Natanya Milner – Head of Primary School

Goals for 2021

Thank you to all the parents who joined this week’s Meet the Teacher events via Zoom. We all value the opportunity to share our vision for the year ahead and the classroom teachers appreciate being able to explain their aims and procedures with you. We were disappointed that we couldn’t have our usual K-6 session in the Lehrer Family Building, where we look at the key goals for 2021 in the Primary School. We hope that the document that we sent was useful in outlining the main areas for development this year and we look forward to sharing updates with you in upcoming Ma Nishma articles and parent events. As a reminder, the following key K-6 initiatives will be focused upon this year:

• A focus on the teaching and learning of Writing to improve student outcomes 
• New student reports being written to offer parents more detailed information
• A review of the current student management system with updates to support student awareness and accountability for choices and behaviour
• The trial of a social skills program with possible roll-out to further grades if deemed successful
• Strengthening of Make a Difference projects using the Habits from The Leader in Me program in action
• Informal Jewish Life leaders introduced in the Primary School to bring further ruach and passion to various aspects of the program
• New library team to review and improve current library facilities and offerings
• New competitive sporting opportunities and training programs on offer
• K-6 musical, Aladdin Jnr, to be performed at the end of the year

Recordings from each meeting are available on the Parent Portal under the Parent Information Evenings tab.

Student safety

Student safety remains our highest priority at all times. For this reason, we request that car boots are not used during the morning or afternoon Go With The Flow. We have had an awful situation in the past where a car was hit from behind and rolled forward towards the car in front of it. As you can imagine, it could have been an absolute tragedy. Please, please, please keep all school bags, musical instruments etc in the body of the car with the children so that they can get out curbside in GWTF and access their items easily.

Leadership training

Last week’s Year 6 Leadership Training was a unique opportunity to work with our student leaders as we prepare for an exciting year ahead. We spent Thursday involved in an Amazing Race around Homebush, learning about the importance of teamwork, communication and collaborative problem solving. We were back at school on Thursday night and Friday and continued with sessions about leading with values, Jewish leadership and the importance of allowing yourself to both lead and be led. The students participated in portfolio planning where each Year 6 leadership team began planning activities to lead Years K-6 in the coming months. I look forward to seeing many of these wonderful ideas come to reality. A huge thank you goes to Eamon Lukins for co-ordinating this event. Special thanks also goes to the team who ran the two days – Kim Haddix, Lara Kepitis, Adam Carpenter, Meghan Carroll, Mia Shapiro and Josh New.

Swimming carnival

This week’s Year 3-6 Swimming carnival was a great success with children participating enthusiastically in the various events. Whilst we were sad that the venue limits precluded us from welcoming parents to the event, we know you would all be so proud of the spirit, participation and skill shown on the day! I thank Stuart Taylor and Sharon Fairfax for organising the carnival, all the teachers and House captains for contributing so positively to the success of the day and Ofer Levy for taking such wonderful photos. Below are a few  gorgeous pics with more to come next week.