Mr Kleinlehrer’s 95^th birthday

On Monday some of the Madrichim visited Mr Kleinlehrer for his 95^th birthday. We were honoured to be asked to go to his office in Newtown for this special celebration. Mr Kleinlehrer had some family members there and other close friends and colleagues. He was very happy to see us and we were happy to see him. We sang Happy Birthday in English and Hebrew. Mr Kleinlehrer has a lot of energy and always seems optimistic. He loved chatting to us and is very wise. He doesn’t seem like he is 95 year old. Mr Kleinlehrer is a very special member of the Emanuel community. Many of our buildings in the school are named after him.

7 Habits for Year 6 leadership

Every student in Year 6 has the privilege of a leadership role. There are many leadership roles such as Chess, Charity, House Captains, Gross Motor, IT, K-2 Play, Music, Debating, SRC and Madrichim. In these leadership roles, we plan ideas to make the School a better place and be positive leaders of the School. In these leadership positions we use the 7 Habits.

1. Be Proactive: In your leadership role, you need to really think about the language you model to the younger children. So you need to use positive and proactive language rather than reactive language. We need to remember to be proactive all the time because there are always younger children looking up to us. 

2. Begin With The End In Mind: If you have a leadership project, you can’t leave it to the last minute. You have to know when it is due and what the end result is. Then you can plan backwards from your end in mind. 

3. Put First Things First: We have to organise our time wisely. For example, when we have homework and leadership responsibilities, we have to make the right decision and put our big rocks in first. Then we can enjoy time to relax, like watching TV. But these are the little rocks that fit in around and fill up the gaps in between the big rocks. 

4. Think Win Win: When working in your leadership teams, you can’t always use your own ideas. You need to accept everyone else’s ideas and then work together to join the ideas. Then you can have a win win. If you negotiate together you may come up with an even better idea. 

5. Seek First To Understand, Then Be Understood: When working in your leadership teams, it’s easy to get excited and talk over others. But you need to really listen to the other leaders and understand what they are saying. When leading the younger children, you need to listen to them so that they can have their own opinions and feel heard. 

6. Synergise: In our leadership roles, we need to work together so that we can create really good ideas using all our skills. Someone might be really skilled at using IT but someone else might be really good at speaking in front of others. It’s always better when you work together. 

7. Sharpen The Saw: When we use all these habits correctly in our leadership portfolios we are able to go to Gratitude Day. This is a day to celebrate and thank us for our hard work and commitment as leaders of the school.

 Zoe Nebenzahl, Alexis Demos, Tess Endrey, Eden Levit and Jesse Carpenter