Redlands House, Cremorne, Redlands House Balgowlah North and OOSH Care. Vital initiatives from 1990

Early Childhood Initiatives.

SCECGS Redlands from 1980.

Underlying philosophy.

SCECGS Redlands in its earlier manifestations – Redlands, then S.C.E.G.G.S Redlands from 1945 – after 1979 became co-educational in philosophy, policy and practice. There were notable instances of boys having been welcomed to the Kindergarten for which Redlands in the ‘Roseby Era’ was famous. The welcome accorded boys from 1979 was based on a pragmatic decision caused by financial considerations of the time, but one taken even more ethically in the larger context of a view towards a ‘family’ natured school. It was a happy decision and leading example, as events turned out.

The Australian Education Advancement Pty Ltd website here sets out the history of those years, the thinking upon which SCECGS Redlands was reconstructed, and the striking effort made by people who led the reconstruction. Much is available to explain what happened, and why, with outcomes.

From 1973 when it started to be apparent that there were catastrophic problems with the finances and therefore governance of the SCEGGS Council schools of the time the daily requirement was undaunted courage summoned up by busy parents whose daughters attended Redlands. In the end – March 1980 – some practicalities were completed despite a noted hostile tone in negotiations and some attitudes. There was still a feeling that the Church representatives would prefer a real estate sale. However the school passed into ownership of SCEGGS Redlands Ltd., and then SCECGS Redlands Ltd. This finally occurred because the Church representatives chose as a cost resort SCEGGS Redlands Ltd., offer, there being no other offer and no other available solution to meet their immediate need in their ‘insolvency situation’.

Intrinsic to the school was that same Kindergarten for which the Roseby family had been famous from 1911 onwards; it still flourished. In the period from 1980 onwards The Preparatory School (K to 2) was maintained and named quite early in that decade as a memorial to the late Margaret Roberts, who with her husband John had been instrumental in fighting the ‘battle’ of the 1970s.

As reconstruction became more secure, the ‘modern’ movement towards ‘Early Childhood Education’ (ages 4 and 5 years) was noticed by the Board of SCECGS Redlands. Some in the wider community argued that to put children into the world of ‘institutions’ by establishing Childcare Centres, for example, was to stunt them for life. Institutions can indeed stunt growth, train for compliance, encourage ‘herd thinking’, lead away from individual identity and its rightful strength. Others argued that early starts to learning and nurture in skills base would assist each child, to his or her advantage. International examples of decades suggested that if carefully constructed on the basis of ‘play and learn’, in a cossetting daily environment linked to and complementary to family life, a two year pre-Kindergarten experience would be valuable for each child. Early Childhood could well be an enriching additive for early learning and early life. Research of the time was helpful in deciding finally to establish Early Childhood at SCECGS Redlands.

The opportunity arose particularly when Cremorne Girls’ High School was purchased in 1989/90 to receive students from February 1990. A former Chapel of the Congregational Faith was part of the real estate purchase. A charming building on the southern end of the Cremorne Campus site it offered spacious conditions and even an under-stage unused immersion font from the early years of the twentieth century. Renovation work done, the font remaining unused and hidden, Early Childhood services were offered to the SCECGS Redlands’ community then, and future. It was a demonstrably helpful, education centred facility. It was named Redlands House.

Redlands House.

To lead Redlands House, Antionette Jamieson, then Head of Music at SCECGS Redlands was appointed and as preliminary to starting she undertook school-funded post-graduate training in Montessori method. In the years of her leadership of Redlands House the quality of that decision taken to introduce the method, and the learning results demonstrated – including the popularity of the more formal model adopted with Redlands House daily life preparatory to the school years – were all validated by performance. This was a successful addition to the longitudinal integration of the ‘Redlands Model’ of school-based education and training. Children in Redlands House went on, usually, to the Margaret Roberts Preparatory School. Part of the aim was to provide each boy and girl with ‘seamless’ transition to the later schooling years.

So much in demand was Redlands House Cremorne that the Chairman and Board agreed to consider establishing other facilities, based on the Cremorne example. In mind was the establishment of a series of Houses through the Sydney North Shore. Underlying the decision to commence was the sense of responsibility at Board level of reaching out to the wider community, bringing the Redlands House experience to children who would otherwise not have access, but also practically to foreshadow future enrolment growth for SCECGS Redlands itself. Central to this was the ‘can do’ spirit that characterised the Board’s approach to well-founded initiatives. Not only did this manifest in the Board’s support of Redlands House North Balgowlah but also in other areas of school life such as Rowing, Sailing, Rugby Tens, Ballet and Dance, Concert Band - so many of these and other initiatives that explained the larger world to children, and with their families’ support welcomed them pleasantly into it.

Redlands House North Balgowlah.

North Balgowlah Bowling Club had closed some few years before 1993, the building and grounds then standing empty. SCECGS Redlands leased them from Manly Council, asked Michael Jones, then SCECGS Redlands Ltd., Director and in his day-job an Architect, to guide the renovation works. Under the overall leadership of Antionette Jamieson, Redlands House Balgowlah North opened, was immediately over-subscribed, and linked itself to the education method and daily exuberance of the Cremorne Redlands House.

To visit either of these Early Childhood schools was to witness the nurturing work of staff and assistance staff, to witness the readiness for each day apparent at the school gate in the morning, and the bubbliness of reporting to Mum or Dad at the gate in the afternoon.

Driving onwards.

