Emmaus Christian School

Pick up arrangements for students have changed slightly due to the construction in Gillis Hall.  Students can be picked up from the gate nearest the playground, or from the front porch near the school office. After 3:20, no primary students will be allowed to wait at the gate, and parents will have to collect their children from the front porch near the school office. Please do not send your children to the playground unsupervised while you are at the office or talking to teachers. Students may only play on the playground if their parents are also at the playground to supervise.

Primary and Secondary students are welcome to join our Computer Club with Mrs Gierke every Tuesday from 3.15-4.15pm in the computer lab. Contact the front office to join.

Knitting Club is back! On Thursdays at lunch time, beginning or experienced knitters from Year 2 up can meet in Mrs McClure’s room.  If your child is interested in learning, please send them along with a pair of knitting needles (5 mm needles are a good size for beginners), a ball of either 8 or 12 ply yarn, and a cloth bag in which to keep it. If you are a parent interested in helping out, please contact Rachel McClure at rachel@emmaus.act.edu.au

Our Secondary School girls have a weekly Bible Study group on Wednesday in the Year 6 room from 3.15 to 4.30pm. See Miss Orr for more details, new members always welcome. 

Week 4: Canteen Special is Nachos $3.   Please have your orders in by next Thursday morning at 9am.  Sorry, no late orders can be accepted.  All specials are served at second break.

Our Primary School Choir will rehearse at lunch time each Wednesdays in the Year 3 room. All welcome.

On Thursday 30th May the secondary school is holding an Arts Night from 5.00 pm until 7.30 pm. On this evening many of the students involved in the performing and visual arts, along with the manuals arts and the humanities, not to mention other star performers, will provide some interesting items to view. Students will range in age from Year 7-10.Parents and their children are welcome to attend this event. A light dinner will be served for those who request it on their RSVP at cost of $5.00 per head. The meal will be served by the students. If any parents are keen to help with food preparation or other aspects of the evening, please let Wendy Morris (wendym@emmaus.act.edu.au) know. A note will be sent home soon.

This evening of fun will celebrate the units of Medieval Studies being pursued in Years 7 and 8 SoSE and will be held in the gym on Thursday June 13. More details will emerge, but please put this date in your diary if you have a child in Years 7 or 8, or if you would like to be involved irrespective of which year your daughter or son is placed. It should be an interesting evening with all sorts of food and entertainment.

PARENT MEETING: Topic 'Gonski' Funding Update... what it means for Emmaus...speaker Paul Marshall, then a supper break followed by NCCEA Annual General Meeting (The NCCEA, North Canberra Christian Education Association, is the governing body of Emmaus) The Year in Review & Future Direction.  All parents & members welcome and encouraged to attend both meetings!

All secondary students have been given their Term 2 Assessment calendars. This includes major assignments and exams dates. Copies are attached and can also be accessed from Secondary School pages. 

Dear Parents/Guardians of Year 4 Students

Re: Plans for Semester 2, 2013 

It is with a combination of sadness and excitement that I formally advise you about changes to the Yr 4 class teacher this year. Mr Andrew Thomason was scheduled to return to Emmaus after his current Long Service Leave and teach the Year 4 class from the beginning of Term 3, but he has officially resigned and will not be returning to the school. Tributes and best wishes for Mr T have been invited and you are also welcome to submit any message to him to the School’s Office if you would like. 

However, the good news is that the Yr 4 class will not be disrupted because Mr Andrew Miller will be staying on as class teacher for the remainder of the year. Mr Miller has been doing excellent work with the class and I am sure you and the children will be happy to have this issue confirmed. 

We look forward to continuing the year with a quality educational programme for your child. 

Yours truly

Paul Marshall

Principal

North/Gungahlin Primary Open Interschool Chess Event will be held on Thursday 20 June (9am to 3pm) at Amaroo School. For those involved in Chess Club on Monday afternoon, but please to Mr Miller.

Our elective Japanese class will be selling sausage sandwiches every Thursday at 2nd break in the Secondary courtyard. Only $2!

All of the Year 10s will be out of school in Week 9 this term engaged in Work Experience. Parents who are concerned about the any student’s placement should contact Mr Jenkins or Mr Muthomi.

