When I started working at Carmel School, I was told I would soon notice the benefits of a school with a strong sense of community and during the past fortnight, I have seen this in action. We have been hit hard by COVID-19. With very few days missed during Term 1, this situation has now been reversed and I think that towards the end of this week, we broke the threshold of havin ...

From the Principal
From the Principal

We’ve had a great start to Term 2, with Carmel students returning in their smart winter uniforms and appearing refreshed after a good break. Changes to COVID-19 restrictions have meant that we can welcome more people onto the campus, which is great.  Planning has moved into overdrive, as we re-work our schedules and invitations to see which assemblies and other gatherings can ...

From the Principal

We made it! It’s the end of Term and time for everybody to take some time off. Our students and staff have worked very hard and it’s easy to see the signs of tiredness at school. These signs are reflected in a few more latecomers in the morning, some more antsy behaviours from those who have peaked a little early and are struggling to last the final week of term, some friends n ...

From the Principal

The renovations at PHC meant that Elizabeth’s bat mitzvah service was held on a Friday night at school rather than shule. Initially Elizabeth was disappointed by this, but upon reflection of her family’s connection and contribution to the history of Carmel School, she was proud to do her bat mitzvah there. Elizabeth was apparently a bit nervous as she hadn’t done much public s ...

Bar and Bat Mitzvah News, Jewish Studies, From the Principal

One piece of investigative work that I have been particularly enjoying during my first term at Carmel School has been finding out what our community believes constitutes the ideal Carmel graduate. What would we want to be the characteristics and attributes of someone leaving our school? What are the most important and impressive traits of someone who has benefited from a Carmel ...

From the Principal

One of the scariest things for me in accepting the role of Principal of a Jewish school was the fear that I just wouldn’t know enough about what being Jewish actually meant. Until last year I had not (knowingly) ever even spoken to a Jew and I knew very little about Jewish culture and religion other than some distant history lessons on the Holocaust, a childhood reading of the ...

From the Principal

In recent years, wellbeing has been a topic of much debate in schools as well as in society in general. I liked the Victorian Government’s Better Health website description: “Wellbeing is not just the absence of disease or illness. It’s a complex combination of a person's physical, mental, emotional and social health factors. Wellbeing is strongly linked to happiness and life s ...

From the Principal

School uniform is a controversial thing. It brings out strong emotions in people. New Principals are always advised, “Don’t go near the uniform policy in your first year!” and told that if they brave the world of wholesale uniform change, it is at their own peril.   When I was in the upper sixth form at school (the equivalent of our Year 12) I was the Deputy Head Girl (note us ...

From the Principal

Teamwork is all about collaborating and co-operating with others to work towards a common goal. It may not be difficult to define, but it is one of those hard-to-measure skills regularly described as essential for an effective workplace. Many schools include teamwork as a focus for development in their students and in the workplace, employers see it as a highly desirable attrib ...

From the Principal