Natanya Milner – Head of Primary

Math-athon

This week we have been involved in an amazing JCA Math-athon. The children have all taken part in a range of creative and thoughtful Mathematics activities that link with real-world problems and fun activities. It has been wonderful to see the children so immersed in their learning. There is a full report in Ma Nishma but I would like to take this opportunity to thank Helen Maynard, Katie Narunsky and Stacey Rosenfeld who organised the event and activities as well as all the Primary School teachers who supported the Math-athon. A HUGE thanks also goes to the JCA who generously support our fundraising initiative by matching the funds raised dollar for dollar. On this note, we really appreciate your support by encouraging the children to gather sponsorship. This is a wonderful way to support the School.

 NSW Chess Final

The Primary Emanuel A Chess team competed in the NSW Chess finals today at Ironbark Ridge Public School. The students played incredibly well and won the event. Mazal tov to Jesse Gothelf, Jesse Herdan, Daniel Melamed and Zac Sidley who all played superbly. A big thank you to Colleen Elkins and Michael Todd for their ongoing commitment and support of the chess teams this year. We look forward to communicating more information next week.

After School Care

This week you will have received some exciting news about the introduction of after school care at Emanuel for 2017. We hope this service is beneficial to our Emanuel families. Children will be able to have permanent or casual bookings and will be able to join directly from school or after and EActive/after school activity. On Monday 28 and Tuesday 29 November from 5.30-6.00pm (before Seussical), you will be able to pop into X02 to meet Emma and Maria, next year’s after school care providers. This time has been set aside if you would like to meet them and ask questions.

Seussical and Art Show

We are all excitedly planning for our upcoming Seussical and Art Show events. Please join us for Seussical by booking your tickets through the following link if you haven’t already done so: http://tinyurl.com/ESSeussical. We can’t wait to share this celebration with you.

We have a few other options on offer once you are on campus. On Sunday, prior to Seussical, we will be opening the art exhibition space in the Kleinlehrer Family LINC Building (please see details below).

We invite all members of the Emanuel School community to the 2016 art exhibition, Spotlight. Held in the Angles Leadership and Learning Centre, the exhibition will showcase a selection of paintings, sculptures, drawings, ceramics, prints and fibre artworks created in Visual Arts classes this year. Accompanying the exhibition will be video footage of our young artists discussing their artmaking processes and an online exhibition of artworks completed by all children in Years 1- 6. We are honoured to have Rach Kirsten, Lecturer, School of Education, University of New South Wales as our special guest. The exhibition opens on Sunday 27 November at 2.30pm until 3.15pm, prior to the Primary School Concert which commences at 4.00pm.

As mentioned above, you are also able to meet the after school care providers prior to Seussical on the Monday and Tuesday evenings.

Touch Football Gala Day

This week some Years 4 and 5 students entered a touch football gala event. It sounds like it was a wonderful and active day. Thank you to all the students who represented Emanuel so well at this event and a special thank to Adam Ezekiel for organising this new opportunity for our children.

Gymnastics Success

Congratulations to our Gymnastics Squad for their sensational results at the recent IPSHA Gymnastics Competition.  There were a number of wonderful individual results. In the boys competition, our Level 2 and 3 teams placed first overall. Our Level 1 girls team placed second.  Well done to all the students involved! Thank you to Sharon Fairfax for all her efforts to train and support our gymnastics team. Please see her article for more details.

Motivation

I have recently been reading about motivation and its importance in the learning landscape. It goes without saying that we would all like our classrooms filled with intrinsically motivated students so I thought I would share some ideas from the Association of Independent Schools that connect with parenting about what we can do to foster this type of learner.

• Associate effort with results (and encourage mastery not performance): Students who believe that their effort is the key determinant of success are more likely to put in the effort. Academic resilience is built by positive learning habits that connect ‘failure’ with opportunities to learn. Performance is more closely associated with ‘appearance’ and students who feel pressured to appear smart or successful are less likely to take learning risks that are likely to lead to maximum growth. Mastery focuses on the growth of skills and understanding in response to effort.
• Make learning ‘just challenging enough’: For ‘challenge’ to be motivating, it is important that it is just outside one’s current level (zone of proximal development). Being able to see growth is a significant motivator and therefore noticing improvement in challenging but achievable tasks is key. Setting high but realistic goals and tasks is central to this.
• Value learning and feedback: The more ‘real world’ contexts and audiences that we can provide, the more motivating learning can be. As parents, children receive strong messages from us about what is worth effort and how to manage difficulties in the learning process. The feedback that we give our children should focus on the task, process and self-regulation. Feedback can prompt, correct or instruct but wherever possible, it should be timely, specific and promote improvement and growth.
• Keep external rewards to a minimum: An overuse of external rewards can have a negative impact on internal motivation and can lead to behaviours such as attention seeking, cheating and searching for shortcuts. If external rewards are being used, they should be kept to a minimum, withdrawn where possible and should focus on effort/mastery rather than ‘intelligence’.

Upcoming Dates

• 14-16 November: Healthy Harold visits Years K-3
• 15 November: Year 2 Instrument Trials/Blow Tests
• 18 November: Year 2 Pathways 8:20-9:30 am Millie Phillips Theatre and Angles Leadership and Learning Centre (LLC)
• 18 November: Year 5 Leadership 2017 forms due
• 22 November: Volunteers Assembly, 8:30-10:10 am MPH
• 24-25 November: Primary Musical Dress Rehearsals
• 25 November: Parent Connect Club, 2:55-3:35 pm LLC
• 27 November: Years 1-6 Art Exhibition, 2:30 pm LLC
• 27 November: Primary Musical, 4:00 pm MPH
• 28 November: Year 5 Madrichim 2017 Speeches for Years 3-6
• 28 and 29 November: Primary Musical, 6:00 pm MPH
• 30 November: Optional late start for students, arrive by 11:10 am
• 2 December: Orientation Day for new students commencing in 2017

Term 4 K-2 Assembly, 2:00 pm, Millie Phillips Theatre

• 25 November, Week 7: No K-2 assembly
• 9 December, Week 9: K-2 Puppet Club