Week Three- September 16th 2022

#WeRGIS Weekly

From the Head of School's Desk

Dear Parents,

I would like to thank the Primary School teacher and leaders, and the Secondary School leaders and Heads of Department, for organizing two informative ‘Back to School Evenings’ this week. I noticed some parents with younger and older children came to both events and I thank you for your commitment to your children’s education. These chances to link with school are so valuable and allow us all to be aligned.

Recruitment of teachers is such a crucial part of a school leader’s role and I am delighted that so many staff are showing interest in working at GIS. Our HR and school leadership teams are thorough in recruitment processes, which includes liaising with the most reliable educational agents, who have a clear understanding of GIS and our high expectations. Therefore, I was pleased to welcome Ms Laura Rigney from Teacher Horizons to our school this week. Ms Laura is familiar with GIS and we discussed our future needs and school profile. The photo here also includes our Head of HR, Ms Ruth Warde, who is instrumental in developing our recruitment partnerships.

Teaching and learning remains our focus and, as you know, one of our five Strategic Priorities is ‘Culture of Learning’. It was therefore a delight to hear from Mr Ged that every CP grade 12 student has offered to become a mentor of the new CP Grade 11 cohort. Emails have been exchanged and ‘buddies’ set up. Three students (Kabir, Dylan and Vansh) are even offering presentations to all CP newcomers on themes such as stages of service, portfolio management, and life as a CP student.

Well done to all in reflecting the GIS values so well and helping others to succeed.

I tried very hard last weekend, as I took my son ice skating, to display some IB Learner Profile attributes. I managed a bit of Balance, but not a lot more! I was hoping that I would not be spotted teetering on the ice by any GIS families but I then literally bumped into Amelie (Grade 1). She had not skated before and showed real Risk-Taking, heading out to the ice on her own and skating for the first time. One of these photos shows me helping her, not stealing her push-along penguin for my own use!

Finally, on the traffic front, we continue to push for action from Emaar and RTA through our group colleagues. The exit road from Emaar has started to be built (projected finish end of September) and we shall soon look at the adjusted traffic flow. I have also contacted STS for a review, and am delighted to see more car pooling. Greater breadth of staggered timings between schools is of course being considered and WEK is conducting a survey (a requirement from KHDA) in order to shift timings. We shall consider the same, when we have seen the new traffic flow in action; we have to beware pushing timings which then lead to a huge wait for NMS buses to depart. We shall keep all options in mind. For now, I would ask for patient driving near the schools, and I thank you for considering the children.

May I wish you a lovely weekend.

Simon Herbert

Extra Curricular Activities and ECA's

It was amazing to see so many students trying out for our various squads over the past 2 weeks. Congratulations to those who were selected and hopefully those who were not will learn from the experience and use it as a positive moving forward. Everyone faces disappointment and setbacks in life and how we react to these setbacks can influence our future paths.

Our Term 1 ECA offerings are now finalised and available to view on SOCS. Both our school teacher led internal and external offerings can be found on SOCS, however you will notice that External Activities are Invite Only as these need to be registered for at ESM.ae. The registration process for this is quite lenghty, so check the external offerings on SOCS to see if there are any activities you would like to join first.

Key Points:

- Parent sign-up is now open for both internally school teacher led activites and externally led paid activities

- Inteternal activities, which are led by school teachers and included in your tuition fees, can be signed up for on SOCS (LogIn Support)

- External activites, which are delivered by outside companies and come with an additional charge, can be signed up for on ESM.ae website. (Registration Guidelines attached)

- All ECAs will begin on September 19th

Please find further squad information HERE.

GIS Community Calendar 22/23

If you would like to subscribe to the the GIS Community Calendar, please click HERE for the link.

This calendar will be continually updated to reflect key dates and events.

STS_Parents as Partners_2022 With RoSPA.pdf

Page updated

Report abuse