One of the lovely things about arriving at a new school is that you slowly start to find out about the many and varied opportunities available to the lucky students in your care. Some of these opportunities are well publicised and everybody knows about them; others are less obvious.

For example, our entrepreneurship program is well-known in the education community; I learnt all about it at a workshop run by Ms Lee at an Innovation in Education Festival I attended in Claremont last year. Carmel鈥檚 Year 9 and 10 students are the only Australian school students provided with the opportunity to participate in the American-based Uncharted Learning program. They develop the skills needed to solve problems in innovative ways that are meaningful to consumers, supported by external mentors from the business community.听 If you鈥檙e new to the Carmel community, you can read about our entrepreneurship program here.

Also well known (when COVID-19 doesn鈥檛 hinder us) is the large range of extra-curricular clubs available in our Primary School. I particularly liked the sound of 鈥楴ature Play鈥�, 鈥楯ump Jam鈥� and 鈥楻obotics and Coding鈥�; I shall look forward to visiting these and our many other clubs in action when we can run them again.

In terms of leadership opportunities for students in the High School, the Student Representative Council is our Year 12 student leadership group which provides an opportunity for students to lead. This year鈥檚 SRC students are currently planning a spectacular Purim celebration which they have been working on for some time; they are developing the same leadership skills to which adult leaders aspire 鈥� resilience, foresight, compassion, emotional intelligence and persuasion. In these COVID times, they are also realising the importance of flexibility and a mindset that allows them to be unphased by the need to change plans and pivot at the last moment.

Leadership in the Primary School has a different context but plays a similar role in terms of opportunities for the children. Our Year 6 student leaders have already planned their missions for 2022 and these will be made public in our Year 6 leadership assembly tomorrow. I won鈥檛 spoil their enthusiasm by publicising the details here before they are launched at the assembly, but the Environmental, Judaica and Administration and Special Events student leaders have carefully planned their strategies for the year and their thinking is impressive.听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听听

Musical instrument tuition, amazing concert events, involvement in sports, outdoor education, Jewish Studies and art camps, our famous school musicals and many other areas of opportunity at Carmel are all similarly well-known.

But some opportunities are more hidden. They are less obvious and for this reason probably also less easy to report on and reveal. For example, our small classes and dedicated teachers mean that staff can really get to know their students and work out how they learn best.

Educators are often reluctant to talk about the opportunity for personalised learning, fearing that parents may consider this to mean that a teacher should create a different learning plan for every child in their class, which would clearly be an impossible task. But with small classes, expert teachers do have the time to craft lesson plans for the students in front of them and get to know their students well, so they can genuinely cater for their learning needs. Several teachers have told me that this, together with the motivated and hard-working approach of the students at Carmel, reminds them that 鈥淭his is what I came into teaching to do 鈥� to really teach鈥�.

The academic opportunities provided to our most senior students are second to none. As well as learning in small classes, enabling their teachers to support their learning needs at each stage, every Year 12 student benefits from a personal meeting with our Head of Secondary, Mr Shadgett. He takes them through a detailed review and target-setting process in which they calculate and analyse predicted results and set targets specific to their post-Year 12 goals. Every individual student鈥檚 pathway is considered, and time spent discussing where they see their future. Everybody needs a dream, a set of goals and a roadmap to achievement.

Similarly, Mrs Shuhandler meets individually with every Year 10 student to discuss the results of their online Morrisby assessment. This analysis tool provides students with a wealth of information regarding their natural strengths, preferences, personality and work style 鈥� invaluable as students start to consider possible future careers and educational opportunities. Results from the assessment are apparently impressively detailed and fabulous in terms of suggesting appropriate pathways for the students to think about.

Last week, I had the pleasure of telephoning parents whose daughters and sons had just spent their first couple of weeks at Carmel, starting with the new families, joining our Early Learning Centre for the first time. I am well aware that leaving your smallest and most precious children behind for the day can be a challenge for parents. Wondering how they will cope without you and worrying about whether they wept in the corner all morning can be very stressful for a parent, so I approached the telephone calls with some trepidation.

I needn鈥檛 have worried. My first dozen phone calls were so uplifting, I decided to save some for another day when I might need a morale boost. The mums and dads I spoke to described our educators as 鈥渨onderful鈥�, 鈥渁mazing鈥�, 鈥渟o caring鈥�, 鈥減erfect鈥� 鈥� it was an impressive list of adjectives describing an experience which had clearly surpassed all expectations. That evening, I commented to the staff involved that had significant bribes been paid to the parents I鈥檇 called, they could not have been any more effusive in their praise of the excellence they had encountered in our ELC. I variously heard that in the first two weeks at Carmel, three children had already noticeably increased their vocabulary, one girl had started singing Hebrew songs at home, another boy had made friends and was getting out of bed in the morning pleased when it was a school day. 听Others described their reluctant child who had previously needed to be prised from their leg each morning, now racing happily away from them through the classroom door to get started on their Carmel day. It was a warm and fuzzy afternoon for me, hearing about the difference that our educators are making to some of the youngest members of our community.

It is these opportunities that make 国标麻豆视频APP a special place - the hidden opportunities from which our students benefit. As the year progresses, I am looking forward to seeing our students develop and grow as a result of the opportunities they grasp at our School.

For those currently outside our Carmel community, if you would like to explore the opportunities available at our School for your family, please get in touch via email. We are very proud of our School and the opportunities we offer and we would love to show you around.