From the Principal

Andrew Watt – School Principal

A Culture Free from Bullying

In High School assembly, I shared the 2019 MMG student survey findings, in relation to bullying. No school is free from bullying, as we are dealing with imperfect and young human beings, who will sometimes struggle to manage their emotions or to relate appropriately to each other! However, I was happy to inform our students that in each area, they rated the level and the seriousness of bullying at Emanuel as significantly less that the average school surveyed. Before we become complacent, there is still room for improvement. A brief summary of the survey findings include the following:

• 81% of our High School students feel that bullying is no problem or a slight problem – the High School survey average is 68%;
• Sadly, we have 4% of our students who feel that bullying is a serious problem;
• 77% of our High School students felt that it was clear who to report bullying to, and 76% felt that the School is effective in dealing with bullying;
• 15% of students stated that they had been bullied in the last 12 months;
• The most common spots for bullying were the playground followed by our classrooms;
• The vast majority of the bullying occurred during recess and lunch, followed by between lessons and after school;
• The top four types of bullying, in order, were verbal, exclusion, rude gestures and cyberbullying;
• Perhaps the most disturbing finding was that over 70% of students revealed that they would never or only sometimes report bullying to their parents, friends or to teachers.

I shared my concern that we are not picking up and dealing with all cases of bullying, and that this will impact the happiness and mental health of some students. My questions for each student were: What are you going to do, to make this a better and safer place for all? How can you be a true mensch, through your actions? What are you going to do when you observe bullying (either face to face or online), especially if the bully is a friend of yours? How do you intend to support those who do not fit in, who are perceived as weaker, less able, or simply different? How can you not be part of the problem but be part of the solution?

I encouraged our students to support a culture free from bullying by:

• Stepping in and stepping up when you see someone being pushed, teased, excluded or bullied online – don’t be a bystander;
• Saying something – like “that’s not right” or “give them a break” – let them know that what they are doing is wrong, and not funny;
• Doing something – like offering support or kind words to the person being bullied;
• Reporting the incident to a trusted senior student or staff member. Don’t let it go and assume someone else will do it; and
• Being a good example – friendly, encouraging, kind and­ generous towards all, not just your mates.

Stopping bullying is important to us. To support us in this endeavour, parents can report incidents of bullying to their child’s House Tutor or Head of House.

Student Leadership Across Year 6 

Playing Wheelchair Basketball with Year 6 students as a team building activity

All Year 6 students participated in a two-day leadership program, designed to equip them with the mindset and skills to lead within our Primary School. Whilst a small number will join the Madrichim team, every student will have the opportunity to lead some aspect of school life over the course of the year. Perhaps most importantly, our students learned that their role model and character will influence both their peers and younger students.

Negotiating the Online World

The vast majority of our young people have access to social media and gaming sites at an increasingly younger age. Many difficulties arise from engaging in the online world, including cyberbullying, access to pornographic and violent images and dangers associated with predatory behaviour. Importantly, whilst the School can educate students in these dangers and support them towards wise and respectful online behaviour, it is ultimately the boundaries at home, imposed by parents, that makes the difference. At both the Year 7 and Year 8 Information evenings, I encouraged parents to take the time to become familiar with their child’s online presence and to set guidelines in relation to the security, level and location of social media use in the home. Setting time limits, restricting online devices to family areas, installing net filters and checking regularly on what is happening in their screen time can make a significant difference.

Parents may be interested to know a little about the potential pitfalls of 15 apps. The Ask.FM App, for example, has generated great distress, when students solicit often hurtful, unhelpful and anonymous narratives from their peers.

Mazal Tov

Jonah Trope (Year 10) successfully trialled for the 15 years CIS (State) Cricket Team earlier this week. He will now represent CIS at the All-School trial.

Alexander Placek (Year 11) competed at the AICES Opens Tennis Championships earlier in the week. He progressed to the grand final and finished the day runner up ( in what was a large and very competitive field). He has now been selected to compete at the Open Boys CIS Tennis Championships next week.

Amber Langman (Year 12) will represent the Belvoir Theatre as an ambassador, in addition to the Griffin Theatre.

