Principal's Message

Dear all,

As we all come to the end of a very busy autumn term, I would like to wish all students, parents, staff and the School Council a very Happy Christmas and best wishes for the New Year!

The highlight of this week was obviously our Christmas performance - Alice in Maker’s Wonderland. I would like to thank all students and all hard-working and dedicated staff and especially our Creative Art leaders, Jackie and Alfert, and Curriculum Leader Karen for making this year’s Christmas Performance such a success. Thank you for your creativity, passion and commitment.

The superb and varied performances that took place showcased the brilliant work that our students have completed across different curriculum areas. There is so much quality talent in our school and being able to enjoy students' performances on stage made for a very uplifting end to the term.

After both shows, I have heard so many positive comments from parents and visitors on students' performances and staff work. Here are samples of some of the feedback shared with us:

• It was a really amazing idea pulled together with wonderful ingenuity and creativity- and loads of hard work!

• We look forward to this event every December as it is always wonderful to see the celebration of what our children have collectively achieved, sets such a happy and positive tone for the holidays. Thanks jcsrs team for all the efforts.

• The show gets better every year!

• The level of detail and creativity in all of the costumes and props, together with all of the rehearsals, shows the tremendous amount of work involved.  The students were so joyous and engaging, and it all came together beautifully.

• My child had fun during the show and was laughing and smiling. Beautiful costumes and decorations.

• It was a wonderful show full of courage, hope, empathy and love.

• Thanks to all the Teachers, EA, Support Staff, Admin and Principal for helping the students and taking us to this wonderful journey/event. Loved the idea of showing students preparing and making the props for the Christmas show.

• It was such a delight to watch, and the students did such a wonderful job. I loved all the decorations. It was so good to take a trip to visit Alice in her Maker's Wonderland!

It was wonderful to be able to socialise before and after the shows. On behalf of our Creative Arts team and students, I would like to thank all parents and staff for their generous donations of sustainable gifts and cakes and cash on the days of the show. We have raised $7,778 which will go towards the purchase of new musical instruments for our Expressive Art curriculum.

We have had so many positive things to celebrate this term and can be really proud of all our fantastic achievements. As always, thank you for your ongoing support of the school. We look forward to even greater success in 2023 as we all continue to work together to enable all our students to truly be Happy, Engaged and Learning.

Merry Christmas, 

Anna

Principal Meet-Up

Please join the next Principal Meet-Up on Tuesday 17th of January at 9 am to engage in a personalised, small group session with school leaders.

The theme of this session will be a continuation of the discussion on the Home-School Engagement session in December. Based on feedback from our last meeting we will narrow our focus on communication, information-sharing strategies (newsletter, Seesaw posts, etc.)  and access to school platforms (Gateway, Sarah VLE, ESF App, Google Drive and Seesaw). We want to hear from you:

• What is working and why? What supports your engagement?

• What is not working and how we can make improvements? 

I hope that you will be able to join us - please sign up on this form to confirm your attendance.

Dates For Your Diary

Full calendar and term dates here.

16 December	Last day of Term 1; students will finish lessons at 11.45 am with buses leaving school at 12 pm
9 January	First day of Term 2; Students return to school
17 January	Principal Meet Up, 9 am at Innovation House (school campus)
19 January	Mid-Year Reports shared with parents
23-27 January	CNY break
31 January	Bus Consultation meeting, 5 pm (to be confirmed)
1-12 February	ESF Stakeholders Survey
2 February	AAC Meet-up, 9-10 am at Innovation House (school campus)
6 February	PTA meeting, 5 pm on Zoom
8 February	'What's next after JCSRS?' Graduates Information Evening, 5 pm at JCSRS
16 February	Parent/Carer Educational Technology Meet-up, Innovation House
1-3 March	Secondary Camp
2 March	IEPs shared with parents
6-7 March	Parent Teacher Therapist Conferences
8-13 March	Art Exhibition
20 March	PTA meeting, 5 pm on Zoom
28 March	Walkathon, Perth Street Sports Ground
31 March	Last day of Term 2; students will finish lessons at 11.45 am with buses leaving school at 12 pm

 

The Making of Alice in Maker’s Wonderland

This half term we embarked on an eight-week project which culminated in the Alice in Maker’s Wonderland Christmas show. The project was transdisciplinary in nature, covering 5 subjects: Expressive Art, Visual Art, Literacy, Play, Recreation and Leisure and The World Around Me. We focused on two Global Competencies: Creativity and Communication.

