Anne Hastings – Principal

Farewell to Kate Geoghegan

Kate Geoghegan has been teaching HSIE at Emanuel for the past six years and leaves us at the end of this term to move with her family back to Ireland. Kate came to us as an early career teacher and quickly impressed us all for the way in which she so competently managed the many duties of a teacher and earned the great respect of her colleagues and students. We are sad to see her leave us, but happy that we’ve had the benefit of her expertise and enthusiasm over these years. We wish Kate all the very best for her life back in Ireland with her family and for her ongoing career as a teacher there.  

Curriculum Conference

On Wednesday evening of this week we held our first Parent Curriculum Conference. Those who attended found the evening very stimulating and informative, and gave very positive feedback about the various sessions they attended. This was a great opportunity for parents to become more up-to-date with the global and local changes in education and our plans to ensure that our students are well prepared for their lives beyond school. It was another example of our aim to ensure that parents are well informed participants in their children’s education. We’d love to see more parents at our next parent conference.

I’d like to especially mention the work of Adam Majsay and Helen Maynard, our Directors of Studies, who put the program together and each gave engaging presentations. In addition, Eytan Messiah and Sophie Poisel gave an inspiring presentation that shed light on our approaches to building innovative thinking in our students. Tany Milner also supported the evening and spoke of the plans in the Primary School to further build innovative thinking in the immediate future. Many thanks to all of these staff members for their great dedication to our School and for giving their time so generously to this event.

Final lessons today for Year 12 students

Today sees the final formal lessons for our class of 2017. On Monday and Tuesday of next week there will be final celebrations, House farewells, Year Group activities, the Final High School Assembly and the Graduation Dinner. Once the excitement of these days settles down (the students are encouraged to take two days of rest over Rosh Hashanah), the students will have three weeks to do their final study and preparations for their HSC Examinations, which fall over 3.5 weeks starting from 16 October. Students will have access to their teachers during this time and are encouraged to continue to use their teachers’ advice and support during this time. We also encourage students to work in study groups, assisting and challenging each other as they practise past papers and build their confidence in responding to the range of questions that can be asked.

This time of the year also sees us saying farewell to a number of families, 32 in fact this year. Many of these families have had a long association with the School, having had a number of their children with us over the years. Many have also been significantly involved in supporting the School through their actions on the Board, the P & F, or in many other ways, and have been regular and appreciative attenders at the many school events. I’d like to specifically mention the Doctor, Wrublewski, Davids, Altman, Feher, Regan Lacey and Janks families who have been with us for 15 or more years, along with all of the other families who have been strong advocates and supporters of Emanuel School. We will miss you, and thank you all sincerely for your generosity in giving your time and great support to our School over the years. 

Year 12 reports

The links to Year 12 students’ final academic reports were sent out this week. These provide a significant resource for each student as they are working towards their final HSC examinations. I recommend that the report comments are read carefully and the teachers’ advice noted and implemented in the coming weeks to ensure students are prepared as well as possible for these important examinations. 

Grandparents Day

This was a huge success, with the MPH being full to capacity with loving grandparents and friends today. The children loved having their grandparents with them in their classrooms and all the grandparents and friends enjoyed the presentations, songs and classroom visits immensely. Huge thanks go to Hagit Bar-On, Adam Carpenter, Stacey Rosenfeld and Sonia Newell for their superb organisation of the morning. Thanks also to all of the Primary teachers for organising and running engaging lessons in the classrooms and for hosting such large groups of visitors so effectively.

Our LINC building

Our architects have entered the LINC Building, Emanuel School, project for an award for the bi-annual Randwick Architecture and Urban Design Awards under the Best Public Design Category.

You might remember two years ago, the Science Building at Emanuel School received the People’s Choice Award.  Again, the LINC Building is up for People’s Choice Award. You can vote for the LINC Building using this link.

www.yoursayrandwick.com.au/urbandesign2017/survey_tools/peoples-choice-awards

Mazal Tov to

• Our Zero Robotics Team who gained first place in the Australian competition! Students involved are Ethan Moliver, Adena Sheps, Dylan Herdan and Dan Bethlehem. The competition was managed locally by Sydney University and involved 42 teams. The competition is run by MIT America and NASA and involved programming robots to compete against other teams. The challenge was to recover items from a broken satellite whilst taking pictures of the opposing team.
• Coby New (Year 6) for his Fred Hollows Humanity Award
• Adena Sheps (Year 10) for her winning entry to the Science 50:50 Careers Blog Competition, following on from the STEM Careers Week held in collaboration with Women in Engineering at UNSW. Her entry will be published on Friday, 10 November 2017 on the site:  https://science5050blog.wordpress.com/ 
• The HSC Music 2 students, Robert Feher, Shoshana Blackman, Jesse van Proctor and Darren Sacks, for their engaging and very competent performances at the Showcase on Tuesday evening
• Year 7 students for their Shorashim projects and last year’s winners of the UIA prize, Ruby Hurwitz and Alexis Joffe (Year 8)
• The Year 6 and Year 7 students who competed in the Inter-School Chess competition this week
• The Year 11 Drama students for their wonderful performances on Monday evening
• The Mathematics Department for their successful Numeracy week last week

Best of luck to

• Aaron Ellis-Bloor (Year 11) for his LMusA Examinations on the saxophone in the coming week. The Licentiate in Music, Australia (LMusA) is a diploma awarded by examination to outstanding candidates in the fields of musical performance and music theory by the Australian Music Examinations Board (AMEB).
• Sonia Redman (Year 11) for the Grand final of the Mikolot Public Speaking competition on Monday.

Coming up

• Year 12 Graduation Assembly, Tuesday 19 September, 8:15 am
• Year 12 Graduation Dinner, Tuesday 19 September, 6 pm
• Last day of Term 3, Wednesday 20 September (school finishes at 1:10 pm, Erev Rosh Shanah)
• First day of Term 4, Tuesday 10 October
• Year 12 2018 Preparation Day, Tuesday 10 October
• School closes for the last days of Sukkot, Wednesday 11 October, 2:50 pm
• School closed for Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, Thursday 12 October and Friday 13 October
• Primary Jilkminggan trip departs Sunday 15 October
• HSC Examinations begin, Monday 16 October

Quote of the week 

‘Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.’ [George Bernard Shaw]

Best wishes for an enjoyable and relaxing holiday with your children.

I wish you Shanah Tovah and well over the fast.