Our lessons start at 08:20. It can take little legs quite a few minutes to get from the school entrance to their homeroom, with this in mind our school gates are open and our teachers are on duty from 08:00. Supporting your child to arrive at school with time to get to their homeroom makes for a positive start to the day and sets everyone up for the learning ahead. Unfortunately arriving at school for 08:20 means that children are late for their first lesson.

Monday to Thursday school finishes at 15:25. On a Friday it is 14:25 - this is every Friday to enable our teachers to collaborate and plan. Please sure you have arranged for your child to be picked up at 14:25 on Fridays.

Thank you for your support as we all get used to the timetable changes.

We have set up WhatsApp Groups for 2021/22. Every class in our Primary School has a WhatsApp Group. We are a school that prides itself on our strong community relationships and these WhatsApp Groups will allow you to build friendships between families in each class.

What these WhatsApp Groups are:

• A place for families to come together to arrange social activities (eg: parties, play dates, coffee mornings and evening drinks)

• A place for occasional reminders (eg: remembering Dress Up Days!)

What these WhatsApp Groups aren't:

• A school communication channel (we will continue to share all school information via the fortnightly Newsletters, school emails and our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/pg/nexusinternationalschoolsingapore) - please do make sure you read these to find out all that is going on in school

• A place for discussing individual learners

• A place to raise issues (we welcome all feedback and encourage you to contact us directly with any concerns you have so that we can help to resolve them)

We are delighted that a large group of parents have agreed to help to administer these WhatsApp Groups. The Singapore Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) does not allow us to share your personal information with them so we are not able to automatically add you to the appropriate WhatsApp Group. Instead, you can either message these parents so that they can add you to the group or click on the WhatsApp link. The contact details will be shared on Monday 6th September 2021.

If you would like to join this informal class group, simply send a text to one of your child's class WhatsApp administrators with the following information:

• Your name (first name and family name)

• Your child's name (first name and family name)

• Your mobile phone number

If you have children in different classes please text the administrator of each class.

Once again, thanks to all the parents for supporting our school community. We are sure that you will find this informal social network very valuable throughout the year ahead at Nexus.

In late September, a randomly selected sample of Year 4, 5, 6 and 7 learners will participate in the ACER ISA assessments. The International Schools’ Assessment (ISA) is a high-quality assessment used by international schools and schools with an international focus to monitor learner performance over time and to confirm that the school's internal assessments are aligned with international expectations of performance.

The ISA supports Nexus to compare attainment in our Primary School against other schools worldwide as part of our quality assurance processes. ACER has gained invaluable experience in developing assessments that are culturally and educationally appropriate for learners from many language and educational backgrounds. The ISA is based on the internationally endorsed frameworks for the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

The ISA provides:

• an external evaluation of core skills in mathematical literacy and reading that allows us to evaluate the reliability of our internal assessments.

• a reliable external tool that helps us reflect and refine the quality of our Nexus curriculum.

• a detailed set of reports summarising our school’s results and comparative data that allow us to easily identify areas of strength or weakness and trends over time.

• comparisons of learner cohorts with other participating learner cohorts in the same year group. This provides a means for us to monitor cohort performance against international expectations.

If you would like to find out more about the ISA assessments, please contact Fiona Lewis. If you do not want your child to be included in the random selection, please let us know by Monday 13th September. The ACER ISA Privacy Statement is available here.

We will share the main findings in January 2022 when the data is fully analysed against all the other schools taking part.

Please make sure your child's token has a working battery and is easy to access as they come into school. Scanning QR codes on tokens without working batteries and unpacking bags to find tokens is slowing check in down. A token with a working battery should flash a light every minute. Please help us to help your child start the day promptly. Replacement tokens can be collected from local community centres.

Regulations for households regarding Quarantine Orders and Stay At Home Notices

For the purpose of these regulations ‘household’ refers to all people residing at the same residence.

If any member of a household is isolating at home having been issued a quarantine order then all members of the household must stay away from school for the duration of the quarantine order.

In many cases, members of the household will be issued with a stay at home notice, however household members must stay away from school even if this has not been issued, for the duration of the quarantine order.

If the member of the household issued with the quarantine order is removed to a separate facility (it is not enough to be self-isolating in the same residence), the remaining members of the household must stay away from school for either:

• seven calendar days

• until end of the quarantine order

• until the person issued with the quarantine order receives a negative covid test (this is usually done upon arriving at the quarantine facility)

The day before they are due to return to school household members need to complete an Antigen Rapid Test (ART). Once completed, take a photo of the test alongside photo ID of the person it was performed on, and send this to learner services. Or alternatively if you have PCR results sent via SMS, please send a screenshot of the SMS.

The ART is widely available from pharmacies and supermarkets, and takes around 20 minutes to receive a result from - it is also worth noting it is not too invasive for children.

If your child is experiencing any flu or cold symptoms such as a sore throat, fever, runny nose etc it is important you keep them away from school and seek advice from a doctor.

Thank you for helping us to keep our community safe during this tricky time.