So what did students learn?

Since October, students have experienced a wide range of learning opportunities linked with the project. 

• Creativity and problem solving

• Adjectives and persuasive writing

• How to ask the right questions

• Sculpture and prop making

Photo evidence of this and more is available to view on Seesaw.

What did we learn about ourselves?

During the project, a Learning Walk took place with the aim of looking at how teachers design and implement learning in the classroom. Learning Walks are a tool for self-evaluation to reflect and improve learning and teaching. We focused on Learning Environments and Pedagogical Practices and we learned:

• We know our students well

• We build environments that support a culture of learning

• We use proven pedagogical practices to ensure students make progress

• Global Competencies increasingly steer our planning

• EAs, teachers and therapists work collaboratively and understand the purpose and outcomes for learning experiences

Backstage pass

Of course, there is plenty that goes on in the background to create the Christmas Show from rehearsals to decorating the school. Please enjoy some exclusive ‘behind the scenes’ footage.

We thank all our committed and dedicated staff for their work. It really is the effort of every last person in the school.

And then there’s the show…

The show was part of a project where learning was carefully designed and differentiated, but we also see that the students learn more from the experience than we could have planned for. Things like…

Confidence	Joy
Leadership	Teamwork
Appreciation	Self Regulation
Engagement	Inclusion

 

Christmas Cakes

This term’s NPDL project for Jade Class ended with an Independence baking session with Anna. The cakes were sold at the Christmas Community Social to raise money to purchase musical instruments for Expressive Art. Parents’ contributions towards the instruments were amazing.

We hope you all enjoyed watching Alice in Maker’s Wonderland and eating delicious cakes baked by our students.

Christmas Show Highlights

We have completed the first term with our fantastic Christmas performance, “Alice in Maker’s Wonderland”.

Here are some highlight photos of the students and their joyous comments regarding their performance.

Diamond

Noah: “The Christmas show was good, and the music was good.”

Ally: “I liked wearing my Alice dress to act.”

Aden: “I thought the Christmas performance was good, and my favourite part was singing.”

Ruby

Joshua: “The Christmas show was brilliant. I really enjoyed being in the show, especially making the props. I found out that I am a great dancer too. I led my whole class in the show.”

Silver

Aadi: “Everyone did a great job performing, and everything was set very nicely.”

Pearl

Alex: “I like the Christmas show.”

Kaleb: “I hopped on the show. I was very fast. I am the best white rabbit.”

Jade

Asfandyar: “I had so much fun. I can drum.”

Edward: “The Christmas show was good. I was a fisherman.”

Katy: “I liked the Christmas show. I played the ukulele.”

Gold

Jacob: “The costumes were amazing! I feel so proud.”

Sebastian: “I was the mad hatter. My parents loved my show.”

Emerald

Ellie: “I liked my costume. I looked pretty.”

Isabella: “I have done well in dancing.”

Sapphire

Steven: “I was scared and nervous, but at the end I saw daddy and was very proud.”

Stephen: “The show was excellent and I was happy.”

ESF Happy Holidays Card

Spread some festive cheer this season with our ESF Happy Holidays e-card.

This joyful design was created by one of our youngest learners - four-year-old Aadhya Swain, who is a student at ESF Tsing Yi International Kindergarten. Aadhya’s art was selected by our Chief Executive Officer, Belinda Greer, as part of our annual ESF-wide art challenge. “The standard of art submitted this year was incredibly high, so well done to Aadhya and all our talented student participants from K1 to Year 13.”

This bright and cheerful card can be downloaded from our ESF website.