From the Principal
Andrew Watt – Principal
Purim celebrations
How to describe my first experience of Purim? A riot of colours, creativity and energy, where the entire school community was engaged in a diverse range of activities. Some of the outfits were interesting! The taste of my first hamentashen? Delicious! One of the highlights of this day was the reading of the Megillah, with noisy audience participation. Our students also collected food for a worthy cause and enjoyed every aspect of the celebrations.
Changes to the HSC minimum standard
The Minister for Education recently announced that Year 9 NAPLAN tests would no longer be connected to the minimum literacy and numeracy standards required to receive the Higher School Certificate. This change has been made to ensure NAPLAN remains focussed on its diagnostic purpose and to reduce unnecessary stress on young people.
Students presenting for their HSC in 2020 and beyond (beginning with our current Year 10 students) are still required to demonstrate that they have attained a minimum literacy and numeracy standard. These standards will be demonstrated by passing online tests of basic reading, writing and numeracy skills needed for everyday tasks, which are available for students to sit when they are ready, in Years 10, 11 and 12, or after the HSC, if required. Schools have 2 opportunities each year to run these online tests. We will offer the online tests in Term 2 and 3 for our current Year 10 students. Year 10 students who achieved Band 8s or above in one or more of the 2017 Year 9 NAPLAN reading, writing or numeracy tests, are recognised as having met the HSC minimum standard in that area/s and will not need to sit the corresponding online test/s.
A great day out!
Years 3 to 6 enjoyed a day of sunshine and swimming at Des Renford Aquatic Centre. The Year 6 House Captains did a wonderful job encouraging participation and House spirit. There were some outstanding swims and lots of healthy competition. The wonderful attitude of our students was highlighted at the carnival, when a young boy was struggling to complete his 2 races. He was spurred on by loud and enthusiastic encouragement, and the stadium was filled with a spontaneuous outburst of delight when he reached the end of the pool. This speaks volumes not only of the tenacity of the boy, but of the generosity of our students.
Celebrating Diversity Day
Bruce Notely-Smith, State Member for Coogee, was invited to speak at our assembly, on the theme Diversity is the one thing we all have in common. Mr Notely-Smith spoke from the heart, describing his struggles with depression as an adolescent, linked to confusion related to his sexuality. He described a life journey characterised by perseverance through setbacks. Emanuel is a diverse community; we enjoy different streams of Jewish faith; we have different heights, body shapes and appearance; we have different likes and dislikes and we have different hobbies and interests. We seek to be an egalitarian school, where all people are viewed as equal and deserving of equal rights and opportunities. Our values, however, fly in the face of a growing wave of intolerance for gender, racial, socio-economic and cultural differences. Emanuel values appreciating, valuing respecting and accepting differences in others. Socrates said: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle” – we cannot look inside a person, we do not know what troubles they are facing, so our first response should be to extend kindness.
Not to be missed
Our parents have a wonderful opportunity to hear world-renowned psychologist, Dr Michael Carr Gregg, author of 11 books, broadcaster and a specialist in parenting, children, adolescents and the use of technology for mental health. Dr Carr Gregg is in high demand on the national and international speaking circuit because of his engaging, relevant and cutting edge knowledge about adolescence and parenting. If you have already RSVP’d to the School for his upcoming workshop – you are in for a treat! If not, I strongly recommend that you join us for what promises to be an entertaining and enlightening evening. The workshop we have chosen for our parent community is: The Five Greatest Challenges for Parents: What every parent needs to know about millennial parenting, covering alcohol, online safety, sleep and other key issues. Dr Carr Gregg will also be presenting workshops to our students.
Future proofing our students
What will the workplace of the future look like? What skills and learning dispositions will be highly valued? A recent study conducted by Google found that the 7 top characteristics of success at Google were:
- Being a good coach
- Communicating and listening well
- Possessing insights into others
- Having empathy toward and being supportive of one’s colleagues
- Critical thinking and problem solving
- Being able to make connections across complex ideas.
It was interesting to note that these are all soft skills! At Emanuel, our focus on going beyond the mere mastery of facts, towards developing learning dispositions and a common language of learning, when grounded in a strong wellbeing program and culture of thinking, will produce graduates who are not only workplace ready, but world ready.
Cyber safety – Family Zone
Teaching your child to be cybersafe will help them to engage with the online world safely, responsibly and discerningly and can assist to protect them from online risks. Managing one’s use of social media and devices are key skills for young people today.
Sometimes children are faced with online situations that they simply don’t know how to handle. Whilst we do our best at school to educate our students and protect them from inappropriate online content with filters, we find that these controls are not always available to parents on their home devices.
Family Zone is a cyber safety solution which provides parental controls in-home and on mobile devices, giving parents the tools to monitor and protect their children from online risks and the power to intervene effectively when incidents occur.
In consultation with our Student Representative Council we are giving students and parents the opportunity to be part of a pilot program to help identify the effectiveness of Family Zone at home and at school.
The Family Zone pilot is set to run for 4-6 weeks commencing 12 March. During the pilot, parents will be invited to participate in online and face-to-face workshops. The success of the pilot will be measured through feedback, parents and students will be asked to complete a short survey before and after the pilot.
If you would like to participate in this pilot program please complete the form below.
Family Zone pilot program registration form
Coming up next week
- Monday 5 March
- Year 7 Meet the Teachers 5.00 pm in classrooms
- New Parents Welcome Evening at 7.00 pm
- Wednesday 7 March
- Kornmehl Pre-school Open Day
- Year 5 Bathurst trip – returning on Friday 9 March
- Year 6 Canberra trip – returning on Friday 9 March
- Year 8 students Kenya presentation with Will Slater at 7.00pm in Millie Phillips Theatre
- Thursday 8 March
- International Women’s Day author talk with Olga Horak, Holocaust survivor and author of From Auschwitz to Australia, at 1.10 pm in the High School Library
Quote of the week
“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”
Margaret Mead