Saachi Owen’s (Class of 2019) Visual Arts Body of Work was selected for ARTEXPRESS 2020. Saachi recently attended the official opening of the exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW. Her work, Idle, is a visual collage represented through self-portraits in varying media, and in various idle animations. Sarah Sharwood’s Designed Objects, The Immortality of an Ephemeral Existence, was also selected and will be displayed at the Newington Armory from 2 March. 

Danielle Raffaele, HSIE/Jewish Studies teacher

Danielle Raffaele (HSIE/Jewish Studies teacher) represented Emanuel School  at the Australia Association of Jewish Studies Conference, presenting a paper titled: Jewish imaginings in non-Jewish mediums: Harry Potter as a paradigm for teaching themes of race, antisemitism and morality in the Holocaust (and beyond). 

Quote of the Week

“Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love.”

David McCullough

From the Head of Jewish Life

Rabbi Daniel Siegel, Head of Jewish Life

Honouring Parents

In speaking with our students about freedom and responsibility within our Jewish tradition, they shared that they are not free as they must listen to their parents to whom they must answer. They added that their parents, in turn, were not free as they were responsible for meeting their needs, being their children.

It is in this week’s parashah, Yitro, that we are commanded: “Honour your mother and your father” – כבד את אביך ואת אמך/Kaved et Avikha ve-et Imekha.

The Hebrew root word for ‘honour’ – כבד/kaved, means ‘weighty’. Honouring your parents is not centered on obedience, but upon recognising and responding to their weighty significance in your life.

Soon after presenting the mitzvah of honouring one’s parents, the Torah severely admonishes “one who curses his mother or father”- מקלל אביו ואמו/mekallel aviv ve-imo.

The word ‘curse’ – קלל/kallel, finds its origin in the word קל/kall, meaning ‘light’.  Treating our parents lightly, as trifling, dishonours them.

What constitutes honouring our parents? Our Jewish tradition explains: “One must provide them with food, drink and clothing. One should bring them in and take them out. One must provide them with all their needs”.

Remarkably, these acts of sustaining our parents reflect the very role that out parents played in providing for our well-being and growth. However, honour is not to be construed as a transactional relationship. While parents are obligated to provide for their children, whom they brought into this world, this should not, in any wise, minimise their being devoted and invested caregivers who have taught us and enabled us to be the same.

Honour goes beyond “payback”, as the Rabbis seek to point out in the following anecdotes of exemplary honouring:

Rabbi Tarfon would serve as his mother’s footstool, crouching down for her to step up on him so she could climb in and out of bed. It was told, as well, with regard to another Rabbi, that his mother threw a purse full of gold coins into the ocean in his presence, but he did not embarrass or admonish her.

When are parents are failing physically and mentally and we become their providers, do they retain the same weightiness in our eyes or do they become burdens to us?

For our Jewish tradition, honouring our parents is a testament of their honouring us.

Ma Koreh

Adam Carpenter – Head of Jewish Life Primary

Tu BeShevat Celebrations

This week we celebrated Tu BeShevat (15^th day of Shevat), an ancient date in the Jewish calendar that is also known as the New Year for the Trees, or the ‘Birthday of trees. Together we learnt that counting the age of trees was important for our ancestors, based on the following mitzvah in the Torah (Leviticus 19:23).

 “When you enter the land [of Israel] and plant any tree for food, you shall regard its fruit as forbidden. Three years it shall be forbidden for you, not to be eaten.”

The fruit produced in the fourth year became first fruit offerings of gratitude in the Temple.

On the fifth year the fruit was able to be used by the farmer. Tu BeShevat provided a date for counting the years since a tree was planted.

Through engaging and reflecting on a variety of Jewish texts, including the Torah, midrashim and stories from our tradition, students discuss the importance of the environment, our Jewish responsibilities to care and preserve the environment, current climate challenges and positive actions we can take to care, protect and repair our beautiful world.

