Week Twelve - November 18th 2022

#WeRGIS Weekly

From the Head of School's Desk

Dear Parents,

It has been a pleasure to see so many parents in GIS this week, for events, meetings, presentations and workshops. Your commitment to your children’s education, working with our teachers, is wonderful.

As you know, we have families from all around the world at GIS, and from many different linguistic backgrounds. It always impresses us to see parents, who may not have English as their first language, working to improve their level. Ms Mariam, one of our Secondary School ELL teachers, offers ‘English conversation classes for parents’ and I commend the participants for their hard work! Our students love seeing their parents learning too and I thank Ms Mariam for organizing this opportunity.

I am grateful to all members of staff who prepare presentations and workshops for our parents, with the aim of positively impacting the educational journey of our students. To that end, please see a selection of photos below from just some of the sessions this week, which include: GISPA’s Grade 6 Coffee Morning; Mr Mel’s IT parent session on digital best practice for children; Ms Raquel and Ms Sarah’s workshop on positive discipline and parenting skills; and Ms Sandy’s presentation on the MYP.

One of our guest speakers this week, Ms Grainne Parish, an Educational Psychologist from Insights Psychology, spoke eloquently and powerfully about neurodiversity and gave practical advice on how parents of both neurodiverse and neurotypical children can best handle situations, including birthday parties!

It was a fascinating session and I am grateful to Ms Niamh for organizing this.

Many students are looking forward to the football World Cup, and I commend Ms Louise, our Primary School Librarian, for engaging the students in this and reading about various participating countries in the Library, through excellent visual aids as below.

Finally, again thank you to the parents who have already completed the GEMS survey. We very much appreciate your support.

Have a lovely weekend.

Kind regards,

Simon Herbert

Jaguars Corner

JAGUARS

Hard luck to our U19 Boys Basketball Squad who were narrowly beaten in their playoff semi-final on Monday. They will now face Dubai College on Monday 21^st in a 3^rd/ 4^thplace playoff.

Our Jaguars have had a very successful season so far with a number of our teams sitting at the top of their table, which would earn them promotion for next season. We wish all our squads the very best of luck in their remaining fixtures #GoJaguars

U19 Boys Basketball Safa 36 - 27 GIS

U12 Boys Football GIS 5 – 3 DIA Al Barsha

U16 Girls Basketball Metropole 35 – 25 GIS

U16 Boys Basketball GIS 53 - 35 WEK

U14 Boys Football Cambridge 6- 0 GIS

PYP Swim Squad Relay Swim Gala 5^th Place finish

F45 Free GIS Workout

F45 Dubai Hills who would like to finish off the Dubai Fitness Challenge by offering a fitness session on the morning of November 25^th from 07:00-07:45 in the Indoor Sports Hall. The session will be open to all GIS Staff, Parents and G12 students. All those who attend would receive a one week free trial, where you get to experience their format and unlimited classes, which take place at their studio about 5 minutes away from the school. Please can I ask you to fill in this FORM, it would be great to get as many people as possible there as they are offering our community a great deal. Registration for this class will be capped at 40 and places will be given on a first come first served basis.

This Friday workout is going to be a fun 45-minute, high intensity interval training session with a combination of resistance and cardio-based exercises 💪🏼

You will have 2 trainers there to ensure that your technique is correct and to help motivate you throughout 🔥

PLEASE BRING WITH YOU:

· Sweat/gym towel

· Water bottle

· Lots of good energy 🥳

In preparation for your F45 session, please read below:

· If you have any pre-existing medical conditions or injuries that may limit your ability to perform any of our exercises safely and effectively, please advise our coaches on the day before the class starts.

· By attending the F45 session, I am confirming that I have read, understood and agreed to the terms and conditions*

To take advantage of their free trial offer after the workout, you can register directly through their website https://f45training.ae/dubaihills/home and message Chyme, the membership manager, through WhatsApp on 058 589 7071

To see what F45 Dubai Hills is all about, you can also follow them on Instagram here

*F45 Terms and Conditions and Liability Waiver can be found under the 'start trial' tab à 'Studio Waiver' on our website here