Year 7 PTCs are next week on Monday, Tuesday (both in school) and Wednesday (online). On Monday and Tuesday, most Year 7 & 8 teachers will be in the Small gym for appointments. Whole school specialists (music, computing, PE...) will be in the library as usual. A big difference from year 6 is that each appointment is 5 minutes long and parents will speak to more teachers than previously. It might be a good idea to bring your Year 7 student to the appointments to hear what the teachers say.

The Junior Duke of Edinburgh award has now launched in school. If your child is involved, they should be able to access the online portal. If they are not involved, this could be a great opportunity in year 8.

Students will select their class representative on  Sunday 18th October. This is a fantastic chance for students to get involved in school life and to learn some leadership skills for a great cause.

There are no ECAs next week due to the PTCs.

A new ECA cycle will begin in November and parents received an email on Parental Correspondence 13th October with full details.

Evo Sports Qatar have generously given a free sports trial voucher to the students. This is a great opportunity to try a new sport and get involved in a sports community.

Following on from the assembly, next week I will be teaching all three classes how to effectively revise. I have done this in a History lesson to help prepare for the following week's History assessment. Each term I will revisit and show the students what to do, and what not to do, when revising. A very important skill to build as they go through secondary school.

Many thanks to the parents who came to the Welcome to Year 7 & 8 coffee morning previously. I will leave the slides here in case you wish to read through them at any point.

We would like to remind families that students are not permitted to bring mobile phones to school. The only rare exception to this rule is for students who require a phone to order an Uber or arrange transport at the end of the day. In these specific circumstances:

• Phones must remain switched off and out of sight throughout the entire school day.

• Students may only use their phone once they are at the school gate at dismissal.

• Students using a phone for this reason must be wearing a black lanyard.

We appreciate your full support in enforcing this policy to keep our school day safe and distraction-free.

Year 7 school photos have taken place and students have received their Pret-a-Portrait QR code for you to decide whether to purchase or not.

We hope you are enjoying using our new Edulink One platform. We would like to remind you that you can use this platform to communicate with your child’s teacher and our front office staff. We will no longer be using Class Dojo going forward, so any communication sent via this app will not be seen by our staff. 

If you have any issues with accessing Edulink One please refer to our letter sent on the 31st May or contact our IT department at itsupport@dess.org.

All students in Year 7 & 8 have been signed up to take part in Challenge ME. This is an international Maths competition and will take place in Maths lessons. This has now started in Maths lessons and students are competing against other schools in the Middle East.

Students have been using lockers very well to come to lessons organised. I have been impressed by how many children have brought the correct books and equipment to lessons so far. All locker keys and lanyards have been distributed. Textbooks have been given for some subjects already, with more to follow next week.

Year 7 has now commenced. Teachers will tell the students the homework in class and record it on Google Classrooms for students to see. Parents can also view assignment information as their child's homework on Edulink. We encourage parents to monitor and discuss the completion of homework with students. We want students to get into the habit of managing their own homework and sticking to deadlines. This is a big change for the Year 7 and we know it may take some time for the students to be fully organised.