Welcome to Term 3!

Dear Emmaus families and friends,

Today marks the first day of term for our F-12 students, however for Emmaus staff members, the term commenced on Monday in a spiritually powerful way; with the aligning our collective hearts in worship and the study of God’s word. Our Christian culture is essential for our students to thrive so we are intentional and deliberate in preserving and nurturing our fertile Christian community within our staff team.

Monday saw our entire Emmaus staff join together with approximately 1400 of our fellow South Australian CSA (Christian Schools Australia) school staff at Futures Church (formerly Influencers Church Paradise) to engage in a program titled A place to grow: The formation of practice / the practice of formation. The goal was to explore how the 'Christian story' resonates with the Australian 21st century landscape, through the lens of our Christian schools. We were blessed to be guided through the various dimensions of this theme through some outstanding Christian leaders including:

• Max Jeganathan – sharing on "Living faith in the battlefield of ideas”
• Dr Natasha Moore – sharing on “Public faith for a parched world”
• Pastor Craig Groeschel – challenging us to “Lead like it matters”

On Tuesday, our Emmaus staff members all joined together at our Brooklyn Park campus for a time of praise and worship at Adelaide West Uniting Church, followed by a session on diving deeper into God’s word by Dr Matthew James Gray, Head of Postgraduate Studies and Lecturer at Tabor College. Staff members have also benefited from a diverse range of targeted professional development programs, precisely designed to equip them in ministering wholeheartedly to your children throughout Term 3.

Brooklyn Park Campus' exciting new facilities

As we move into the second half of the year, we will experience more examples of Emmaus’ commitment to providing excellent facilities for our students to thrive.

At our Brooklyn Park campus, students will begin to be blessed by the array of new, purpose-built learning spaces, including the expansive new Library, Art / Science Room, Wellbeing and Counselling Centre, Learning Support Centre and Music Room complete with acoustically insulated Instrumental tutor rooms!

I'm also excited to share plans for the installation of a magnificent architecturally designed, weather-proof canopy over the Brooklyn Park hardcourts. This will provide more Physical Education and recreation time for students to enjoy, regardless of the weather.

Also, we look forward to using this sheltered space for outdoor community events. We plan to have concrete footings installed during the next holiday and then completion by Term 1 2024.

South Plympton Master Plans set to 'turn soil' late 2023

Before the end of the year, it is our intention to ‘turn soil’ on the first stage of a multi-stage Master Plan at South Plympton campus.

This comprehensive building development program will modernise and enhance the entire campus, offering students and teachers with cutting-edge, contemporary facilities to not only meet but exceed the educational needs for the season ahead.

This South Plympton Master Plan is the single most significant development of student facilities in the history of our College. Ongoing considerable plans have been made to ensure students’ high quality education remains during this season of refurbishment.

We will share many more specifics in due course however I will attempt to summarise the many highlights for you:

• Brand new Art, Home Economics and Tech Studies facilities (multiple rooms of each), purpose built to the highest modern standards.
• A new ground floor, light-filled, open space library which will open into a new, landscaped, beautiful central garden/plaza area (the current internal staff car park!)
• A dedicated Senior School hub with purpose-built flexible learning/break-out and conference spaces
• A specialist Year 12 area with ample quiet study, collaboration, eating and recreation areas.
• Overall, significant additional landscaped, outside student recreation and play space will be provided, by removing all cars from the current on site car park areas.
• A significant number of additional new, larger, light-filled classrooms will also be constructed across the site to decongest current indoor spaces, while providing the ability to sequentially refurbish all existing indoor spaces.
• One significant key element of this project will be the provision of almost 100 new on-site carparks (under the current hardcourts), decongesting parking and traffic in the surrounding streets and significantly improving traffic flow at drop-off and pick-up times around the campus.

We look forward to sharing the many more features of this exciting development with our community.

Blessings,

Andrew Linke
Executive Principal