From the Head of Secondary

School life has begun to settle down after the busy start to the term and it was good to see the first CCA season begin this week with many happy learners taking part in such a wide variety of activities. Our first major internal sporting event of the season, the Years 7 to 9 Cross Country at Bedok Reservoir was a real success with an excellent community spirit; congratulations to the hardy parents that made the journey through the rain! We are also extremely proud of our two Nexus Beat bands who went to La Salle to perform in the Rock and Indie Music Festival last weekend and put on a great show! Please see reports on these events and many more here and here.

We have also interacted with a wide variety of people outside of our community since the last newsletter:

• Two Nexus teams represented us at the Young Founders School competition last weekend and one of our teams won, with the other coming third. The winners received $1000 to help develop their original business idea - huge congratulations to all concerned! A full report is here.
• The Modern Employers event on Friday 31 August was well attended by many learners, parents and staff who were treated to incredibly useful insights into the world of work from leaders of industry.
• Greg Jansen is a guru on Restorative Practices and we were lucky to have his services for two days on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Greg led several sessions on the benefits and techniques of working alongside learners to build strong and lasting learning relationships. His workshop on Tuesday morning was enthusiastically embraced by the 60 or more parents in the audience - he inspired much reflection on parent-child relationships at home too! Upcoming Parent Workshop Titles can be seen in the calendar below, starting with 'How can I help my child learn a new language?' next Tuesday.

In the last newsletter I introduced our new colleagues but forgot to mention two important role changes for existing staff over the long holiday:

Congratulations to both of these colleagues - we can already feel their impact in our community!

From 24 to 28 September we are celebrating the United Nations Global Goals Week with lots of educational events and guest speakers across the school to think about sustainable living and supporting others. On Friday 28 September the Year 12 learners will be organising a series of activities to raise money to support village building projects which they will support on their CAS trip in October. One of the main events to note on that Friday is a Coin Challenge (learners should bring all their loose coins!) and a non-uniform day where learners can come dressed as their proposed future career choice - this fits in well with the UN Global Goal of providing High Quality Education for all children in the world.

The Nexus Parent Group (NPG) would be delighted to hear from Secondary parents who would like to act as liaisons or representatives for the Secondary School. Their contact details are here.

This Friday afternoon we have fifty of our Computer Scientists visiting the UK Royal Navy Ship 'HMS Albion', a trip made possible by one of our wonderful parents, Mr Moffat. The learners have been told not to touch anything!

Have a good weekend, be it at the Marina Bay Street Circuit or somewhere else on the island!

Peter Hart, Head of Secondary School