Andrew Watt – Principal

A Special Chavayah Program

For the first time in the School’s history, we will be taking two year groups to Israel for our custom-designed cultural immersion program. Our Year 10 students will participate in a 6-week program, commencing on Tuesday 22 November 2022 and will join us, albeit briefly, for our High School Speech Day event. Our 4-week Year 11 program will commence on Monday 5 December 2022. Understandably, this has been a huge logistical challenge and we are grateful to Kobi Bloom and Stacey Rosenfeld, for their work in organising our complex and magnificent timetable of events. Our students are fortunate to have an experienced and caring team of teachers, to share their adventures with, including Kim Slender, Margaret Lowe, Eytan Messiah, Jessica Shanahan, Erika Ktalav, Eli Hajun, Emily Lawrence, Maya Buhrich, Caroline Laumberg, Daphna Levin-Kahn and Kobi Bloom.

For many students, the Chavayah Program is a once in a lifetime and unique opportunity, to experience an overseas trip, along with a large number of their peers for an entire six (or four!) weeks in the one country, travelling from top to bottom. Chavayah has been designed as an intense educational (rather than a tourist) experience, where students receive expert teaching about Israel’s history, customs, geography and politics, provided by Israeli educators. What makes the program so special, however, is the fellowship and the sense of community that builds, as the students eat, sleep and learn together, as one unified group. Chavayah offers an amazing opportunity to go beyond seeing the markets and eating falafel. There will be opportunities to dive deeply into the story of the Jewish people and emerge at the end of Chavayah with a better idea of how each student fits in – and what Israel and its shared history means to them. There will no doubt be times that they will annoy each other, especially as they become a little tired and grumpy through lack of sleep – but they will bring home with them great memories of their time together

I am aware that there are a small group of students, who for various reasons are unable to attend Chavayah. We will be asking that those students who participated on Chavayah share their journey with them and include them, upon their return. For they are one year group, and that is what Emanuel menshes do.

Our Year 10 and 11 students are all too aware that they will be ambassadors for Emanuel. When Alexander Muss International staff meet them and when they come in contact with guest presenters and visit different sites, they will be representing Emanuel School. If they are polite and kind to other, and if they clean up after meals and volunteer for chores, this will not only reflect well on their character, but also on the reputation of our School. And in Israel, Emanuel School is regarded highly, for the quality of students who participate in the program. Every year we receive very positive feedback on the attitude and behaviour of our students and the way our staff care for the students.

Celebrating our success in debating

There is no doubt that debating is a strength within our school. Our students are not averse to respectfully challenging assumptions and developing and presenting sound, well-supported arguments for their case. The introduction of our neatly trimmed beard policy for senior students is one such case!

In recent years, our debating teams have performed very well, in both the HICES competition and the JA Thompson History Debating competition. We have become a force to be reckoned with, across the Independent School sector and our reputation has grown. For the second year running, our High School debating teams have progressed to the semi-finals of the JA Thompson competition, with our Year 12 team losing narrowly and our Year 10 team defeating SCEGGS Darlinghurst, to progress to the grand finals.

We wish Gabriella Freed, Ella Sherman, Tamarah Aaron, Alice Milner and Yael Rembach every success in the final match of the season! Our thanks to Max Friend, History Debating Coordinator, for his support of our History Debaters.

Mazal Tov

• To Gil Banna, Noah Revelman (Year 7), Gideon Owen and Daniel Zipser (Year 8) who competed in the recent Australian Problem Solving Mathematical Senior Olympiads, receiving amazing results and finishing in the top 10%.
• To Tamar Granot (Year 6) and Daniel Zipser and Dylan Vitek (Year 8) who are finalists in the 2022 Head On Photographic Festival. 

Quote of the Week

“For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate.” Margaret Hefferman