From the Principal

Andrew Watt – Principal

As I understand it, editions of Ma Nishma have been issued uninterrupted since its inception. With this in mind, I have committed to contributing to a leaner, more streamlined edition, over the next two weeks.

e-Manuel goes live

Our e-Manuel learning platform was launched this week, with the vast majority of students working from their homes. I have received a number of images of students of all ages working at their desks, on the kitchen table, on their veranda or on the floor. A huge thank you to our parents, who have supported the program from home, many of whom have a fresh appreciation of what teaching involves!

Our teachers and students, as partners in life-long learning, are rapidly adjusting to the different pace and rhythms of online work. Whilst our first week has not been without its glitches, we continue to adjust our delivery, resources and expectations, to match our new way of teaching and learning. We are very proud of our resilient staff and students!

There has been much to celebrate in our move to e-Manuel. I have included some snapshots of our e-learning adventure below:

French classes are progressing well, using the digital French textbook for listening, reading and writing activities. Year 8 students are recording themselves speaking French and uploading audio files into OneNote. Students have said they love the connection of the Zoom lessons, which they start the period with to say “bonjour”. A highlight was a Year 8 French online Zoom lesson, where some students invited their pets to the virtual classroom and introduced them in French! “It was such a delightful lesson and the students really impressed, with their engagement and sense of inclusion and fun. C’est vraiment formidable.”

Year 8 French students with their pets
A Maths teacher observed that he had three back-to-back lessons and every student was present in the Zoom…their usual lesson structure was followed, and slides were shared while he wrote on them. “All of my students behaved very well – I didn’t have to mute any of them!”
Another teacher observed that Zoom worked well with their Year 8 students; that they much preferred it to just watching a video – “Dogs barking in the background, mothers saying they are going for a haircut – hilarious, I had to mute them”. Everyone joined in.
A Year 5 teacher stated that they would love to tell parents how proud they are of their students, for the way they are politely asking for help, helping each other out and doing their best work. It’s so much to expect from 11-year olds, and they are really rising to the challenge.
After recording themselves reading the Shema, Year 3 students took photos of mezuzot around their home, or created their own LEGO

LEGO Mezuzah
Mezuzah.
The Year 7 HSIE students completed a modified Performance of Understanding based on their research on Landforms and Landscapes. They were given 80 minutes to write a PEEL paragraph based on their knowledge they had gathered in class this term on their specific landform as well as some live online research. They all did extremely well in a new situation, demonstrating calmness under pressure!
Our Year 8 Meir Tutor Group all rated their day of learning 7-8 out of 10!
Next week the Year 10 PASS students will be presenting their PoU (Shark Tank EActive Pitch Proposal) via Zoom.

I have also captured several comments from students working on campus:

“I loved it because I love learning stuff. It was a bit different…but yeah, I loved it!”

“I liked learning at school on computers because you didn’t have to sit there and when a student interrupted a lesson…you didn’t have to restart the lesson again (while the teacher explained the lesson all over again.)”

“I learned that online learning can be fun but also dangerous ‘cos you never know when someone could call you for bad reasons. I enjoyed a new game on Cool Maths. I enjoyed using my iPad for Drama and Music. I enjoyed being with friends at school.”

“I loved everything about online learning because it’s really fun and exciting: all the things you can do on it! I enjoyed being here at school with my friends. Also, you can talk to people online.”

“I didn’t like it that much. I did like the links from one thing to another, so I didn’t have to go find it. I also liked the class discussion.”

Acknowledging our Administration team

We have a large number of administration staff who have worked tirelessly on campus, behind the scenes to support the delivery of e-Manuel. Their strong support has been sincerely appreciated.

The staff supervising the children on site have been incredibly dedicated and strong during a very uncertain time. They have stepped up and in across a variety of quick changing situations. They have approached every aspect of the day with kindness, humour and patience. They have created a calm and comfortable environment for the children who remain on site each day. They have supported these kids through their online learning tasks and have reduced the nerves of some who were unsure. Their care has been exceptional – our thanks to Tracey Kluck, Renee Segal, Katya Sacks, Fiona Singer, Denise Pilgrim and Isabela Oliver.

Good news for our Year 12 cohort

The University Admissions Centre (UAC) have recently responded to a multitude of questions about The Educational Access Scheme (EAS) and COVID-19. Their understanding is that NESA will put procedures in place in order to combat the disruptions to students’ study if needed. If the total Year 12 population shows weaker results, then university entry will reflect this, and no student will be disadvantaged.

COVID 19 is not covered specifically under EAS as the disadvantage must be long term. It would be expected that students who become ill through infection, will not last for six months or longer. UAC does, however “advise students to apply for EAS if they meet the criteria for any EAS disadvantage, if applicable.”

