Head of Primary for the Day by Nicole Binetter

On Friday 9 September I was Head of Primary for the day. On Monday I made my first decision to have the whole of Year 6 wear plain clothes on Friday. The first part of the day was to have a Primary School Executive Meeting. Although I am only in Year 6 I caught on with what they were talking about. I got to make some decisions for 2017. After that I gave out a birthday card to one of my good friends, Isabella Knoll. When I came back I got to pack some things like pencils, rubbers, pens, glue sticks and much more for the trip to Northern Territory, which is very exciting. We then did a little visit to the new Kindergarten rooms to check if the floors and painting were going well. In the afternoon I presented awards at assembly and got to make a speech.  I went to a meeting in the Adler building to decide on the joinery for the Years 5 and 6 classrooms 2017. I really enjoyed this experience because I got to see what it was like to live in another person’s shoes. Here’s what I said at assembly:

“Today I am going to talk about the Leader in Me concept, Synergise. When you synergise, you work with others to make new, great ideas. When you are working in a group and you don’t like the other person’s idea you don’t say we are not doing it because I don’t like it, you have to Seek First to Understand and maybe you could say, “We can do this or maybe even this”. It is important to balance courage or be brave and speak your mind with consideration, which is being caring and kind. Remember that when you are working in a group it is always good to listen but make sure that you are not letting the other people do all of the work. It is great when you contribute and share your ideas.”

Natanya Milner – Head of Primary

P&F

Thank you to the P&F for their amazing support and efforts over the past term. They have co-ordinated the Fathers Day Stall, the Fathers Day Breakfast, our wonderful Trivia Night as well as a Primary School BBQ day. Thank you to all those involved. We really appreciate it!

Parent Teacher Night

Thank you for coming along to this week’s Parent Teacher Nights. These are wonderful opportunities to share insights about the children and ensure that we are able to celebrate achievements and consider goals and next steps. I hope you found the meetings to be informative and insightful. I would like to thank all the teachers for their efforts on the evenings and their preparation for these events.

Project Heritage

I was privileged to share in today’s Year 6 Project Heritage presentation. The children and teachers did an outstanding job to prepare for today. Project Heritage is an incredibly special program that involves a number of visits between groups of Year 6 students and their ‘living historian’. Over these sessions, very special bonds are formed as the students learn about their historian, recent history and important values that have guided each person’s life. I would like to thank each of our historians for their participation and enthusiasm: Ruth Barnett, Lena Goldstein, Robert Grynberg, Eddie Jaku, Kitty Lowinger, Gabriella Nash, George Nash, Katerine Passman and Vera Ranki. I would also like to thank our wonderful Year 6 teachers: Megan Best, Adam Carpenter, Diane Clennar, Anna Economou and Karon Rom and of course, all of our fantastic Year 6 students.

Great Mates Day

A highlight in the Year 3 calendar is our annual Great Mates Day. Over Term 3, the students have been learning about teamwork and co-operation. The focus of the program includes Habits 4-6 in The Leader in Me program (Think Win-Win, Seek First to Understand and then to be Understood and Synergise). Year 3 enjoyed a wonderful Great Mates Day this week – filled with team games and challenges.  Thank you to Emma Hill and Julia Tritsch as well as their team of support people including Hugo Adrian, Emma Clemens, Belinda Gold, Katie Narunsky and Claudia Sceats.

CIS Athletics

Mazal tov to all of our athletes who participated in this week’s CIS Athletics Carnival. We were thrilled to have so many participants take part in this event. Thank you to Stuart Taylor for co-ordinating our team and attending on the day.

Grandparents Day

We look forward to welcoming grandparents and special friends to our upcoming Rosh Hashanah Grandparents and Special Friends Day on the last day of term, Friday 23 September. Please feel free to invite grandparents and friends to join us from 9.30am to share a Shabbat and Rosh Hashanah ceremony, followed by activities with the children in the classrooms and then morning tea. To RSVP, please contact Sonia Newell on snewell@emanuelschool.nsw.edu.au

Jilkminggan

It’s that time again – as we look forward to our next group of Year 6 students and parents heading off on our Northern Territory adventure. On Sunday, our largest group of travellers will depart and spend time visiting Jilkminggan School and beautiful sites as well as meeting wonderful people. Wishing everyone safe travels – I cannot wait to share the experience with you all!

