The Junction

1 July 2022

A Note From Mr Malpass

The last days of term are always filled with bittersweet emotion. Invariably, no matter how much they love school, the students are pining for their well-earnt holiday, the teachers are mustering up their last reserves of energy, and, often, we are bidding farewells to friends, colleagues and teachers who are about to open new chapters in their lives. For many, they will look back on a year well spent, of academic accomplishments, of personal milestones and of good times spent with wonderful people. For others – our GCSE students moving into the 6^th Form, our Year 6s moving into Year 7, and our departing staff and students heading to pastures new – they stand on the threshold of the future with that heady cocktail of excitement and trepidation. It is also a moment for taking stock.

It has been a year like no other at Jebel Ali. We have seen COVID regulations tighten, relax, tighten and then relax again. And whilst the pandemic is not over, JAS has been able to take advantage of the relaxation in the rules to enjoy some truly memorable firsts: we have seen our first set of formal, external GCSE examinations take place, administered by the wonderful Mrs. McCaffery and Mr. Brown; we were able to celebrate our first secondary school prom in the Meydan ballroom last week thanks to the planning and teamwork of Mr. Mossoni, Mr. Parnell, Mr. Laird and the Year 11 Prom Committee; we watched the Colette Doughty auditorium filled to capacity for our first ever secondary production of ‘Bugsy Malone’, expertly orchestrated by our wonderful cast, and, of course, Miss Channon, Mr. Laird and Mr. Sonsin, with back-up assistance from countless members of our secondary staff family; Miss Channon (or ‘P.E.’ Miss Channon as the students know her) has expanded our sporting and extracurricular programme so that we were able to run our first Model United Nations and first World Scholars Cup; Mrs. Berry and Mrs. Wing coordinated our inaugural whole-school spelling bee; Mrs. Horsham has built our first student leadership team.

Having been at the secondary school since it opened, and having worked at two previous schools from their points of opening, I know what this signifies; I know what this moment is. The school is growing up. Our once quiet corridors are brimming with students; previously unused areas of the school are now full and buzzing with energy; our Sixth Form common room has had life breathed into through our Year 12s and the indefatigable efforts of Mr. Batten. The school is no longer a baby, no longer in its nascence. It has grown up. Thanks to the collective visions and sheer hard-work of a procession of inspirational leaders – first Ms. Doughty and Mr. Hill, and now Mrs. Robinson and Mr. Green, as well as the unstinting faith and support of our parent community – the thirty students that embarked on the journey of opening the secondary school with us has become a thriving, full, happy school filled with wonderful students, wonderful opportunities and wonderful moments that our whole community should be proud of.

I know I am proud of it.

I am proud to have been a part of a school that genuinely puts its students first. Proud to have been given the absolute privilege of forming the vanguard of developing the secondary school. Proud of being part of a team that, as a part of Ms. Doughty’s vision and Mr. Green’s development of it, values its community and its family above all else. Proud to have joined a historical school built through the love and energy of longstanding, tireless colleagues, like Mrs. Cameron and Mrs. Elliott, who have devoted so much of their lives to making JAS a special, unique place. Most of all, I am proud of the wonderful, wonderful students who I have had the privilege to know and teach.

So, as I embark on my final days at JAS, I want to say an enormous thank you to everyone. Thank you to Mrs. Doughty for picking up the phone six and a half years ago to convince me to move from Austria back to Dubai, and for giving me a vision of school that could succeed without ever compromising on its human values. Thank you to the founding secondary team – especially Mr. Brown, Mr. Parnell, Snr. Guerrero, and P.E. Miss Channon and Mrs. Tarbet – for the camaraderie and the unforgettable memories of the best professional years of my life. Thank you to Mrs. Berry for being the best English department leader I could have hoped to work under. Thank you to Mr. Hill, Mr. Green and Mrs. Robinson for their faith and belief in me and the professional opportunities they have afforded me. Thank you to all the staff who have joined the team and worked every day to fulfil our mantra of ‘better is always possible’. Thank you to the incredible Primary staff who have looked after my two children with the utmost care and professionalism. And thank you to all the parents who have blessed us with the most valuable gifts of all: our incomparable students.

I would also like to offer a special thank you to our outgoing Principal, Mrs. Robinson, who has proven the true meaning of leadership to us in guiding JAS through a global pandemic and countless other challenges of enormous magnitude. Most of us can only hope to aspire to the strength, integrity, compassion and fearlessness that she has led us with, and I know I speak on behalf of our whole community in expressing my gratitude for being exactly the leader that we have needed during these troubled times.

I wish you all a wonderful summer after a year of milestones and hard-work, and, from the very bottom of my heart, I wish Jebel Ali school a successful and happy future. It is nothing less than it deserves.

