Anne Hastings – Principal

Two major successes this week

This week one of our chess teams of students from Years 6 and 7 travelled to Melbourne to compete in the National Chess Titles. Against 25 schools in the middle division for Years 5 – 9, they came second! The students were: Jordan Fleischer (Year 8), Daniel Melamed, Zac Sidley and Jesse Herdan (Year 7), Jesse Gothelf, Jake Fleischer and Sol Biton (Year 6). Daniel Melamed was named the top point scorer of any player in the Middles division! Many thanks to Colleen Elkins for her support of Chess and Michael Todd for coaching the team.

We also heard from the NSW Educational Standards Authority that Brianna Gadeley (Class of 2017), who had been nominated for ARTEXPRESS for her HSC Visual Arts body of work, was successful in being selected for this HSC Exhibition, which will be shown early in 2018. This is a wonderful achievement for Brianna and her teacher, Eytan Messiah!

Community Farewell

I am very grateful for the wonderful community farewell on Sunday evening. I felt very privileged to have been honoured by the attendance of so many people and the very positive vibe, beautiful setting and thousands of good wishes made it a very special evening.

I’d also like to sincerely thank everyone who so generously contributed to the amazing gifts I received. For those who have not seen it yet, here is a photo of Tio’s painting. I think it is such a beautiful painting, and it’s very special to have one made for me by Tio to represent my life journey. Tio has been involved with our Jilkminggan trip for many years and is a great supporter of our school as well as an established artist who has been very generous with his time given to the school.

I was also astounded to open my other gift, a $5000 travel voucher! Such generosity from the community really blows me away, and I thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for these thoughtful and significant gifts. I will treasure the painting and put it in pride of place in my home, always as a reminder of my time in this beautiful school and the very positive and committed community. I’ll also enjoy the travel voucher very much – travel is something that I’ll be doing a bit of in the next few years!

Here’s an excerpt from my speech that evening.

“It’s surreal to be in a situation where I’m looking at life ahead and it does not include a considerable time commitment to being Principal of Emanuel School or full-time leadership in education. I feel like I’m standing at the top of a cliff looking out over a vast ocean of opportunity. First, I have to negotiate the steep slope down to the shore and then I need to work out which direction I’ll go and what craft I’ll take to get there. Initially, I think I’ll just splash around in the shallows for a while, diving under the waves and getting that lovely cool, brain-clearing feeling you get when you first put your head under water. Maybe then I’ll swim a bit further out, or snorkel around the rocks to see what I can find. Then there’s the whole ocean to explore, and in all weathers…

Emanuel has been such a great match for me and I thank the selection team (Jonathan Sesel, Shira Sebban and David Nathan) for recognising this back in 2009.  My values very much fit in with those of the School. People are judged on their actions, rather than the way they dress or look and all students are valued and allowed to be a bit unusual. I have loved being in the Pre-school to Year 12 co-education environment and the size of the school is just right for teachers to get to know the students as individuals. Students have a voice, and the school teaches them to express it in a thoughtful, respectful manner – although for some this takes a bit longer than for others!

I have appreciated being accepted so warmly by the eastern suburbs Jewish community. As the only pluralist Jewish school in Sydney that is open to families from all streams of Judaism, it occupies a very important place in education, and will become increasingly relevant for the Jewish community as it continues to diversify. The school works to ensure openness and acceptance of diversity, and its egalitarian approach of girls and boys having equal opportunities is essential in modern day Australia and globally.

I thank the parents of our students for your belief in our education, for your confidence in our school to bring out the best in your children, and for your advocacy of Emanuel School in the community. The vast majority of my interactions with parents has been so positive and, in the small number of times they haven’t, I’ve always been left with something to think about that we might do better!”

Next week is my final Ma Nishma article… Hope to see you all at the Prize Presentations coming up the week after next!

Thank you to:

Michael Nebenzahl for his very generous donation of two new pianos which are now ensconced in two of our music practice rooms, both making excellent replacements for the tired previous occupants of the rooms! We are very grateful to Michael and his family for arranging for the donation and delivery of these pianos. The students and their teachers will very much enjoy them.

Mazal Tov to:

• The Chess team who came second in the National Chess Tournament and Daniel Melamed, who was named top player in the division
• Brianna Gadeley for being selected for ARTEXPRESS for her HSC Visual Arts body of work
• Ethan Hirschowitz and Dylan Herdan (Year 10) who were graded to their second dan black belt in tae kwondo just recently – a huge achievement for
  
  

  Year 10 students, Ethan Hirschowitz and Dylan Herdan

  young people of 16 years
• The Year 7 boys and Senior boys beach touch football teams who did so well in the recent competition
• Leo Carrol (Year 12 2018) for his award of Most Valued Player and the Oztag teams for their enthusiastic and committed efforts for the CDSSA Oztag Gala Day.

Coming up

• Year 6 Pathways, Friday 8 December, 12:30 pm
• K – 2 Presentation, Tuesday 12 December, 9 am
• Years 3 – 6 Presentation, Tuesday 12 December, 6 pm
• High School Speech Night, Wednesday 13 December, 7 pm

Quote of the week 

“Great things happen to those who don’t stop believing, trying, learning, and being grateful.” Roy T. Bennett

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Shabbat Shalom