News from the Year Groups

A warm welcome to everyone in the Nursery and Kindergarten community!

It has been such a positive and happy start to the new academic year. The children have loved making connections and seeing their teachers and making new friendships. We have also been learning about the classroom routine and have had fun exploring the indoor and outdoor environment. The children had the opportunity to meet their single subject teachers and have explored different areas of the school. During circle time, the children have shown great interest in a range of story books and have enjoyed singing songs together. We look forward to the year ahead and supporting the children on their learning journey in Nursery and Kindergarten.

What a fabulous start we have had to the 2022/23 school year.

We had a great time reconnecting with old friends, making new ones and exploring our learning spaces. We have especially enjoyed hearing about all the exciting holiday adventures over the summer, with many of us traveling for the first time in a number of years.

Over the past two weeks, the Year 1 learners have been thinking carefully about the kind of class community they want to be a part of. They worked together to create a class Essential Agreement and chose a personal action about something they promise to do, such as being kind to others and using listening ears. We are already impressed with the level of independence the learners are showing by their walk into school and unpacking of belongings. We are looking forward to an action-packed, fun-filled year!

A warm welcome to the 2022-2023 academic year and to all our new and returning families.

The learners have thoroughly enjoyed experiencing their Year 2 learning environment and getting used to the hub. We are very excited to start the year with collaborative spaces which we can share. Being able to come together and engage with friends from other classes and to have discussions is a prospect that we are relishing. The first weeks included the learners (and the teachers) getting used to the routines and developing relationships with one another. We have spent time exploring the Nexus RECIPE, creating our Essential Agreements and getting to know our spaces. We look forward to being risk takers in a fun filled year ahead full of exciting challenges.

What a great start to the school year Year 3 has had!

They have been busy exploring their exciting new learning environment on Level 7 and settling into the new routines and expectations. Year 3 have spent the last week creating their own ‘Essential Agreements’ based on the Nexus RECIPE (Respect, Excellence, Communication, Integrity, Passionate, Enjoyable Environment) which will guide how we behave towards each other, learning and the spaces for the year.

It has been an excellent starting point for us, as we start digging into our first Unit of Inquiry, ‘People’s Action Affect Others”. The jump from Year 2 to Year 3 is filled with many changes and the learners should be very proud of the way they have settled into their new environment and taken on the responsibility and independence of Year 3.

A very warm welcome back to all our returning learners and a big 'Welcome' to Year 4 to all our new families.

We also welcome Mr Rick Dennis, Mr Sean, Ms Suzie Bacon and Mr Sam Gan to our Year 4 staff team. It has been wonderful to see all the energy and enthusiasm shown by everyone, and we have been very impressed with how quickly the Year 4 learners are adapting to new routines and expectations. It is good to see everyone supporting each other, asking questions, stepping up to challenges and making sensible choices.

We begin the year with our 'Who We Are' Unit of Inquiry. Our central idea is, 'Informed choices support well-being' and we will explore aspects of physical, social, emotional and spiritual well-being. We will continue to revisit this unit throughout the year.

A great start to the term, Year 4! We look forward to getting to know you all and supporting you through an exciting year of learning ahead.

It has been a delight to meet and welcome our new Year 5 group of learners, who are very at home in their learning and specialist spaces.

It is pleasing to see how quickly they have connected with their teachers and peers, and adapted to new transitions and timetables.

Learners have enjoyed communicating their strengths and qualities in a variety of visual art activities. They have reflected on our RECIPE values and considered what they would like our learning community to look, sound and feel like. Responses included: calm, fun, sharing ideas, confident, safe, happy, collaborative, people listening and laughter. These engagements connect to our unit of inquiry theme of Sharing the Planet. Our central idea is 'Peace and Conflict exist within and between communities. This unit provides many authentic opportunities connected to starting a new year, building relationships and learning about how to become a responsible digital citizen.

We look forward to a wonderful year ahead and are excited to share this with you all.

Year 6 launches into the 2022-23 school year!

The Year 6 learning spaces have been full of energy, enthusiasm and engagement since the start of this academic year. We welcomed new learners and new teachers, too! The Year 6 teachers have been pleased to see how students follow routines, learn their timetables and apply themselves in homeroom and specialist subjects.

Throughout our four classes, we have generated and refined our Essential Agreements through idea inspiration from launching into our final year of primary school while also considering the Learner Profile attributes and RECIPE values. Our first Unit inquiring into How We Organize Ourselves has allowed us opportunities to consider the systems and structure of how we organize ourselves in Year 6 and in the digital world, too. The central idea is 'Decisions within systems and communities have a wide ranging impact.' We will continue to use a variety of learning engagements to reflect on our social and online behaviours as a means to starting the year with clear expectations to how we treat each other, ourselves and our online spaces.

Stay tuned to hear what we get involved in.

We spent the first two days of the academic year welcoming new learners to Nexus and enjoying various induction events. We discussed what it takes to be successful on an iGCSE course, the police visited to offer us advice on how to stay safe and out of trouble in Singapore, and we came together as a year group to participate in team-building games. It was a great start to the year and has set us all up well to begin our courses.

Year 10 and 11 learners have been getting to know their new (smaller) tutor groups. We hope that over the course of the year these new in school 'families' will be a great source of support and guidance as they navigate their iGCSE courses. Remember, if you have any questions about what is going on in school the form tutor is a good person to contact first.

The Year 13s presented their Theory of Knowledge Exhibitions to the Year 12s and staff last week. In their exhibitions they discussed their ideas about a range of knowledge issues and key concepts such as perspectives, culture, certainty and truth. It was a really positive activity to start the year and it was wonderful to see the Y13s share their knowledge with the Y12s.

We had two days off timetabled lessons to do a variety of activities to support the new learners and also to help create a sense of community amongst our Diploma learners. We hope all the learners are now feeling settled into school again - please do contact us if you have any concerns.

It was wonderful to invite parents in to the school again!

We hope the Welcome Evening gave you some useful information about the Diploma Programme and beyond! If you were not able to attend here is the presentation we shared.