Within the boundaries of the Mosman, North Sydney and Manly communities Chairman John Lang solicited establishing a proposed new Early Childhood/ Pre-school (Redlands House Number 3) off site from the older Campuses. This arose from the Board’s desire to increase interest in and a response to a further SCECGS Redlands unit, aiming also at gathering potential students for the Grammar School itself. Regrettably the site operator at that time failed to consent to a pre-school being on his property in the vicinity of Mosman Cricket Oval. With a large six-foot high advertising board associating the pre-school with SCECGS Redlands, it would have been a magical recruiting sign. John recalls (2020) that “we failed to place such a sign also at the North Balgowlah site”.

After the resignation of Chairman John Lang in 2000, at some stage after 2004 the then SCECGS Redlands Board and Management decided to close Redlands House Balgowlah North, one observation being as reported: ‘None of the children come on to the Prep School.” The facts are not known here.

To recollect the founding of Redlands House Cremorne in the early 1990s, followed by Redlands House Balgowlah a year or two later is to re-state the virtues of their founding. Based on acceptable research evidence from abroad, on recognition of the Montessori method of teaching/learning, on the demand for places caused in part by a shift in parent employment patterns in Sydney, but above all on the observable quality of learning experience by the children across each Early Childhood schooling day, the decision to add Early Childhood to the available longitudinal learning model available for parents’ consideration was a ‘master stroke’. It added to the service offered by independent SCECGS Redlands, it brought advantage to the children, it responded to the contemporary increase in school years, and it was proven in commentary of later years from the tiny ‘Alumni’ when they looked back from those Senior School years.

Adjunct to Redlands House Cremorne was established a well received, well patronised “Out of School Hours (OOSH)” service for students mainly from Preparatory and Junior Schools to be supervised and tutored at the end of each school day.

Outreach: effective action to meet revealed need.

Redlands House on Cremorne Campus is renowned for another outstanding, long-term development. In 1980, following the re-admission of male students into the “Redlands Family School” re-design, AHIGSA NSW advised that after decades of prior participation SCEGGS Redlands/SCECGS Redlands students would henceforth be barred from using existing private sporting facilities and from taking part in existing fixtures involving single sex girls’ schools. As a direct result the Chairman John Lang, who was then a member of the Australian Schools’ Commission invited a number of his colleagues on the Commission, along with representatives of other protestant and other schools with co-educational enrolments, to discussions with him in The Roseby Library on the original Military Road Campus. At that meeting he outlined Redlands’ unexpected problem and advised them of the patent need for another combination of co-educational schools for sporting interaction. His concept was an arrangement whereby co-educational schools of any denomination or foundation would provide the opportunity for regular organised inter-school activities in sport, debating, drama and a range of appropriate educational activities. The organisation that emerged as the Heads of Independent Co-educational Schools (HICES), operational still in 2020.

However subsequently in 1990, with the gathering strength of co-education as a developed model of independent schooling in New South Wales, establishment of a more ‘single focus’ inter-school sporting annual fixtures calendar to complement the HICES annual calendar was mooted. After prior discussions at Pittwater House School, a subsequent meeting convened at Redlands House Cremorne in early 1990. John Lang invited HICES schools and other Christian schools present to establish that calendar. The result was the foundation of the Independent (Schools) Sporting Association (ISA)( www.isa.nsw.edu.au) which developed through the 1990s, celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2015 and continues in 2020.

In the annals of the new association many schools of different faiths have been able to join on the single basis of a keen interest in sporting activities as a core component of quality education. Best described as a confederation of co-educational and single-sex schools, based on offering enhanced gender-appropriative opportunity for competitive sporting activity, ISA participation blended with continuing HICES Membership polished the co-curricular components of the many schools involved. The result in the 1990s and onwards has been striking. That ‘mini-meeting’ held in the Redlands House building furnished SCECGS Redlands, as may have been the case with other schools, with every opportunity of providing equivalent educational experiences for students as those offered in other well-known sporting Athletic Associations in Australia.

HICES and ISA together provided, for SCECGS Redlands from 1980 certainly and maybe for other schools a resolution of serious problems associated with deliberate exclusion of girls studying in a co-educational setting, from inter-school competition. They also ensured that their confreres in a co-educational setting had opportunity to meet on an inter-school basis with other boys.

Effective governance.

The theme: equality of opportunity in education. Secondary theme: management flexibility and its pre-condition: nimble response to risk and threat.

In this difficult world demanding independent, dynamic, intelligent responses from all schools and institutions there are many reasons for this AEA Pty Ltd., website. One is to ensure that a record of proven education innovation, 1973 to 2003 is permanently available for reference. Another is to ensure that when the really tough times come, the winter days every school – every institution – inevitably suffers over centuries, models of response are available. As here.

To the degree that it relates solely to SCECGS Redlands the single function of this website is to describe, emphasise and underline the superlative governance of the school by the then SCECGS Redlands Ltd., Board, which not only allowed but over so many years energetically endorsed the essential school life of a liberal education non-selective Grammar School, whilst energetically encouraging Management towards confident leadership, exploration, innovation, lateral thinking, emphasising service helpful to the life of each individual child.

The Chair and Board, handing on from Director to Director the example of leadership no matter the hardship of those 1970s made it possible to establish the special, advanced and unusual longitudinal education plan which became known by rule of thumb as The Redlands Model.

Their example of determined, active, nimble, intelligent governance leadership should be emulated wherever education of depth and farthest reach is sought.

P.J Cornish

September 2020.