Emanuel School Careers Facebook Page

We have now launched our Emanuel School Careers Facebook group for our Years 10, 11 and 12. To explore, please follow the link https://www.facebook.com/groups/825129791321514/ . This is a service for students in Year 10, Year 11 and 12, but especially important for Year 12 students to join up to stay current, in light of moving online and so staying up-to-date.

Art vs Isolation

The Visual Arts team has been busy with lessons and bringing light to our lives through self-expression and art. Their 14-day challenge, Art vs Isolation, has seen students and staff submitting their creative response to a daily prompt. We’ve had deep, funny, heartfelt and random offerings, beautiful songs, rough scribbles and detailed drawings.

Monday’s prompt was Elbow Sneeze, Tuesday’s was Favourite Song, Wednesday – QUARANTEENAGER! and Thursday – GR8FUL 4.

Primary School

Katie Brody – Director of Studies K – 6

It takes a village to raise a child

If ever there was a time to acknowledge that, ‘it takes a village to raise a child’, this week exemplifies that sentiment. Moving to e-Manuel this week has seen the whole Primary School community shift into a different gear, one that we are all finding profoundly different and incredibly challenging. Despite the need to physically distance ourselves from each other, this is most certainly a time where we need to work ‘closely’ together to ensure that our children receive as much normality as possible. With parents working from home as well, it is no doubt that all of us need to shift our expectations of our children, our teachers and ourselves to maximise our wellbeing, our children’s academic progress and our sense of calm.

Words cannot express how impressed the Primary School Leadership Team are with our entire teaching team. Their dedication and can-do attitude has meant that the students are receiving lessons in this new exciting and well-designed format and we could not be more proud. Our approach to online teaching and learning is evolving every day, and behind the scenes teachers are meeting in teams to discuss what is working well and what needs further modification.

Amongst a myriad of other ideas and strategies, teachers are also considering:

Additional ways to provide students with a chance to move away from their devices, whilst ensuring they know what it is that we are expecting them to do.
The benefit of releasing (making visible) all the lessons to students in the morning and leaving them open for at least the full day or longer.
The possibility of some teachers choosing to use a mix of Zoom lessons (face-to-face) and Stile lessons (on the platform).

Loving online lessons

If you have not done so already, may I remind parents to refer to the Learning from Home Infographic and the Guidelines and Tips for Learning from Home. Both of these essential posters were sent home in the pack with each child and were designed so that parents can use them to structure the day and set expectations for their child at home. Students can quickly develop, ‘learned helplessness’ and this results in high dependence on parents to assist every step of the way. This is not a circumstance that allows each member of the family to be productive.

Where age and ability can allow children to manage their learning somewhat independently, we recommend that you encourage your child to:

Scroll up and down the Stile lesson reading everything carefully
Listen to all voice recordings and watch all videos (more than once if necessary)
Check the Class Discussion to see if someone else has asked a question that could help you
Recognise that feeling challenged is not the end of the world and if you’re still stuck, read a book or do some other work until a parent or older sibling is free to help you.

Thank you to the many parents who have sent messages of support to the teachers. These are so uplifting to the team and to the community. We applaud you as well and thank you for your commitment. This is going to be an evolving space and we are grateful for your affirmation, positivity and understanding.

From the Head of Jewish Life

Rabbi Daniel Siegel – Head of Jewish Life

Coronavirus defining moments

The Israelites are penned in by the sea before them and Pharaoh’s army behind them. Fearful of an impending doom, they cry out to Moses who responds: “Fear not, stand and witness God’s salvation”. God interjects: “Why cry out to Me, tell the Israelites to go forward”.

In discussing this biblical scenario with the students of our Freedom and Responsibility class, I ask them what they think this passage is seeking to tell us. Immediately, a student responds: “This is a defining moment!”

Approaching Woolies after school that day, I see exiting customers with over-stuffed bags of food. Leonard Cohen’s song lyric, “Who for his hunger?” comes to mind. Then, entering the store and seeing the long stretches of bare shelves, the subsequent words of Cohen’s song now manifest, “Who for his greed?”

Does fear of hunger feed our greed?

The Coronavirus, for all of us, in some way, is a “defining moment”. Do we become our own Pharaohs, psychologically confining ourselves in a Mitsrayim (literally narrow place – “Egypt”) of our own making? Or, do we become self-empowering rather than over-powered, moving forward through trying times to secure shores, together.

As we respond to the virus which is affecting us all, let this be the moment in which we define ourselves, lest it define us.

At this time of uncertainty, may we all look out for the wellbeing of each other.

The following article on one young man’s efforts to engage the “TP Panic” as an opportunity to teach and practice partnership is heartening. Click here

From the Science Department

Jennifer Selinger – Head of Science

View from the Kleinlehrer Family Science Building……and my balcony

Well! Things have certainly changed rapidly, and we are all breathless with trying to keep up. My ‘view’ has been a little different this week! Yesterday I worked from school, and the view was much the same, but the audio that went with it was vastly different!

