14 May 2020

Dear Parents,

On Monday this week, Kent College were one of the first schools in the UAE to receive the one-day Distance Learning Evaluation from the Dubai School's Inspection Bureau. Over the course of 5 hours, the evaluators joined ‘live’ online lessons, watched screencasts of others and were involved in three major meetings with Senior Leaders, members of the Academic Team and members of our Wellbeing Team.

Although the evaluators fed back very little at the end of the day, they did leave these three points:

• The technical capability of the teaching staff and pupil body was found to be highly proficient;
• Our school had prepared and provided an abundance of samples of student work, assessment and documentation; and
• School leaders and teachers have worked diligently and strategically in preparing staff and pupils for the distance/online learning period.

During the final discussion on Monday afternoon, senior leaders were asked to reflect upon the current position of the school along with student engagement and continued provision . One specific area of reflection is that of long-term contingency planning. As Principal, I believe it is extremely important to continue to monitor best practice experienced by other schools in South-East Asia, China, Europe and Singapore for the resumption of face to face school, hopefully at the beginning of Term One 2020-2021 academic year. To this end, the school’s SLT will be e-meeting with the Copenhagen international School’s SLT, after the successful return of their Junior School and Kindergarten classes, later next week to discuss their approach to returning pupils and social distancing. Denmark was the first school in Europe to re-open schools after the lockdown in early March.

Have a great weekend Kent College families.

Best regards,

Anthony Cashin

Principal