Bring the whole family and join in the Emmaus community. PIP applies.

The preschool Committee meeting will be from 3.15-4pm on Wednesday the 22nd May.

Please use the attached form to register and return to the front office.

Mrs Gierke and Mrs Falusi will be supervising a Study Club for high school students on Monday’s from 3.10pm to 4pm (after school) in the art room.

This will be a time for students to

• ask questions,
• complete homework or
• use computers for research for school subjects.

Please bring the equipment that they need to the room.

Students will leave from the courtyard at 4pm.

If you are happy for your child to participate please let Mrs Gierke or Mrs Falusi know either as a note or via email. Students will need permission only once and we will assume that they are able to participate throughout the year. This is a voluntary club and students are able to come when they want to. 

This week I received and sadly accepted the resignation of Mr Andrew Thomason, who is currently on Long Service Leave. He was scheduled to return to work on the Yr 5 class at the start of Term 3, but he and his wife, Kim, have spent the last few months near Wollongong where their three children are at university and, of course, the St George NRL team are based. The attraction to the coast proved more powerful than a return to our fair city. 

Mr T has been a powerful positive influence at Emmaus. He was one of our founding staff and I can remember sitting with him over the Summer of 1996 chatting about how to best set up the school for success - it was his idea to name our three House teams after the three streets that surround the school, for example. 

Mr T always promoted a commitment to excellence - from staff and students - and his classes were consistently a high quality. Students were pushed to give their maximum effort and taught to avoid excusing anything less. This was not always comfortable for them or their parents! 

Mr T instilled school spirit into all of the Sports Carnivals that he oversaw for the first fifteen years of the school. A passionate sportsman himself with several City-to-Surf road races under his belt, he generated such commitment from his charges, that our school has consistently won the regional trophies for best performance after school size was taken into account. Across Athletics, Cross-Country and Swimming, this was an outstanding achievement. We also have the reputation for being the loudest and longest cheerers at inter-school events. All thanks to Mr T's infectious and deliberate enthusiasm. 

Mr T began a tradition of high quality school musical productions at Emmaus. He would come to me after a school holiday and present a script he had written while on his break and, after humming numerous lines into a dictation recorder, leave me to create a backing track for all the songs. He would present the story to the Primary School, audition the cast, mobilise painters, costume-makers, back-stage and lighting crew, rehearse the whole Primary School as a chorus for hours on end and 'oila!' we would have a fantastic musical to invite parents and grandparents to come and applaud. Past students would always turn up to see the latest production too. 

Mr T taught Chess after school to groups of students once per week since 1997. As part of his work of extending more able students he would also do this during school hours. He also initiated Public Speaking competitions at Emmaus. Our prowess and achievement in these areas has been of a high standard - thanks to Mr Thomason. 

I would love to be blessed with the kind of Thomason-commitment to quality education that we have enjoyed for the last sixteen years. It is important to keep each of the above areas strong and developing as a legacy from such a special teacher. 

There is more that could be said. So I would like to invite all past and present parents and students to contribute to a special Scrapbook to give to Mr T as a thank you from all of us, his educational community who have been blessed by his efforts to achieve excellence. Please send your memories of his positive impact on your life and any digital photos you might have, to the school email address. You are also welcome to hand-write comments and give photos to the front office staff. 

Mr T has requested 'no special fuss' so there is no date for any farewell event at this time. However, he is planning to drop in unannounced at some point and we will endeavour to 'seize the moment' and present him with some well-deserved attention. 

We thank God for Andrew Thomason, and he has been a faithful follower of Christ in his work to serve and care for students at Emmaus. Let us all pray a blessing on him and his family as they establish themselves in the next stage God has for their lives! He invites any Emmaus friends in the Kiama area to look them up and drop in for a cuppa. 

On a related note, I am excited to be able to confirm the appointment of Mr Andrew Miller as the on-going teacher for Year 4 - one Andrew for another! He is doing an excellent job on the class and we look forward to him staying with us in place of Mr T. 

Paul Marshall

Principal

The NEW 2013/2014 Canberra Entertainment™ Book is here. Selling for only $60  ORDER HERE 

We are collecting Woolworths Earn & Learn Points. Please place any stickers you make have in the box outside the Front Office.