Activities included:

• Hearing the story of Honi HaMe’agel and the carob tree, which takes 70 years to grow and produce fruit. Children explored how they are the next generation to take part in the renewal and regrowth of the environment around them and of how important it is for us to take care of what we have;
• Class discussions about human impact on the environment and Judaism’s teaching on our responsibility to care and protect the world;
• Reciting brachot and engaging in a variety of mindful eating activities and
• Eating samples of fruits and good items representing the Seven Species of the Land of Israel (dates, figs, grapes, olives, pomegranate, wheat, barley).

Celebrating with the Seven Fruits

Tree in class

Tree hugs for Tu BeShevat

Primary News

Meghan Carroll – Deputy Head of Primary

Happy New Year and welcome back Years K – 6 students!

I am so happy to welcome our new students to our Emanuel family as well as see our returning students back on campus and ready to start what is turning out to be an exciting year. I hope that you have all had a wonderful summer break and that you have settled back into school routines. I am very impressed to see the high level of kindness, appreciation and support shown by our students towards each other in the first few weeks. Keep it up K-6!

This week we ran our annual Leadership Experience; a two-day program for Year 6 students to reflect on their roles as leaders of the Primary School. Some of the workshops focused on attributes of effective and influential leaders and other workshops were tailored towards the student leadership portfolios.

Thank you to Eamon Lukins for organising this event and to all the Year 6 teachers and mentors for supporting our students in this area.

I encourage you to discuss the concept of leadership along with the ‘7 Habits’ at home with your child over the next few weeks. What ways can you support your child to be a leader? How can you empower your child with the skills and knowledge to be a 360-degree person who acts on his/her dreams and make what they want happen?

Meet the Teacher

Please diarise Monday February 17 (Week 4) and join us for our Meet the Teacher evening. Here is the schedule for the evening:

6.00 pm – 6.45 pm: Years K – 2 parents to meet their teachers in the classrooms

6.45 pm – 7.30 pm: Years K – 6 parents to hear about plans and directions for the Primary School in the Lehrer Family Building (MPH)

7.30 pm – 8.15 pm: Years 3 – 6 parents to meet their teachers in the classrooms

8.15 pm – 8.45 pm: Year 6 parents are welcome to attend an optional Northern Territory Information Evening in the Year 6 classrooms

Years 3 – 6 Swimming Carnival

On Thursday 20 February (Week 4) we have our Years 3 – 6 Swimming Carnival at Des Renford Aquatic Centre. Students need to arrive at school as normal. Buses will depart from school at 8.30 am for a 9.30 am start at the aquatic centre. Students will return to school by 3.00 pm.

Students must wear their swimming costume and sports uniform with house shirt to school. Students are to bring a towel, underwear to change into, a plastic bag for wet items and goggles (optional).

Parents are welcome to attend the carnival. Please send vegetarian recess, lunch and water bottle. Parents are asked not to purchase food from the shop at the aquatic centre.

If you have any questions regarding the Swimming Carnival please contact Stuart Taylor (staylor@emanuelschool.nsw.edu.au).

Assembly Schedule

Years 3 – 6 assemblies are held on Fridays at 2.00 pm in the Millie Phillips Theatre in Week A. Years K – 2 assemblies are held on Fridays at 2.00 pm in the Theatre in Week B. If you are a Year K – 2 parent and would like to attend your child’s assembly item, please check with your child’s classroom teacher for the presentation date. This information is usually communicated to you in a classroom newsletter.

Gifted Awareness Week

Be on the look-out for activities during Gifted Awareness Week (15 – 21 March). There will be a workshop for parents and activities for all students at school.

Primary Extra-Curricular Activities

Emma Hill

We have an exciting term of activities planned:

Mondays

Tuesdays

Wednesdays

Thursdays

Fridays

Click here for some further information on Code Camp: Code Camp Term 1 flyer

Kornmehl

Terry Aizen- Director Kornmehl  Emanuel Pre-school

Over the past two weeks, we have welcomed many new families and children to the Pre-school.

The first few weeks when a child is settling in, is a time of crucial importance to their later happiness in the Pre-school. All children are individuals and while some children will adjust fairly easily to the new environment and new routines, others will take longer to feel comfortable and secure.