Instead of noisy banging of lockers and yelling of Year 12 boys to start my day off there was … silence. In period 1, when I would normally be working to the accompaniment of classroom sounds from K20 and K24, there was nothing to be heard. In periods 2 and 4, I ‘Zoomed’ with my Year 11 classes. It was great to actually hear their voices and see their faces as they assured me that they knew exactly what to do! I went back to the staffroom feeling reassured that all was well. We corresponded in silence using the chat on Reshet, and although it occasionally resembled one of those WhatsApp conversations when everyone is just a bit out of sync with their answers, we muddled through.

A room with a view!

Today my view is of the trees in the garden outside the window. I am trialling working from home and finding it even quieter (at least at school there were a few people around!). My first class is after recess, so I have been spending my morning making sure that the next set of lessons for Year 12 make sense and have enough detail in them when I am not there to give the information and instructions in person. It is hard! Although I have had a lot of my material on Reshet for years, I didn’t realise until now how much active teaching I was doing in class! We are lucky that there are many good resources out there on the internet and that the textbook and Atomi give the students a good place to go to find the information they need. We are also extremely lucky that there are so many easy ways to stay in touch. My current set of tools includes the aforementioned Zoom and Reshet Chat, the ubiquitous Shared Google Doc and a very active email life!

I’m sure that as I go along, I will find more and more interesting and different ways to engage with my students at a distance. My inbox is full of professional reading as the amazing people out there send through tips and suggestions about on-line learning – I am delighted by how supportive the teaching community is at a time like this. I look forward to experimenting with them and learning along with my classes about the best ways to keep them connected and engaged … but the bottom line is … I miss their presence! Let’s hope we are back together soon, and I can go back to grumbling about how noisy Year 12 are at their lockers.

Music Matters

Diana Springford – Head of Music

Online learning for Music

This week has seen us transition to online learning for classroom music, including our compulsory Years 3 – 6 Instrumental Program, as well as the K – 2 Infant Strings Program and our private music lessons.

It is very important that we keep music routines going throughout this unusual time, for the continuity of music learning, for our health and wellbeing, and for fun.

All our Music Tutors have embraced the new platforms and new protocols with great enthusiasm. There has been a great collegial spirit amongst our Music Tutors, who don’t often see each other in person, as they teach on different days, but who have been training together online. Their ages range across four decades and it has been morale-boosting in these challenging times to see everyone sharing tips and encouragement in the process. As anticipated, our marvellous Gen Z students have taken to the new Zoom app with customary zeal and our High School students in particular took one look at the new tech and promptly launched into a master class of how to navigate the various menus and options.

Learning an instrument, learning to sing, learning to read music, getting to know music from the inside, developing a music practice routine, are healthy activities, which activate, expand, refine and develop the social, cognitive, sensory-motor, emotional and perceptual aspects of people. In the event of a physical shutdown of school, and the associated reduction of real-life socio-physical interactions and engagement, continuing music practice at home is especially beneficial. It is important that we keep Music routines going, and support the learning of our instrumentalists and singers. Also, co-curricular tuition is an essential support for our elective music curriculum program and our elective Music students must continue to have access to Music Tuition online as part of their online learning of Music as a subject.

On behalf of everyone in the Music Faculty, we would like to thank all parents and carers, students and colleagues for their huge support over the past two weeks as we developed and launched online music tuition.

Private Music Tuition and Infant Strings Program

Thank you to those who have already advised us of changes to private tuition and Infant Strings Program enrolments for next term. All students currently receiving private music tuition and ISP will be automatically re-enrolled into tutor schedules for next term along with students commencing lessons for the first time. The deadline for new enrolments, notification of changes or intention to discontinue for Term 2 was 13 March 2020. If your child intends to discontinue, formal notification in advance must be received by the end of term to avoid being committed to the full term of lessons and liable for fees.

A note about new enrolments to ISP: in the case of the K-2 Infant Strings Program, we are regrettably unable to add new enrolments into the program during this period of online learning. As soon as the situation changes, we will let you know.

A note about new enrolments to private music tuition: in the case of private music lessons, we will need to review on a case-by-case basis new requests to enrol into private instrumental or voice lessons. For example, it is necessary in the current online environment for the enrolling student to have access to the instrument which they wish to use for private tuition and new ventures in online private music tuition are more likely to succeed where the student has a pre-existing experience of learning with a tutor (e.g. the student has been learning the instrument in IP, or is resuming private lessons after a break). However, we are open minded, so please ask.

Parents should enrol or discontinue using one of the online forms accessed from the links below:

Please contact Matilda Grieve at music@emanuelschool.nsw.edu.au if you have any questions.

The schedules for Term 2, 2020 will be created at the end of term and emailed in late April.

Links to online forms

New enrolment requests for private tuition here

To discontinue private tuition for Term 2 here

To enrol into the Infant Strings Program here

To discontinue Infant Strings Program for Term 2 here