Earlier this week I was privileged to attend our Creative Arts Expo that showcased the incredible work of our Visual and Performing Arts students. At the event, I spoke about why we value arts education so much at The King David School and see it as such a vital component of the holistic learning that we provide our students.  I wish to share these sentiments with you now.

The late, inspirational educational thinker, Sir Ken Robinson posited that creativity “is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.

”Likewise, the Australian Curriculum describes the importance of nurturing creativity through education in an arts program when it states that “The Arts entertain, challenge, provoke responses and enrich our knowledge of self, communities, world cultures and histories. The Arts contribute to the development of confident and creative individuals, nurturing and challenging active and informed citizens.”

Contemporary research tells us that arts education has wide ranging benefits for young people.  In a study undertaken by the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Education and Social Work and The Australia Council for the Arts it was noted that students who had received a creative arts education enjoyed advantages in a range of academic and well-being measures including “motivation, homework completion, class participation, enjoyment of school, and educational aspirations … self-esteem, life satisfaction, and a sense of meaning or purpose.

”At our School we give great prominence to the Arts as we feel that it is through nurturing creativity that our students are able to develop many key life skills and thinking dispositions associated with exploration of themselves, developing their empathy for others and adoption of traits such as flexibility, refinement and collaboration.

With all this in mind it was such a thrill for us to be able to witness the end products that were the culmination of so many hours of ideation, development and refinement.

The Creative Arts Expo is the result of a tremendous amount of work by our students and by our teachers who have inspired them, nourished them and guided them.

I am hugely proud of our educational team that facilitates the magic that our wonderful students produce.

Needless to say, I also derive immense nachat (pride) from our incredible students. I thank each of them for their spectacular contribution to the arts at KDS and, to our graduating students, I wish you b’hatzlacha (good luck) for the journey ahead.