be found on our social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, which I would encourage you to follow.

Yours in Music,

Chris English – Principal, Richard Gill School