In Pelech, girls do study for many hours, but the school encourages their participation in extracurricular activities. During their years at Pelech, the staff helps the girls acquire good time management tools and find the necessary balances between their studies and their other activities and the girls make good use of the time they have. Every student learns to find the right balances for herself and most of them are active in youth movements, volunteer, dance, play basketball and more, each according to her interests.
Our students testify that studying in a feminist school is learning to be the best woman you can be, regardless of your gender. It is to discover what it is to be a girl and a woman in the world we live in, to develop confidence in the woman you are, and to build the sense of capability of each student and team member according to her abilities and desires. We find there is an inseparable connection between feminism and humanism and educate the girls to make an effort and be good for ourselves and for society.
The school curriculum is enriched with special activities around holidays, sports events, art days, interdisciplinary theme days, nature trips and experiential educational tours. A wide variety of experiences that accompany learning in the classroom, allows our students to build their world and enrich it. The school has a dynamic student council of students from grades 7-12, a tradition of a general assembly that allows the involvement of the students in making decisions concerning the day-to-day life of the school. In the middle school, there are elective classes in ecological art, sign language, psychology and more. Girls 10-12 are invited to participate in Dvash, a weekly beit midrash for the sake of learning torah with no grades or exams. The beit midrash is accompanied by the school Rabbi. In addition to the activities inside the school, many girls participate in social activities outside the school in the youth movements, debate and theater groups and more.
The relationship between the students and the staff is a relationship of honesty and trust and mutual appreciation. The staff of teachers in Pelech has a long tradition of educational work that combines professional teaching at the highest level together with a constant, supportive and personal relationship with each and every student. The girls receive warm and familial attention throughout their years at school with the help of the “Chonchut” system, where every student has a specific member of staff that she can turn to with any issue that arises. This exists alongside the dedicated work of the class teachers. In the 7th and 8th grades, the girls and the staff participate in a program of group meetings called “Connections” (Chiburim). Each group of students, under the guidance of a staff member, meets once a month in order to engage together in social-emotional issues that arise during the year and to deepen the acquaintance between the students and between themselves and between them and the educational staff. The teachers in Pelech love their work and see the school as an educational laboratory for the implementation of innovative educational initiatives that reflect the goals of the school and the needs of the students in their content and method of teaching.
Pelech’s unique religious language combines a simple and clear statement of love for God, love of Torah, investment and perseverance and studying Torah at a high level, on the one hand and on the other, a willingness to engage openly, joyfully and without fear in the most complex questions and to relate to issues of personal and religious identity that are relevant to this time.
The respect for family tradition, the deep commitment to the Torah and mitzvot and the personal responsibility of the students for their religious world, are reflected, among other things, in the responsibility for the organization and leading of the shared prayers and the reading of the Torah at school. The school hosts a beit midrash called “Dvash” (honey) intended for students in grades 9-12 and takes place after regular school hours. The students, accompanied by Ayelet Segal, the school Rabbi, study in groups, deal with the sources on their own and acquire self-study skills, text analysis and asking questions. Afterwards they all gather for a meal together in a friendly and pleasant atmosphere and hear a lesson from a guest lecturer. The students who participate in the program have an impact on the content, and when they want to study a certain subject, we make an effort to coordinate with women or men who are experts in the field of interests of the students.
