Dear  Parents 

Welcome to Term 1 and the new academic year! It has been a privilege to meet you and the students this week as we start the academic year.  I hope your children, our students have had a good first week. There has certainly been a buzz around campus and it has been heart warming seeing the students so excited to be back together after the break. As the incoming Interim Head of School I have been touched by the warm welcome you have given me and my other new colleagues. My job is to work in partnership with the Board to help the school implement systems and processes to support both the sustainability and success of the school so that operations do not stop when people change. Whilst doing this it is essential that we do not lose the unique community feel of the school which makes BIS so special. We will be inviting your contributions through the course of the year. Having your say does not always mean getting your way and hearing different perspectives supports better decision making. 

Throughout my career in education I have observed that the students who thrive are the ones where home and school work in partnership to support them. Schools are complex ecosystems with many layers and interdependent factors. We recognise that school systems and educational terms can be confusing for parents. This is why we believe it is very important for us to provide clear lines of communication. Our communication platforms are Toddle and our Website. We know there has been a culture of Whats App groups and we acknowledge that these serve a useful purpose. These groups support the promotion of PTA events and as reminders of events for the class they are associated with. They become unhelpful when they are used as vehicles to vent personal concerns and interpretations of what the school is doing. Toddle and our website retain a permanent digital footprint that the school can reference, Whats App groups do not as they are not controlled by the school. Our home room teachers and class teachers are always willing to answer questions about your child and their education so please do reach out to them with any concerns. 

We will be holding our Term 1 Open House on Tuesday 18th August where we invite you to hear from our Primary and Secondary Principals and to meet the Home Room or Advisory teachers who will be supporting your child this year. As an IB World School we want your child to be discussing their learning at home; exploring different perspectives and ways of approaching tasks as they build their learning toolkit and develop their skills as researchers and communicators. We value the opportunities we have to share the PYP, MYP and IBDP learning journey with you and hope to see many of you there.   

Thank you to those of you who have shared feedback around the uniform change. We are aware that there have been some issues with being able to supply skorts of an appropriate size. In recognition of this we propose to use semester one as a transition period and expect all Secondary female students to be wearing skorts in Semester 2. For clarification Grade 11 and 12 learners are welcome to wear long trousers. These should be professional looking, tailored trousers not jeans and should be black or navy in colour. 

As I shared last week we are working on Campus Health and Safety as one of our goals and I thank you for your support with wearing lanyards to identify yourselves as parents. As we look to make improvements around our procedures and the campus itself it is imperative that we review our facilities' usage and add booking systems to ensure we know who is using them. We will share more later this term. Several improvements have been made to our facilities over the summer and our new Facilities Manager is working hard with his team to prioritise student health and safety. Please remember that campus opens to staff before families. Please do not enter class until 7.30am to allow teachers time to set up. Lessons start at 7.45am sharp and students who are not in class by then will be considered late. 

Wishing you all a lovely weekend. 

Best wishes

Dr Heather

Dear Families,

Welcome back! Whether you're returning for another year or joining Bali Island School for the very first time, we are so glad you're here. On behalf of the Parent Teacher Association, we want to extend a warm welcome to all of our new families. We're genuinely excited to get to know you and hope you'll feel at home with us quickly.

This year also brings some new faces to our school leadership, teachers and staff, and we want to give them the same warm welcome. To Dr. Heather Millington, our Interim Head of School; Mr. Shaun Hudson, our Secondary Principal; and Elisa Ingles, our Primary Head of School – congratulations on a successful first week of school! We look forward to building strong partnerships together in the year ahead. PTA is ready to start and build on our lovely community working in partnership with our new leadership team. In our first meeting we will outline our new goals and invite new members to join the PTA committee, please see the invite below with details. 

As we are experiencing a period of transition in the school this year, we want to focus on developing some clear guidelines for our PTA with a clear and transparent partnership with the leadership team and our Host Country group. This may mean reviewing what the PTA does within the school, how the events are run, and how the systems, protocols and bylaws are managed. This will hopefully make it a much easier process to plan and create the amazing events throughout the year. As we celebrate BIS’s 40th anniversary, we are excited to stay connected, communicative, and present for one another as we step into this new chapter together.

We have a full year of events and ways to get involved ahead of us, and we can't wait to see you. If you'd like to get involved with the PTA, whether that's volunteering for an event, joining a committee, or simply staying in the loop,  please don't hesitate to reach out.

If you are full of ideas, want to help out in any way, and even join one of the vacant positions in the committee, please join us next Tuesday at 8am in the upstairs library. We value input from across the community, and welcome all! 

Here's to a wonderful year ahead, together.

Warmly,

Allison Jaquier

PTA Chair

Julia Schwarz

PTA Secretary