The children are all settling into their new classrooms and becoming more familiar with each group’s routines and rules. They are also getting to know their teachers and friends. This takes time and we need to allow the children space to explore, discover and feel a sense of belonging and trust. We work hard in these first few weeks to establish connections and relationships with families and children in our care. We talk and explain things clearly to the children and there is repetition and familiarity from day to day. This allows children time to process and to feel safe and secure. Children who have a positive start to their new environment are more likely to feel comfortable, relaxed and valued and feel good about themselves as learners.

Separation anxiety is a healthy and protective emotion. It is the child’s way of saying “You are my safe base and I need to develop trust and confidence in alternate carers.”

Talking through the daily routine with your child each day helps to reduce anxiety. Educators also use this as a tool to familiarise children with what to expect each day, so that it is predictable, and they have time to process what is happening in their day. Although you may be feeling as anxious and emotional as your child, try to stay cheery and confident as children will pick up on your feelings of apprehension.

It is important to always let your child know when you are leaving. Tell your child you are going and will be back after sleep or rest time.

Open communication between parents and educators is crucial. It is important to share information. Parents can give educators information about the child at drop off and in turn the educators can talk to the parents about the child’s experiences during the day when they pick up in the afternoon. Please also let the educators know if your child has had a bad night or early start to the day. It’s also important for us to know if they have eaten breakfast or if they have felt ill and any medication e.g. Panadol has been administered before coming to Pre-school.

Our Educators have a vast amount of experience in helping children settle into the Pre-school and are aware of the difficulties that can emerge during this transition period. If your child is taking longer to settle in than you had expected and you still have concerns, discuss these with their teachers. Together you can agree on and put into place strategies to support your child during this time.

Parents are the safe base from which each child can branch out and explore the world, grow and learn and become socially and emotionally confident. Getting off to a good start will help support your child through this very important period in their lives. Remember that going to pre-school is an important life experience filled with opportunities for growth, skill development and fun. Like any new experience there are challenges for both the child and the parents.  We look forward to working collaboratively to make each child’s journey at the Kornmehl Emanuel Pre-school a warm, caring, nurturing and positive learning experience.

Tu BeShevat 

We celebrated Tu BeShevat in the Pre-school this past week. We all sang songs, talked about the trees and why they are so important in our lives and for the world. Afterwards we all headed out and planted four native Australian trees in our garden. The children were all extremely engaged and wanted to help, dig the holes, plant the trees and water them. Throughout the week the Pre-school has been filled with beautiful experiences related to trees.

Parent Cheese and Wine Social Evening  

We invite all parents to join us on Thursday 27 February 2020 at 7.15 pm. This is a lovely evening, where parents can meet each other, learn about each group’s routines and programs and how we work, learn and play together with your children. Parents will also get to participate in some hands-on creative experiences just as your child does during the day.

Working in collaboration and partnership with parents and families is critical to achieving our learning outcomes for each child. Partnerships are based on the foundations of understanding each other’s expectations and attitudes and building on the strength of each other’s knowledge (Framework, p.12.)

Open Day

The Pre-school will be holding an Open Day on Wednesday 4 March 2020 for all prospective families who would like to visit our Pre-school to see what we offer, walk around our lovely classrooms, meet the Director and chat about our programs and philosophy. The morning will run from 9.30am – 11.00 am. Please book in to attend the Open Day here.

Happy Birthday

We wish a very Happy Birthday to Levi Wasserman (4) and Kayla Weiss (5), Sam McKenzie (5), Miles Borovik (5), Samuel Veltman (4), Ethan Wicks (3). We also wish a happy birthday to our Special Educator Laura Meltzer. We hope you all had a lovely day.

Community Connections – Gesher

Development Officer

70^th Speedo NSW Jewish Swimming Championships 

This will be held this coming Sunday 16 February 2020.

Maccabi NSW Jewish Swimming Club President, Emanuel parent Anthony Goodridge described the annual swim meet in last week’s AJN as “the longest continually running Jewish community event in Australia,” with swimmers as young as six right up to 50+ taking part. The main race of the meet will be the 100m freestyle Australian Jewish News Cup, with the men’s and women’s winners to receive trophies and prize money, and there are flash new medals that will be up for grabs. 