Key Stage 3 Formal Debates

Over the last few days, oratory gladiators from the far corners of Jebel Ali School have been battling it out for total rhetorical domination and superiority in the English Key Stage 3 debate arena. In front of a battle-hardened crowd and esteemed judges, three brave warriors representing each clan were summoned to test their vernacular discourse against three worthy adversaries. Verbal blows backed by reliable research followed by a swathe of devastating statistics, laid a path to their final assault: REAL SECRET and SPECIAL SEARCHER devices causing chaos and carnage amongst the baying crowd. In the end, among the silenced and the dumbfounded, there could only be one team standing proud, only one team able to survey the mayhem and live to debate again.

Debate Motions:

Year 7 Motion: Zoos are good places and a sanctuary for animals.

Year 8 Motion: Space Exploration is a waste of time, money and resources.

Year 9 Motion: Social Media influencers are positive role models.

This has been a busy couple of weeks wrapping up our art projects. We are so proud of our students, who have been superstars, working extra hard to get everything finished.

The Year 8s have glazed their ceramic pots and have been rewarded with glossy and vibrant results. Year 8 also completed their food photography project, culminating in meticulously planned photoshoots in the JAS lighting studio. The end results look delicious!

Year 9 have also been focused on food, with their giant Claes Oldenburg inspired sculptures, ranging from watermelon and sushi to ketchup and lolly pops. This impressive variety of different food and drinks has made for a unique and engaging display in the art corridor.

Photography Club

Photography club has ran this half term, comprising Year 7 and 8 students. They have been working together on a number of fun and creative tasks and mini projects.

The first task was a scavenger hunt with a twist. Students had to locate the twenty-six letters of the alphabet in our school surroundings. Students had to look for objects and shapes that resemble letters. They may not take photos of actual letters or stage any photos.

Students had to hone in on their skills of patience, along with observational and organizational skills. They were able to use iPads or their phone to take the photos. They had to stay focused on looking for the letters in the most abstract places, using their imagination and creativity. When finished, the students had to create a sentence or series of phrases that use all of the letters at least once in a single composition.

I would like to thank my photography club for all their dedication, hard work, exemplary team working skills and imagination. The students have worked together to produce some amazing photographs, under the guise of exploring perspective, symmetry, texture and reflection. Here are a few examples below.

Online Safety

Article of Interest

"Superworms" Can Happily Eat Polystyrene, Offering Help To Plastic Problem

Wiggly bugs typically sold in pet shops as lizard food have revealed a hidden talent.

Superworms with an appetite for polystyrene could become a useful tool for dealing with the planet’s plastic problem. As reported in the journal Microbial Genomics, scientists from the University of Queensland in Australia have discovered that the common Zophobas morio “superworm” can happily digest polystyrene thanks to a bacterial enzyme in their gut.

In fact, their study found that the superworms that were fed a diet of purely polystyrene actually put on a little bit of weight, suggesting that they may be perfectly happy with surviving on this human-made plastic.

“We didn’t know if the superworms could eat and break down plastic when we started the experiments, but we were hoping they would,” Dr Chris Rinke, lead study author from UQ’s School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, told IFLScience.

“Superworms are technically not worms, but are larvae of the darkling beetle Zophobas morio. Insect larvae have a history of damaging and eating plastic,” Dr Rinke added. “Superworms are larger, hence the name ‘Super’, than many other insect larvae in the same family, so we hoped they would be even better suited to eat plastic – and it turned out they have a great appetite for polystyrene,” he explained.

Previous studies have hinted that Zophobas morio larvae possess this appetite for plastic, but the latest study digs a little bit deeper by looking at the genetics that underpin this talent.

To gain a deeper understanding of their plastic-munching ability, the researchers sequenced the DNA of the microbes living in the superworm gut and managed to identify the bacterial genes that code for the plastic-degrading enzymes. This knowledge, they say, could be used in the near future to screen for other bacteria that encode similar plastic degrading enzymes in their genome.

Utilizing bacterial enzymes is the key to scaling up the vision of greener plastic disposal, Dr Rinke says. As opposed to using tanks filled with hungry superworms to do the job, he believes it will be more efficient to go straight to the plastic-munching enzyme.

“We envision that polystyrene waste will be collected, mechanically shredded, similarly to what the superworms do, and then degraded in bioreactors with an enzyme cocktail. The resulting chemical compounds can then be used by other microbes to synthesize products of higher value, such as bioplastics like PHA,” continued Dr Rinke.

It's unclear if and when this dream will become a reality, but it's certainly good to know we have these creepy crawlies on our side in the war against plastic.

Reference

Lora Moore

Science Teacher