From the Primary School
Natanya Milner – Head of Primary
Northern Territory
On Monday night, we returned from a wonderful Year 6 trip to the Northern Territory. We were thrilled to be able to explore with 18 of our Year 6 families. We visited Wangi and Edith Falls as well as learning about Aboriginal art, music and culture. We were fortunate to spend 3 fantastic days at Jilkminggan School where the Emanuel and Jilkminggan children learnt and played together. We experienced beautiful Shabbat and Havdallah services under the stars. Our final sites included jumping crocodiles on the Adelaide River and sunset at Mindil Markets. I am always relieved when we land safely and happily back in Sydney. Thank you to Terry Aizen and Adam Ezekiel for their wonderful efforts to assist with the smooth running of the trip. Thanks also to the families who attended for embracing all the experiences with open minds and hearts. Finally, I thank Holly Dillon for her outstanding efforts to organise so many of the logistics for the trip. Holly – we are so grateful for all that you do!
Mazal tov, Jesse
Jesse Gothelf represented NSW in the Bruce Cup tennis competition in Victoria last week. We are so excited for Jesse that NSW won the competition. Jesse won 18 out of his 19 matches (winning all five singles games, seven out of seven mixed doubles games and six out of seven doubles matches). This is an outstanding achievement! I have asked Jesse to write us a report for a future Ma Nishma but until then, enjoy these photos!
Mazal tov, Coby
On Monday, Coby New attended the Fred Hollows Humanitarian Awards and received a Highly Commended Award for his work with collecting footy boots for Aboriginal communities through the Boots for All program. There were 116 children who received recognition in NSW with Coby being one of only 8 children who received highly commended. We are so proud of Coby and his energy, compassion and thoughtfulness. What a mensch!
Welcome back, Emma!
We are delighted to welcome Emma Buzo back to our teaching team, from the beginning of 2018. Emma has worked at Emanuel previously as both a drama teacher and a classroom teacher. We are thrilled that she has agreed to join us again from the beginning of next year as a Primary School classroom teacher.
BBQ Day
Thank you to the Charity Committee, Mrs Rom, Mrs Clennar and Holly for their work to organise this week’s fundraising BBQ for WIZO. Thanks also to the P&F for assisting us by cooking the sausages and preparing our delicious lunch.
Parent Conferences
We have enjoyed both Curriculum and Wellbeing Conferences for parents over recent weeks. Last week’s Parent Wellbeing Conference was a wonderful success and I know Emma Clemens wrote about the sessions in last week’s Ma Nishma. I take this opportunity to thank Emma for her work in co-ordinating this event.
Parent Curriculum Conference – Giftedness and Prevention of Underachievement
Ruth Phillips presented at last term’s Parent Curriculum Conference. She spoke about gifted children and ways to prevent underachievement. I thought it may be helpful to share some brief notes from her presentation.
There are a variety of factors that can impact on the success of a person. These include: perfectionism, expectations, reliance on parents/others, resilience, optimism, grit and persistence, self-regulation and self-knowledge.
Ruth stated that gifted children:
– Crave complexity and abstraction
– Love engaging in critical and creative thinking
– Make spontaneous connections
Reasons for Underachievement:
– They want to blend in socially
– Lack of challenge or engagement
– Low self-efficacy and self-concept (how children feel about completing tasks)
Underachievers can have:
– Low self-regulation – struggle to organise, prioritise and manage self
– Low motivation – struggle to engage
– Low goal valuation at school – can’t connect school to their lives
– Low self-efficacy – don’t believe they can be successful with the task
– Negative attitudes to school and teachers – blame context or others
Perfectionism
Dysfunctional perfectionists are afraid to make mistakes. They are anxious about schoolwork, overly precise, approval seeking and excessively self-critical. Perfectionists can avoid work, become frozen and become workaholics.
Things to consider (Silverman 1986):
– Are you modelling this at home?
– Talk about mistakes and the ones you make
– See failures as opportunities to learn
– Show students eminent people who made mistakes
– Set realistic goals
Protective Factors (Reis, Colbert and Herbert 2005)
– Supportive adults and families
– Friends who achieve well
– Opportunity to take part in advanced curriculum
– Participation in extra-curricular activities and support of passions
– Strong self-belief
– Strategies to cope with their environment
Parents should consider:
– Consistency – give the same message on school and importance of effort and expectations
– Being good role models – for appropriate behaviour
– Being careful about their conversations – don’t have conversations in front of children that criticise or undermine others
– Reactions – don’t overreact about failures
– Responsibility – increasing power in increments as maturity grows
Ruth suggests the following questions to ask at the end of a day at school:
– What did you try hard at today?
– What did you do well at today?
– What are you most proud of today?
– What did you learn?
– What mistake did you make that taught you something?
Praise:
– Ensure it is specific, relevant and focuses on effort (rather than ability).
Suggested Readings:
Books
‘Reforming Gifted Education’ by Karen Rogers
‘Why Bright Kids Don’t Get Good Grades’ by Sylvia Rimm
‘Grit’ by Angela Duckworth
Websites
The Davidson Institute
Hoagies Gifted Education Page
YK-2 Presentation Day and Y3-6 Presentation
Refer to the invitation and details in this week’s edition of Ma Nishma.
Calendar Links
Term 3-4 K-2 Assembly Items
- 3 November (Week 4): 1T Mrs Silver’s class
- 17 November (Week 6): KE Ms Grieve’s class
- 1 December (Week 8): Year 1 Hebrew