A large group of Emanuel students, past students and parents are taking part in this event:

Gabriella (Gabi) Goodridge (Year 12) will defend the women’s 100m freestyle – Jewish News Cup which she won for the first time in 2019. Her siblings, Aden (Year 9) and Mia (Year 4) are also racing, along with mum, Daniella whilst their father Anthony is on the organising committee.

Jared Elbourne (Class of 2019) will be dipping his toe back in the water after completing the HSC last year.

Other parent/child combinations include Sanne Nathan (Year 5) and her brother Neik (Year 7) along with their father Mark; Rebecca (Becky) Salamon (Year 5) and her twin brothers Max and Sam (Year 7) along with their father Robert.

Siblings competing include Jack Kessel (Year 6) and his brother Noah (Year 4), Xander Keller (Year 6) and his sister Zara (Year 4) as well as Emily Seeman (Year 5) and her twin sister Gabrielle (Gaby) Year 5.

Yoni Levy in action. Photo by Ofer Levy

Another swimmer/parent combination participating in this event is Jonathan (Yoni) Levy (Year 7) who will be swimming whilst his father, Ofer, takes the photos!  We look forward to sharing some of Ofer’s amazing action shots at this competition in next week’s issue. 

Good luck to everyone participating in this event on Sunday.

For more information email: nswswimming@maccabi.com.au

Healing Stories 

Sunday 16 February 2020 2.00 pm – 3.30 pm, Double Bay Library

Rikki Stern (Class of 2016) is one of two speakers at this event where she together with Alison Jones a mother of five children, will both share their experiences as cancer survivors. They talk about their journeys, why they chose to tell their stories, and how the community came together to support them.  $10 of each ticket will go to Pink Hope and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.  For more information and to book tickets: www.shalom.edu.au

Adamama – Shalom’s emerging Jewish Urban Farm

Alumnus Mitchel (Mitch) Burnie (Class of 2011) heads this amazing new project at Hakoah, White City, 30 Alma Street, Paddington. A community of volunteers together with Mitch have created Sydney’s first Jewish urban farm. If you would like to sign up for a working bee spot: https://signup.com/go/RxEzLvR

Mitch Burnie

Check out more photos here.

If you have photos and/or news to share, please send to: snewell@emanuelschool.nsw.edu.au

Jews, Shoes and Values

Daphna Levin-Kahn – Head of Jewish Studies High School

Jews, Shoes and Values 

How do you move from Mind to Spirit to Being? From thought to passion to action?

This week Year 9 Jewish Studies students in the Be The Change elective considered the ‘space’ between the values they hold dear and the actions they do to promote positive change in the world. Using their shoes to mark the dissonance, one for values and the other for actions, students had a visual differentiator to contemplate the gap and how they could improve the consonance between them.

The student reflections below are anonymous but demonstrate the diversity and self-awareness of the group:

“At first, I thought the activity was a little weird and silly, but it was actually quite thoughtful and fun. It was good to see the things that I say I care about, but I don’t actually do anything about it.  This will help me focus on the things I care about and that I do something about.”

“Today’s lesson got me thinking about the things that I want to help do in life and the things that I want but I don’t do. There was a big gap between my first shoe and my last one and I really would like to change it.”

“I found this activity very interesting and insightful. This is because I wasn’t expecting my shoe to be at the very back in the second round when it was in the middle in the first round. Hopefully I can use this game to help me “be the change”.”

“Today’s activity helped me see what my expectations are and how I match them up with reality. I think I am pretty good at acting upon my values, but it was still a good refresher.”

“The activity we did today I really enjoyed because it wasn’t boring and I liked that we got to move around. After the first round I didn’t think I would get my second shoe to my first shoe because I don’t feel like I made many changes, but I ended up getting it to my first shoe.”

“Today we did the ‘Jews and Shoes” activity and I learnt a lot.”

“I learnt how much I believe in and what I actually do to help those situations/people that are struggling in humanity. I realised that I mostly do and act in all of the different things that (were) read out but I also thought about how much more I could do. Sure, I give the homeless man loose change who camps out near my local supermarket, but what else could I actually do to help even more, is what I was thinking about throughout the activity.”

So, how far apart are your shoes?

