Dear Parents,

We hope that all GJS community members enjoyed our recent break. We appreciate your understanding and patience as we all sought to "UNPLUG" from our devices during this time while re-establishing contact with family and friends. If you have communicated with one of our faculty during the past week, we do promise that we will be getting back to you as soon as possible. If the matter is of an urgent nature, please reach out again to the individual you needed to connect with.

Home-Based Learning

Ongoing data collection through conversation and use of surveys continues to shed light on areas of student/faculty strength and areas of need as we support the personal health and wellbeing of our most important assets, our people, while also providing ongoing and challenging academic engagement. Home-Based Learning is a flexible and dynamic endeavour. Based upon the feedback and suggestions provided through our ongoing consultations with students, parents and faculty, updated to our HBL efforts have been developed and will be rolled out. Please refer to our Home-Based Learning site for up to date information.

Post Semester Break

At the moment, it remains uncertain when schools in South Tangerang / Banten will be able to open for Blended learning. As we have previously communicated our ability to re-open requires that: 1) we must be in a yellow or green zone, 2) PSBB must not be in effect, 3) we earn permission to open after having submitted plans and documentation as requested by the 4 Ministries, 4) we pass an onsite inspection, 5) faculty are willing and able to work from GJS campus, and 6) parents show they will have their children attend lessons on the GJS campus.

We have community members and faculty members, some who did not travel out of Indonesia over this past summer, who have indicated they are interested in or committed to travel during our Semester 1 Break (December 19, 2020 - January 10, 2021).

As a result, the Leadership Team has decided that regardless of how Semester 1 ends, we will engage with Home Based Learning from January 11 - 22, 2021. Starting Semester 2 in this manner allows students, faculty and community members who may have travelled internationally to complete the mandatory 14-day quarantine period before any possible on-campus activity. To aid our ongoing planning efforts, we will survey families next week to obtain information regarding if families have planned to travel, and if so, whether or not they are travelling outside of Indonesia.

Inspectorate General Audit, Ministry of Education & Culture

Global Jaya School, after having completed a most successful accreditation review last year by Ministry of Education, has been informed that we will undergo a further audit this coming week. The focus will be on all programmatic elements and Ministry guidelines. This engagement provides us with an opportunity to demonstrate the nature of our adherence to National Standards and Ministry Guidelines while successfully blending them into our IB curricular framework. We will be hosting the inspectors onsite from Monday, November 2 through to Wednesday, November 4.

WASC Mid-cycle Virtual Visitation

We are confirmed to be hosting our WASC visitation guests over November 25 and 26, 2020 for the two and a half days long virtual visit. We will warmly welcome to our community:

- Mr Mark Jenkins, the Visitation Chair, who serves as the Director of Mount Zaagkam Schools in Tembagapura, Papua, Indonesia.

- Mr Keegan Combs, who serves as the Head of Secondary, and Head of School at Canggu Community School in Bali, Indonesia.

Both Mr Jenkins and Mr Combs have visited our campus in years past. In particular, Mr Combs was a member of the joint WASC/IB accreditation/authorization team that visited us in April 2018.

We have collaboratively developed a schedule of engagements that will provide both opportunity to engage with GJS student, parent and faculty community members as well as develop a deeper understanding of our schoolwide action plan, along with areas of growth and challenge, as well as viewing the teaching and learning that is occurring.

November 24th

- Meeting with School Board

- Welcome Meeting with the Leadership Team

November 25th

- Meeting with Leadership

- Meeting with Primary and Secondary Curriculum Leaders

- Meeting with Coordinators

- Meeting with Students

- Classroom virtual visits

- Meeting with Parents

November 26th

- Meeting with Leadership

- Meeting with Dean of Students and Head of Years

- Meeting with Pedagogical Leadership Team

- Meeting with Faculty

- Meeting with the Child Protection Team

- Classroom virtual visits

- Meeting with Leadership to detail their Commendations and Recommendations

- Faculty Meeting

We will continue to update our faculty and community accordingly as the date of the visitation grows closer.

Coffee with Pak Cory and Guests

We have been engaging with our community members in a series of Coffee with Pak Cory meetings, sharing information about the WASC visitation process and listening to and understanding the challenges faced with HBL and the concerns they have regarding a pending switch to Blended Learning on campus. (Sept 9 - Guest Ibu Lien Lien, Sept 23 - Guests Ibu Dewi & Ibu Elena, October 7 - Guests Pak Edi & Pak Steve, Oct 21 - Guests Ibu Vicki & Dr Kianti)

In the coming weeks, two more coffees will be hosted. Our next session will be held on November 11 @ 3:00 pm, as I will be joined by GJS K-12 Curriculum Coordinator and Accreditation Officer Pak James Merry. Then, on November 25 @ 3:00 pm, our guests will be Mr Mark Jenkins and Mr Keegan Combs, the WASC mid-cycle visitation team members. Zoom meeting details for each of these engagements are available on the side menu. We hope to see you there.

Access to Campus

We have been informed that large scale social distancing had been extended in our area through November 19. While large scale physical distancing remains in place, there remains a provision that allows individuals who do not have all the tools necessary to conduct their work while at home to return to work from school.

Book Week Postponed

A message from Pak Ahmad, our GJS Head Librarian: Our Book Week event, previously on the calendar as scheduled for November 9 - 13, has been postponed until further notice. Please be informed that we are unable to conduct this event as access the school campus is not yet available. Thank you.

Admissions

Our Admissions team continues accepting and processing applications for both the current 2020-2021 as well as next 2021-2022 academic years. If you have friends and/or family that may be interested in learning more about joining our community, please encourage them to contact admission@globaljaya.com. They will then receive an email from the Admissions Office with a link to the electronic application. Remember that we continue to offer the 5% tuition fee discount (limit of one discount per family) when one of your referred families enrols their child(ren) at GJS.

If you have any further questions or are interested in a tour, please feel free to contact Ibu Agnes, out Admissions Officer at admission@globaljaya.com or by phone at +62 21 745 7562 Ext.154

As noted last month, I have updated my email and can now be reached at headofschool@globaljaya.com. If you have questions or concerns that you need help in deliberating and resolving, please reach out to me. I want to continue to remind everyone to abide by the requirements to reduce the risk of the spread of COVID-19.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and stay positive.

Warm Regards,

Cory Carson

Head of School