Insights

A powerful metaphor for describing contemporary education is that it should focus on the head, heart and hands. Here, the head references the cognitive development and knowledge acquisition that is so central to all learning. The heart refers to values and focus on student wellbeing and key interpersonal skills. The hands are the pragmatic life […]

“The teacher is of course an artist, but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile, can shape the students. What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.” This quote by Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, expresses the view that a

At King David we move to the rhythm of the Jewish calendar and this has been especially the case this week as we commemorated Yom HaShoah and Yom HaZikaron and celebrated Yom HaAtzmaut. Anne Frank wrote that “We can never become just Netherlanders, or just English, or representatives of any country for that matter; we

Why is this seder like no other? At many of the sedarim throughout the KDS community this year there will be a new addition to the seder table – an ice block. Our school has joined the Jewish Climate Network (JCN) in promoting and supporting the Pesach Ice Block Challenge. This involves including an ice

This week we conducted a Parent Information Evening on the topic of “Social Media and Mental Health – Time to Get Serious”. We were privileged to hear from Dr Jeremy Blumenthal, adolescent psychiatrist, and David Opat, Vice Principal Student Wellbeing and child psychologist. Jeremy and David explained that they were not going to focus on

There is a legendary story told about a visit undertaken by President John F. Kennedy to NASA in Cape Canaveral in 1961. President Kennedy was taken on a tour to gain a firsthand look at the progress that the USA was making in the race to be the first nation to land people on the

“Just as the impacts of evil are borne by all of us, so too are solutions borne of all of us.”These are the words of child sex abuse survivor and Australian of the Year, Grace Tame. We have a problem. All is not ok in our society and we must no longer accept the status

In our vision and values statement we explicitly acknowledge the vital place that Israel holds within our school identity. While we are proudly Australian Jews, in parallel, we are constantly striving to nurture “a close and meaningful relationship with the land and State of Israel.” At the King David School, we place Israel at the

Hinei Matov umanaim shevet achim gam yachad! This short circuit breaker lockdown has brought into sharp focus how much better it is when we can be together as a community. I am so grateful to our staff, students and families for the incredible flexibility, positivity and open-mindedness with which you approached the interruption to our

There is a wonderful parable that I presented at the recent Years 6-8 Parent Information evening which I think is worth sharing more broadly. There was a family who packed all their belongings into a cart in order to move from one town to the next one. They completed the journey across a number of