Shabbat Shalom

JNF Green Sunday

Michael Heymann – Year 11

On Sunday 9 March 2020, the Year 11 students who participated in our Chavayah Program volunteered at the JNF Green Sunday fundraiser.

We called members of the Jewish community, soliciting donations which were distributed to two important causes: 50% was donated to aid Australian wildlife and nature recovery efforts after the recent Australian bushfires and 50% was donated to the Nitzana Ecological Park in Israel’s Negev to support their efforts at expanding their water reservoir which is vital for the ongoing sustainability and security of Israel’s South.

I believe it is very important for Emanuel students to engage in these events and to show our gratitude for the JNF and the good work it does. It was a very fulfilling two hours in which students felt they were helping to make a positive difference.

Careers

Claire Pech – Careers Advisor

This week I read about the next top 15 emerging jobs for 2020 from a LinkedIn Report. I always like to see what is coming up next, and what to look out for as this may interest our readers. The report has more detail about each area.

https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/business/en-us/talent-solutions/emerging-jobs-report/AUS-TOP-EMERGING-JOBS_compressedRevised.pdf

1.  Artificial Intelligence Specialist (AI)
2.  Cyber Security
3.  Marketing Automation Specialist
4.  Robotics Engineer
5.  Site Reliability Engineer
6.  Customer Success Specialist
7.  Data Scientist
8.  Data Engineer
9.  Growth Manager
10.  Chief Strategy Officer
11.  Anti Money Laundering Specialist
12.  Product Owner
13. Service Designer
14. Full Stack Engineer
15. Automation Consultant

Here is a great article about what to choose and what to study next: https://theconversation.com/what-subjects-do-i-choose-for-my-last-years-of-school-126194

Work, Study, Grow Subscription 

Years 10 – 12, please set up an account  as soon as possible.

To create your membership:

Step 1 – Go to https://studyworkgrow.com.au/school/emanuel-school
Step 2 – When asked, enter your school code – EMS0219

This will help you navigate the never-ending lists of jobs, quizzes and choices that are out there.

Year 11 Information Evening

As promised at the Year 11 Information Evening this week, here are the slides with the relevant careers – please refer to pages 51 – 59:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1GfjDwS42kR3MtV78m18b9tSSYawYOA1pSBoCw9Ro7Dg/edit?usp=sharing

Emanuel Open Days

Theatresports at Emanuel

From the Parents and Friends

Ruby Berkovic and Jen Opit

We hope you and your children have all settled nicely into Term 1!

Purim Disco 

Our annual Purim Disco is fast approaching. This is always a highlight of the year and it’s a great way for the kids (and parents) to socialise and have fun. It is held at the School and there will be a sausage sizzle and other yummy treats, music, games, activities and prizes for the best costume.

The date is Sunday March 8th from 4.00 pm – 6.00 pm.  Book now: https://www.trybooking.com/BIGRW

Kool Kidzz will have a booth at the Purim Disco. For more Kool Kidzz information visit them at https://koolkidzz.com.au/

P & F Camping Trip

The first Camping Trip of the year is on the weekend of 13 March! This is always a wonderful chance for Emanuel families to bond. 

This year is at a new site: Killalea Reserve Holiday Park.

The cost is $100 per family for the weekend.

The booking site is now open: https://www.trybooking.com/BIDQQ

Bookings are limited and will be accepted until 22nd February.

For any enquiries contact Shelley on shell@ishkaluna.com

Friday Chill Out

We hope to see many of you this afternoon at the first Friday Chill Out of the year (we were rained out last week). It’s a beautiful tradition of ending our week together. 

Volunteers to sell Icy-poles welcome. Contact justine.hofman@gmail.com 

**Please note, parents must supervise and be responsible for their kids at all times in the designated Friday Chill Out Area. 

Events to Diarise

Sunday 8 March 2020 – Purim Disco

Friday 13 March 2020 – Sunday 15 March 2020 – Camping Trip #1

Friday 8 May 2020 – Mother’s Day Breakfast and Stalls

Friday 28 August 2020 – Father’s Day Breakfast and Stalls

Have a lovely weekend,

Jen & Ruby

Purim Disco