On tours with prospective King David families I often state that when accepting a place at our school, one does not merely enrol, one joins a community. Similarly, when we meet with our new parent cohorts we implore them to model for our students what looking out for one another genuinely looks and feels like.

With this in mind, it is hard to find the words to sufficiently express what a blessing it has been to feel the warmth of my community following the recent loss of my mother.

I hope you forgive the indulgence of my using this column for such personal reasons this week. However, there is a message that I wish to extend to the wider King David community and that is that I am just so grateful to all of you.

Over the past few weeks, I have had senior colleagues stepping up to provide me the space to farewell my mother and then to grieve with my family. This has been the most incredible gift and afforded me the opportunity to make certain that nothing was left unsaid before my mother passed and that I was fully present and available to support my immediate family during this period. The team jumped into action and offered me protection so that I could focus all my energies on my family.

We have experienced an outpouring of concern and care from staff, parents and students. The school community reached out with countless food packages and flowers sent to me and to my father. We were then supported through the funeral, minyan and shiva periods. We have been simply overwhelmed with your communications and generosity.

While I have often heard the KDSPA representatives briefing parents that the school community is there to celebrate with you in good times and to support you in bad times, it was different to be on the receiving end of such powerful displays of kindness. It felt incredible to be held by The King David School and to gain first-hand experience of what it is that makes this community such a special one.

I know that this extraordinary expression of compassion and care is the love language of our school. I do not take this for granted and wanted to highlight the very real positive impacts it has had on me and my family so that I can try to adequately express my thanks to you all and also so that you recognise how precious that this school community is.

In 1979, a year after The King David School first opened, my parents chose it as the school for my older sister and two years later I joined in Junior Kindergarten. It was an inspired choice. Since then, King David has been a central aspect in our broader identity as a family. Many of my best childhood memories are entwined with KDS celebrations of Chagim, Sports days and of the lifelong friendships forged with my contemporaries. As I have transitioned from Student to Parent and Principal, my sense of pride and fortune in belonging to this school community has multiplied.

I have always believed that we have something so special at KDS, but now, on behalf of my immediate and extended family, I can add our personal testimonies to those that recognise the enormous impact that our school culture extends to those who need support.

Shabbat Shalom and Todah Rabah,

Marc Light
Principal