Natanya Milner – Head of Primary School

It has been wonderful to have a full campus this week and to hear the chatting, laughing and buzzing around the place. The teachers are thrilled to be back and it is fantastic to see the children so happily engaged in the classroom and the playground. Even GWTF seems to have worked relatively smoothly this week. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this first week on campus!

Just a few of the key reminders that will assist at this time:

• Casual Fridays are back until the end of the year.
• The canteen ordering system requires everything to be pre-ordered via Flexischools. The time has been adjusted to 6.00 pm the day prior (instead of 2.00 pm).
• Please do not drop your children to school prior to 8.00 am as there is no supervision on campus until then.
• Please use GWTF and not your own arrangements in the surrounding streets. I noticed some people drive into Market St and then U-turn to turn right onto Avoca St for GWTF. Please do not do this. I am in the unfortunate position of being asked to patrol this area and would greatly appreciate not having to follow up with anyone for using Market St (unless of course you are walking to school).
• Until the end of the year, Years K-2 finish at 3.00 pm and Years 3-6 finish at 3.15 pm.

Masks

Years 3-6 are wearing masks indoors on campus and Years K-2 can wear masks if they choose to do so. The children are doing a great job with this. Please make sure that your children have spares available so that we are able to limit the number of disposable masks that we are handing out. Our Emanuel masks have arrived and one has been issued to each child in the Primary School. We have some spares available for sale via Trybooking. Please note that there are two sizes available. We have issued Years K-4 with the small size and Years 5-6 with the larger size. Feel free to follow the link and order some more!

Staffing news

This week we have found out that we have two special Emanuel teachers leaving at the end of this year:

Roslynn Pardy has been at Emanuel on and off for over a decade. She has taught across many age groups and most recently is on 5 Yavneh, she is also our 3-6 coordinator. Roslynn has a wonderful knowledge and passion for transdisciplinary learning and has contributed much to our planning in this area. She has made the difficult decision to resign from Emanuel in order to be closer to home with her young family. We wish Roslynn all the very best and thank her for her many contributions as a classroom teacher and 3-6 coordinator.

Kim Haddix has been at Emanuel for four years and has become a much-loved Year 6 teacher. We will be sad to farewell Kim as she heads off to explore the world beyond teaching. We wish her all the very best as she travels and enjoys a different pace. Kim’s passion for literacy has had a wonderful impact on our Year 6 programs and we have been grateful for her expertise and care.

We are lucky to be welcoming back some teachers who have been on leave and also appoint some fabulous new staff to the permanent team from 2022. We look forward to Emma Hill and Annabelle Turrall returning from maternity leave.

We are also glad that we have been able to appoint Claudia Sceats and Hayley Chester, both Emanuel School graduates, to permanent positions on staff. Dale Kessler is a Stage 3 expert and will be joining Emanuel from the beginning of 2022.

We look forward to sharing details of the full team shortly but are very excited about what lies ahead.