11 March

  • For this Week

  • Important Reminders (Open-play times & Leave Requests)

  • Bradbury Connections

  • Term 2 PRD Check-ins (EAs Next Week) 

  • Magic School 

  • Staff Calendar
  • Old Posts

Morning everyone, 

The ESF Senior Leadership Conference is this Thursday and Friday. Laura, Brenda, and I will have to attend both days, but you can still reach us by phone. In the event of an emergency, please call us immediately. 


I have no doubt that you will continue to support each other and use your collective expertise to resolve any matters that may arise. Jaz and the admin team will be available to provide additional support as needed. Jaz will serve as a point of contact for any operational or administrative inquiries. Please feel free to buzz down to the admin team for assistance during this period. Thank you for your support in advance 🙌🏼


For this Week

Monday - K2 Tai tam Trip (rescheduled for Mar 18), YCCC Pract student these two weeks

Tuesday & Wednesday - Photo Day Schedule

Wednesday - Possible sharing session on "Autism in Girls" TBC

Thursday & Friday - Senior Leadership Conference 


Important Reminders

Open-play: Please be mindful of time! Open-play is a shared responsibility. We need to all be on time and ready for the children at the start of open-play (10:15am and 2:30pm). Please keep an eye on your small group or circle time before open-play to ensure all stations are ready for the children. 


Leave Requests: We always support our staff with their children's school events. We encourage our parent body to participate actively in school events, so it's important we do the same for our staff. We understand these will often be during school hours.

However, I ask colleagues again to be mindful of any unpaid leave or appointment requests. Please schedule these to avoid class disruption as much as possible and give advance notice if you need to take leave. 

While we will try our best to accommodate, it might not always be possible. Our recent supply staff require advance booking weeks ahead. For example, the recent PTC dates were booked a month ago. Therefore, telling us you have an appointment the night before puts the team in a challenging situation and possibly without cover. We don't mind you informing us of your dates weeks in advance, please do!

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation! 🙏🏼


Bradbury Connections

Teacher Visits: Following on from the Early Years Conference, which focused on play, some of the Bradbury teachers would like to come over and observe adult-led and child-led play. Given that we're next door to each other, there's a bit more flexibility with scheduling, so they will pop over for a short visit within these two weeks. 


Possible sharing/ PD: One of the Bradbury teachers has two girls with Autism and has done some sharing with the Bradbury team. She has kindly agreed to do the same for us at lunchtime, so we're confirming if this Wednesday is possible for her. 


Admissions Partnership: The Bradbury Admissions team is working with Relocation Agencies on student recruitment. On occasions when Jaz or I are unavailable (like one day last week), Kate or Ashley (the Bradbury Admissions Manager) might take prospective parents/ agents around for a quick look at our school.


Term 2 PRD Check-ins (EAs Next Week) 

Teachers, please use this link to schedule a check-in session with me any time before Easter https://calendly.com/audrey-tang  


Laura and Brenda will be meeting EAs next week. Please check your time slot here, we will meet in the vault and a floater will come to your class to cover you. In advance, please have a think about the following reflection questions:

  • What key accomplishments do you wish to highlight?
  • What helps you with feeling connected at ESF and Hillside?
  • What are the biggest challenges you are facing at work this year?
  • Are there any issues you wish to us aware of? 


Magic School 

MagicSchool is the most used and loved AI platform for educators. ESF is now offering enterprise access to all staff. There is a huge suite of tools on MagicSchool that help you with building lesson plans, writing IEPs, differentiation, ideating more engaging lessons, communicating with families, and more! 


Get Started Now 🪄

Navigate to https://www.magicschool.ai and click “Sign Up Free” on the top right or middle of the landing page. 

Sign up in seconds with Google and your school email address, and will be upgraded to the enterprise version automatically (just make sure you use your school email). *If you already signed up for an account with your school email address, you’re already moved into the Enterprise version!

Get started and Favorite a Few Tools! Try out a few tools and begin making MagicSchool a part of your daily workflow! You'll be prompted with a walkthrough that will help you try a tool. Scan through tools and favourite a few that you'll want to use regularly.



Quick link back to last week's comms for all the ESF CPD dates.


Upcoming Dates

Please check our internal calendar below, as we might forget to remind everyone of odd dates. We will continue to add events to the calendar as soon as it's confirmed. Here's the full 2023/24 Calendar 


Thank you!