Andrew Watt – Principal

Responding to worry and anxiety

There are very few students who travel through their childhood without facing times of stress and anxiety, particularly with the spectre of the HSC looming ever closer. Anxiety can be debilitating and may recur in adulthood if left unmanaged. Our School supports many anxious children, through our counselling services and our House Tutor system. Our Wellbeing program has as its core a Mindfulness program, which has both preventive and therapeutic elements. Strategies around nutrition, exercise, goal setting and self-awareness can also be helpful. It is often difficult for parents to know how to respond appropriately, without carrying their burden and becoming anxious themselves! Online courses, such as Parenting Anxious Kids can be a useful support, where parents learn a range of tools to help manage and respond to anxiety, both in the moment and over the long term. Moving away from a mindset of ruminating – going over the same thoughts and worries over and over again – is crucial. Two other programs that may be of interest to parents with anxious children, are Hey Sigmund, which explains to parents the physiology of anxiety and what the experience is like, as well as providing useful tools for supporting your child www.heysigmund.com. Brave is an excellent, well researched online therapy portal, recommended by Dr Michael Carr-Gregg www.brave-online.com

Lion King Jr – a roaring success!

Almost 1 400 seats were allocated for this Primary School spectacular. Every Primary student played an important role in the success of this musical, whether they were in a lead role, part of the chorus, part of the orchestra or part of our wonderful stage crew. Held over three days, Lion King Jr was a lively, colourful and vibrant show, with plenty of action, humour and pathos. Most importantly, every performer was enjoying themselves immensely and lapping up the enthusiastic support from the audience. One grandparent was lavish in her praise after the final show, recommending that we take Lion King Jr to the Opera House! We are thankful to the many contributors to the success of the show, led by Emma Buzo and Stacey Rosenfeld.

Interfaith gathering

Our Year 7 students hosted Granville High and Auburn High Schools for a morning of games and discussion, aimed at developing a better understanding of how each other think and act according to their faith and culture. In my welcome to our visitors, I observed that we fear what we do not know or understand and we often base our judgments on limited facts, rumours and hearsay. We are very blessed to live in Australia, where we enjoy our multiculturalism, without the toxic, deep-seated hatred and clashes we see elsewhere in the world. We are, however, far from a perfect society, and it is conversations at interfaith events that will help us to better understand each other, to enjoy and appreciate each other’s company, and to gain a better appreciation of each other. I pointed out that in 10-15 years’ time, this age group will be our new leaders and their voice will be increasingly powerful. Many thanks to Elena Rosin for organising the event.

Printed programs for our Annual Prize Giving events

Printed programs will not be distributed at the event, rather a link will be provided by email if you wish to print a copy. The program for each event will however be displayed on the screen.

Mazal tov

• Allegra Goldman’s HSC Visual Arts Body of Work has been selected for ARTEXPRESS in 2019. Her photographic body of work titled The Morpholio Project: The Shape of Energy comprises nine separate images and nine accompanying labels. All the selected ARTEXPRESS HSC Bodies of Work will be exhibited at the Art Gallery of NSW from 4 February to 25 April 2019.
• The Primary A chess team, Gabriel Pozniak, Daniel Zipser and Joshua Barnett, came second in the Eastern Suburbs Primary Schools Chess Competition on Friday, out of 31 teams. They are only in Year 4 and their opponents in these competitions are Year 6s, making their result all the more remarkable.
• Tobias Topolinsky (Year 7), Jamie Schneider (Year 7) and Noah Dawson-Kelly (Year 8) attended a Junior Leadership Weekend called The Right to Refuge. It was run by UN Youth Australia. There were about 110 children, but just three from Emanuel School.
• Oscar Glikin in Year 1 made a very detailed model and blueprint of the Titanic for his class project. Oscar is pictured below with his classmates, Tabitha Masonic and India Pezaro, in my office with the model. 

Quote of the week

“You are rewarding a teacher poorly if you remain always a pupil.”

Friedrich Nietzshe