Insights

This week our Hebrew and Jewish Studies staff attended the Zionist Federation of Australia’s biennial Educators Conference. It was an outstanding two day program of Jewish learning and I was thrilled that our own Ilan Bloch, Keren Gengut-Mushinsky, Damien Green and Hani Ron all ran beautifully received sessions. I attended a number of sessions by […]

Tomorrow is our school’s founder, Rabbi Dr John Levi AC DD’s 90th birthday. Rabbi Levi is so important to our school community. He has also played a very significant role in my life.  He officiated at my Bar Mitzvah and my wedding and was a very strong influence in my childhood at The King David

This week our Year 4 students celebrated their Tanach study with the “Eleh HaShemot” (“These are the names”) presentation shared with family and friends. The session enabled our students to discover the origins of their names and, together with their loved ones, to participate in some shared learning around this theme. The event began with

his week our Prep students marked their 100th day of school. This is celebrated with typical KDS cuteness – our students and teachers dressed up as 100 year olds, replete with grey hair, glasses and walking canes.  Every time I visit our Preps, I need to remind myself to look past the inevitable cuteness and

In the coming weeks, our community will be transfixed by the Paris Olympics. The Olympics motto was modified prior to the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and it now reads in Latin Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter and Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together in English. The original motto emphasises that the Olympics is about achievement in sport at the highest

I have always been a big believer in the efficacy of parenting books. Some can offer wonderful advice and others great comfort when we realise that the behaviours or issues that keep us awake at night can be regarded as normal. For me, the greatest benefit of these books is that they tend to inspire

The middle years of schooling are often characterised as a challenging time for learning. Students at this stage tend to be developing a stronger sense of their identity and typically experience an imperative to prioritise their social world above their studies. Over these years, they often transition to seeing their peers as the central authorities

Last Friday our staff participated in our annual Student Wellbeing Conference which was made possible thanks to the Debbie Stach Memorial Fund. The conference involves targeted professional development which is focused on supporting our staff to best meet the wellbeing needs of our students. Our school prioritises the wellbeing of our students as we believe

One of the precious items I possess is a tape-recording of an interview I conducted with my late grandfather, Kurt Lippmann, in which he detailed his story of escape from Hamburg, Germany in the lead up to the Shoah. In a peculiarity of the old cassette technology, the recording has bled into what it was