Natanya Milner – Head of Primary

Student leadership

At Emanuel, we are committed to student leadership and empowering the children to generate ideas and take steps to see them through to fruition. This is a formal process for our Student Representative Council (SRC) and our Year 6 leadership positions. Thanks to the students involved and their accompanying teachers for all that has been accomplished so far this year.

The SRC has completed a review of the equipment and games available in the playground and has submitted a proposal to update this. The collection and purchasing of new items has begun. Thank you to the SRC, Julia Tritsch and Jenny Udovich for this initiative.

Our Year 6 portfolios are varied and see students as Madrichim, House Captains, K-2 Play leaders, Gross Motor leaders, SRC Executive, Charity and IT leaders as well as student leadership in areas such as Music, Debating, Art, Chess and more. Again, there has been a huge amount of activity and the regular Ma Nishma reports highlight what is being accomplished. This week’s report is from some Madrichim and provides a wonderful insight into how they have used the Leader in Me to assist in their roles. As recently as this week, we participated in an activity organised by the Charity leaders. Monday’s BBQ and plain clothes day raised money for Magen David Adom and was a wonderful success.  Thank you to the charity leaders, Karon Rom and Diane Clennar for their efforts to organise this.

The final area I would like to explore is general student leadership. Each and every day, we have students who step up, take initiative and are leaders for good in our classrooms and playgrounds. Thank you to these students for the choices that they make to instill positive values in our School. If your child has a wonderful idea to pursue, can I encourage them to speak to their teachers or to me? We love being able to support innovative ideas that improve our School.

Mothers Day

Many thanks to the P&F, led by Ruby Berkovic and Jen Opit, for the incredible Mothers Day breakfast and stall. I am normally in the Northern Territory at this time and miss this event so it was wonderful to take part in the delicious breakfast. It was so well organised and the room looked beautiful. Thank you to the P&F volunteers for creating the lovely stall that allowed our mothers to all receive such gorgeous gifts on the weekend. I hope all the mothers and grandmothers in our community had a special weekend of celebration.

Northern Territory trip

I have spent this week jealously receiving updates and information from our Year 6 students, parents and teachers in the Northern Territory. It looks like they have had a wonderful time in Litchfield National Park, Katherine and Mataranka so far. They have also spent time in Jilkminggan School, furthering the special connection that exists between Emanuel and Jilkminggan. I look forward to their safe return on Monday night and to hearing more fabulous stories.

Mentoring and talent sharing

Please look at this week’s article by Sophie Poisel. She is our Year 5 Yavneh teacher and innovation leader. Thank you Sophie for creating such a fabulous connection with a mentor from UNSW/CSIRO and I also ask you to consider her request for possible mentorships and partnerships.

Music Concert

Thank you to the Music Department for this week’s beautiful Strings Recital and Twilight Concerts. We are grateful to them for providing such special opportunities for our children to perform for the community. Special thanks goes to Michael Brewer for organising the Strings Recital and Danny Burley for organising the Twilight Concerts. Thanks also to our wonderful team of visiting music tutors who prepared the students for the concerts. Mazal tov to all the children who did such a wonderful job entertaining the audience!

Upcoming dates

• 23 May: ICAS Digital Technologies
• 24 May: Yom Yerushalayim celebrations
• 25 May: No Y4-6 before school sport training
• 25 May: ASISSA Cross Country, 9.00 am – 2.30 pm Queens Park
• 25 May: Y5-6 Da Vinci Decathlon, 7.45 – 3.15 pm Knox Grammar
• 25 May: Mums@the Movies, 7:15 pm The Millie Phillips Theatre
• 26 May: Y1 Travel Bugs incursion
• 26 May: Y3 Bundeena excursion
• 26 May: Y4 NSW State Library excursion
• 26 May: JNSW Inter-school Chess competition
• 29 May: K-12 Shavuot Kabbalat Shabbat
• 29 May: ICAS Science competition
• 29 May: Erev Shavuot, school closes 2:50pm
• 31 May – 2 June: Shavuot, school closed
• 5-7 June: Music Camp, Naamaroo
• 8 June: Music Camp at Emanuel School
• 8 June: Y4-6 before school sport training
• 8 June: Music Camp concert, 6.00-8.00 pm Lehrer Family Multi Purpose Hall
• 9 June: JNSW Inter-school Chess competition

Term 2 K-2 assembly items

• Week 6: 2 June: No assembly – Shavuot
• Week 8: 16 June: 2T class item
• Week 10: 30 June: YK-2 Music assembly