Lior celebrated his Bar Mitzvah at PHC on Saturday 20th May. He had been practising for the bar mitzvah at PHC for a whole year on Thursdays after school and was well-prepared. Family gathered at AVѧԺ on the Thursday morning before Lior’s bar mitzvah to share his first tefillin experience with him. It was very special to be able to share the occasion with all four gra ...

I enjoyed Christopher Hudson’s LinkedIn post this week, which provided a commentary on an episode of Bluey which he said “highlights the quirky, and often hilarious, rules and practices of backyard cricket, but also the dispositions to learning that Rusty gains through participation in sport”. Although my children are far too old to watch Bluey with or without their mother, I w ...

Reading in the Financial Review this week that 38,618 cases of CoVID have been reported in Australia in the past seven days made me stop and reflect on how different my thinking about the pandemic is from this time last year. The main difference is that CoVID occupies significantly far less headspace than it used to - I’ve kept my immunisations up to date and consoled a few fri ...

Sometimes our childhood dreams come true. In fact, recent research by The Genius of Play team found an interesting connection between the games we play as children and our chosen career paths. One of our newest staff members would agree! Meet Simonne Moretta, who joined Carmel Primary School this year as our new Year 4 teacher. Simonne’s desire to teach was evident right from ...

Hope and Optimism Although it may be hard to believe that we’re already half way through Term 2, I find the mid-point in the term a good time to reflect on what I’ve learnt and what is important. Senior students are working hard preparing for and sitting their Semester 1 exams and their teachers are supporting them in their learning endeavours. A professional learning day at ...

Raphael celebrated his Bar Mitzvah at Dianella Shule on 6 May 2023. He read the Shabbat Shacharit service on Saturday morning and explained that this meant reading an extended section from his siddur. For his parsha, he read six of the seven aliyot of the Parsha Emor, followed by the Haftarah. The message of Emor includes providing details about what we should do on each festi ...

Gabriel’s Bar Mitzvah in March was held at Chabad Shule. He was very pleased that his aunty was able to fly over from London, as he hadn’t seen her for a few years; lots of his Year 8 friends from school also attended. At 6.00am on the Thursday before the event, Gabriel went to Shule to put on tefillin for the first time, an important step on his Jewish journey. He was surpris ...

“Does everyone know what JNF stands for?”, asked JNF VIC education shaliach, Eldad Shohan. “Usually it stands for Jewish National Fund, but this week, it’s Jewish National Fun”. Following on from the Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations, JNF Victoria’s education shaliach, Eldad Shoham visited Perth, especially for JNF Week. The festivities began on Monday, 1 May with an assembly to la ...

Our school purpose is “To provide students with an excellent education where they connect meaningfully with their Jewish identity and embrace the opportunity to make a difference”. This week highlighted for me the significant number of ways in which AVѧԺ provides such opportunities for our students. The whole cohort of Year 11 students had the opportunity to visit Roy ...

Excitement at AVѧԺ There was quite some excitement at the High School this week, with the arrival of fire engines on two consecutive days. Happily no roaring flames were evident at any point and I even managed to wangle my first-ever photo with a firefighter. It only took two days for us to trace the source of the triggered smoke alarm – a nest of ants who had taken u ...