Hebrew University Secondary School - Leyada

The Hebrew University Secondary School was founded in 1935 as a pedagogical laboratory for gifted and talented students in Jerusalem. Today, with more than 1,100 students and 200 teaching professionals, Leyada is one of the country’s leading high schools for outstanding learners and is widely acclaimed for its capacity to nurture intellectual curiosity, creativity, and academic excellence. It offers a unique educational experience, combining a challenging STEM curriculum, humanities studies, experiential learning, and community engagement to foster the development of ethical, curious, and knowledgeable citizens who are capable of meeting the challenges of an evolving world and assuming leadership roles based on broad social awareness. While learners who have consistently excelled academically continue to represent the majority of our student body, Leyada also embraces underprivileged children, including from the Ethiopian community who were unable to reach their full potential in elementary school. Leyada provides intensive support to help them close gaps and fully integrate into the mainstream program. The School’s diverse student population also includes young people from Jerusalem’s religious and Arab communities. Twelve years ago we also opened a program for gifted and talented students who had been diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum. This is the only program in Israel that addresses these two special needs simultaneously. Our institution is committed to multiculturalism, pluralism, inclusion, and equality, and to the educational success of all its students. Since its establishment, Leyada has seen thousands of students graduate, many of whom have gone on to shape Israeli society and contributed both locally and internationally. Among our Alumni are Nobel Prize laureates, a Fields Medal winner and Wolf Prize recipient, Israel Prize recipients, and prominent figures in the fields of politics, science, the arts and letters, law, high-tech, medicine, and the military.