I frequently meet with adults who warmly remember their school days as amongst the best times in their lives. I loved my childhood growing up at The King David School in the 1980s. I also remember those times through a nostalgic haze. That said, when I see the extraordinary learning opportunities that our current students experience, I cannot help but feel a tinge of jealousy coupled with a sense of wonder at how brilliantly this will shape them for their future.

This week I had exposure to some exceptional events that demonstrated the agile and innovative approach to teaching and learning that is embedded within our educational philosophy.

I was fortunate to join the grandparents, parents, staff and the students of Gan Zayit and Gan Gefen at the celebration which culminated a year of experiential learning in our bush kinder. The Bush Kinder program has been designed to deeply engage our students with nature and to enhance their love of being outdoors. It encourages risk taking and development of the skills to develop both a sense of comfort and wonder in exploring the natural playground of Australia’s native fauna and flora. Our students have regularly visited a range of bush and beach locations to expand their experience. It was evident that the training had paid off as the students were far more comfortable in their gumboots and jackets and were unfazed by the cloud of mosquitoes that had been attracted by Melbourne’s recent wet weather. I cannot similarly attest to the bravery of the parents or my colleagues!

Earlier this week, I was privileged to hear ‘live’ speeches from some of history’s most powerful changemakers. Our Year 6 students each chose a notable character who they were inspired by. They researched their characters and prepared a speech from the changemaker’s perspective explaining what they were trying to overcome, what they achieved and how they changed the world for the better. It was so wonderful to see the students explore the lives of Adam Goodes, Nelson Mandela, Helen Keller, Oskar Schindler, Greta Thunberg and Eddie Mabo, to name but a few. The parents and friends who visited were most impressed by the way that the learning connected so explicitly with positive values. Not only were our students learning research, biography and web design skills, they were learning about the values that helped these individuals stand out and fight to overcome injustice.

Our Year 7s demonstrated the power of social and experiential learning in their iteration of the Project Based Learning (PBL) task, Future Cities. One of the most influential research projects conducted into the Middle Years of education, the Middle Years Research and Development Project (MYRAD), identified harnessing the power of the students’ connection to their social world and finding real world situations for them to test and apply their learning, as strategies which deeply engage students at this developmental stage. In the case of Future Cities, our students had explored the factors that were contributing to climate change and, in groups, used their creativity to design cities that were more resilient and utilised solutions to reduce emissions production. The students explored geothermal, solar and wind solutions, carbon capture and storage and transport solutions too. The result was a deep understanding of the core curriculum – some significant science, geography and humanities content – which was achieved in an engaging and empowering manner. The students designed and confidently presented their beautiful models which demonstrated their learning to the parents, staff and other students who visited their virtual cities.

While each of these learning experiences can seem extraordinary in their own ways, they are just three examples of the typical lives of students in a contemporary King David education. Our students are constantly stimulated in developmentally appropriate ways across our core areas of teaching and learning, Jewish life and student wellbeing. When we add in the substantial array of co-curricular learning opportunities across the performing and visual arts, digital technology and sport, we can understand how blessed our students are to receive such wonderful holistic learning opportunities.

Shabbat Shalom,

Marc Light