7 Habits for Jewish Parenting by Rabbi Michoel Gourarie

We were lucky to welcome Rabbi Gourarie from Bina to Emanuel School to present on the 7 Habits for Jewish Parenting. He discussed the links between Jewish learning and the 7 Habits/Leader in Me program. Rabbi Gourarie raised some of the challenges of parenting in today’s society. He focused upon the Habits of Being Proactive (Habit 1) and Seeking First to Understand, then to be Understood (Habit 5).

Rabbi Gourarie outlined that as parents, we are all leaders and therefore need to role model and take responsibility to teach our children our values. Any position of leadership requires an understanding of the difference between power and leadership. He explained that power is about control (this is about ‘me’ and controlling for my own benefit) and leadership is about influence (this is about ‘others’ and doing the best for those we are leading).

When focusing upon Habit 1, Rabbi Gourarie discussed a Talmudic concept that “everything is in the hands of heaven except the fear of heaven”. This illustrates that there are many elements in the world that are out of our control but yet we can always control our own reactions and actions. This aligns entirely with the concept of being proactive and trying to focus our efforts within our circle of control, rather than focusing our energy on elements of situations that are outside our circle of control and influence. The challenge within this space is that our emotions work faster than our brains and therefore, without pausing and choosing our responses, it is instinctive to react emotionally. It is our challenge as parents to manage our responses and pause in order to think and control our actions and words. Our thoughts should consider, as leaders (as parents), which reaction is in the best interests of the people we are leading (our children). This will help us to be respectful and considerate in our responses.

Rabbi Gourarie also spent time discussing Habit 5 (Seek First to Understand and Then to be Understood). This is the Habit of communication. Jewish mystics give the example of a horse and a rider. A horse can get you to a destination faster than travelling by foot but yet, if it is going in the wrong direction, the horse can also get lost faster. Similarly, words have an amazing power. With focus and direction, words are powerful and positive. Without effective communication, our words can ruin relationships. Relationships allow us to broaden ourselves and learn from others. The Talmud says that no two people in the world look alike, nor do any two people think alike. The greatness of relationships and true communication is about leaving one’s paradigm and learning from another. In order to do this, one must truly Seek First to Understand through real listening. We usually listen with the purpose of considering our own response. To ‘really listen’ requires us to be immersed in what the other person is saying. This does not necessarily mean we need to be quiet always but we should step inside the shoes of the other person to truly understand other perspectives and paradigms. This can be done through listening empathically and rephrasing what the person is saying to ensure we have understood before creating our responses that will resonate with their world.

Thank you to Hagit Bar-On for organising this informative and inspirational presentation.

Upcoming Dates

• 18-26 September: Year 6 Northern Territory trip
• 19 September: Year 2 Science incursion
• 20 September: Year 4 Guest Speaker, James Roy
• 21 September: Year 6 Make A Difference (MAD) excursion, Montifiore Home, Hunters Hill
• 22 September: Years K-2 Gala Day, Centennial Park
• 23 September: Rosh Hashanah and Grandparents and Friends Day, 9:30-11:45am MPH
• 13 October: Term 4 commences, Years K-6 Lice Check
• 19 October: Year 2 Pathways Parent Evening, 7:00-8:30pm in the Angles Leadership and Learning Centre
• 20 October: Year 1 Anna Fienberg incursion

Term 4 K-2 Assembly

• 14 October Week 1: No K-2 assembly
• 28 October Week 3: Music assembly
• 11 November Week 5: K Eilat (Mrs Buzo’s Class)
• 25 November Week 7: No K-2 assembly
• 9 December Week 9: K-2 Puppet Club

Natanya Milner, Head of Primary