Dear Parents,

We have been happily busy over the past number of weeks. From my side, I am continually amazed by the resiliency, determination and student care that is being provided by our faculty and parents as we continue with Home Based Learning. We have remained true to our promise of collaborating with you, our parents, as we look to support learning at home, but also make improvements to our teaching and learning practices.

Home-Based Learning

Recent surveys have 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 feedbacks 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 next week. Please see the Home-Based Learning site for information on our pending modifications. Further, the work of our Wellness Committee has been fundamental in ensuring we never lose sight of the critical importance of health, wellbeing and safeguarding. Our Child Protection team has reworked our Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy. We are at the point of having 99% of our faculty have completed their Educare Child Protection Refresher 2020 AND Online Safety Courses. Safety, security, wellbeing, and child protection remain at the heart of our efforts, especially in the times in which we continue to find ourselves.

Mid Semester Conferences

Next Thursday Oct 8 and Friday October 9 we host the Term 1 Mid Semester Conferences. As is the method of engagement at this time, we will be using Google Meet to connect with moms and dads and students to discuss the successes as well as target areas for growth in Term 2. We look forward to full engagement across the school ver these two days. Please remember that Monday October 12 will be a school holiday and that our weeklong fall break will be from October 24 - November 1, 2020.

School Board

The School Board of Global Jaya School comprises: 3 Directors of our Yayasan, the PA Chairperson, 3 Parent Representatives (one for each of the PYP, MYP and DP programmes), our General Manager and myself as Head of School. This advisory body convenes three to four times per school year, to discuss a wide range of matters related to GJS operation and management: student enrolment, student achievement, staffing, school fees, risk assessment, strategic planning and so on. In particular the Parent Representatives serve as a voice of their constituents, helping the board as a whole understand concerns and viewpoints that are prevalent. The information shared, inputs and feedback provided help guide the School Leadership Team in performing their functions with the day to day operations of the school.

We are fortunate this year, given the challenging and ongoing pandemic conditions we face, to have stability on our Board as all members who served during the 2019-2020 school year will be again serving he community during the 2020-21 school year.

Please join me in welcoming the Global Jaya School School Board for the 2020-2021 school year:

Pak Okky Dharmosetio (GJS Board Chairperson and Jaya Foundation Executive Board Chairman)

Pak Trisna Muliadi (GJS Board Member and Jaya Foundation Board of Trustees Chairperson)

Pak Edmund Sutisna (GJS Board Member and Advisor to Jaya Foundation)

Ibu Magellanica Saniesti (Parents Association Chairperson)

Pak Denny Fikri (PYP Parent Representative)

Ibu Devi Ariani Trisnadi (MYP Parent Representative)

Ibu Vera Febrina Unisulawati (DP Parent Representative)

Ibu Lien Lien Anggrahini (General Manager)

Cory J. Carson (Head of School)

TBD (Community Liason Manager and School Board Secretary)

WASC Mid-cycle Virtual Visitation

We have completed and submitted our Mid-cycle Progress Report. Prior to submission, we circulated the draft report with our faculty, the Yayasan Directors, our School Board and GJS Parents Association members, seeking both input and feedback. This progress report is an honest and reflective view of our development over the past two-and-a-half years. It shows our focus on continuous school improvement and improving student academic results as guided by our Schoolwide Action Plan. The details of the plan and prior WASC / IBO feedback is available on our SAP 2018-2023 Google Site. Over the past two weeks Pak James, our K12 Curriculum Coordinator and Accreditation Officer, and I have met with the focal points of each of the five strands of the Schoolwide Action Plan (Teaching and Learning, Community Culture and Wellness, Information Management, Facilities Improvements and Technology Improvements) to map action plan progress, changes and evidence.

The steps listed above, and a number more including filming of HBL lessons across all year levels and disciplines, creating a live meeting schedule for the dates of the virtual visitation and the organisation of requested documentation are necessary to prepare for our WASC mid-cycle visit. We have not yet confirmed the exact dates of the NOVEMBER visitation as we await confirmation of our Visiting Team Chairperson. Once assigned, we will be in full consultation with the Chairperson, and it will be full-speed ahead for remaining preparations.

Coffee with Pak Cory and Guests

We have been engaging with our community members in a series of Coffee with Pak Cory engagements, 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. (Link to Sept 9 Slides and Link to Sept 23 Slides (similar to Sept 9))

In the coming weeks, prior to our Fall Break, two more coffees will be hosted. The first, on October 7 @ 3:00 pm, I will be joined by Pak Steve and Pak Edi from the Secondary School. Then on October 21 @ 3:00 pm, my guests will be Ibu Vicki, our Secondary Dean of Students, and Dr. Kianti, a Paediatric Ophthalmologist and GJS Parent. Zoom meeting details for each of these engagements are available on the side menu. We hope to see you there.

Book Week Postponed

A message from Pak Ahmad, our GJS Head Librarian: Our Book Week event, on the calendar 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.

Access to Campus

We have been informed that large scale social distancing had been extended in our area through October 20. 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.

That stated, we have started the process of welcoming back both Indonesian and expat faculty onto the GJS campus. At this time, all individuals remain self-selecting, they do not, nor do the people they live with, have uncontrolled co-morbidities, and all have safe and secure methods of moving to and from their homes to our campus. All faculty who wish to work on-site must undergo COVID testing, as was explained in our Return to Campus plan. Once on campus, all faculty members must adhere to the health check and physical distancing protocols that we have put in to place. As we have begun returning covid tested and cleared faculty to the campus, we have also ended the casual on and off campus visits that students and faculty could request. Moving forward, all faculty must be tested and cleared prior to their working from campus. Student visitations will be limited to drop off and pick up from the main gate areas until further notice.

Admissions

Our Admissions team continues accepting and processing applications for both the 2020-2021 and 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 a 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

I am so very proud to be the Head of Global Jaya School. Day in and day out, our commitment, mutual support and above all else care for one another is what makes this community great. I had someone ask me what the USP of Global Jaya School is. I had to ask what a USP was! It is a Unique Selling Proposition; the unique benefit that we have as a school that enables us to stand out from others. It is hands down our community and the real supportive, caring and collaborative nature with which we engage with each other. In 28 years of education, I have seen nothing like it, and in these challenging and uncertain times, I am so delighted and proud to be a small contributing part of it and would not wish to be anywhere else.

I have updated my email, I can now be reached at headofschool@globaljaya.com if you have questions or concerns that you need help in deliberating and resolving. 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