Dear Parents and Guardians

Welcome to Term 4. I hope you all had a good break and enjoyed some family time together.

Thank you to all of you who joined us for the Y6 to Y7 transition talks this week, it was great to see so many of you. Don't worry if you missed it, the session was recorded and the video and the slides can be found here. As Ms Sarah our Year Leader for Year 7 shared, transition for the learners is a gradual process and we have many things in place to support the learners through this process. Secondary learners become better organised and more autonomous as they develop as individuals and learners throughout the secondary years. It has been wonderful to see how team Scrap Cap organised themselves and collaborated together in the global finals of the De La Vega Global Entrepreneurship Award. They truly epitomise all we wish for in Nexus graduates. Well done team Scrap Cap! We wish them and the whole graduating cohort all the best.

As well as preparing for exams this term we are preparing for accrediation visits. Peers from other international schools will carry out a virtual visit between the 24th and 29th of April with a view to helping us on our self-improvement journey. CIS/WASC and IB accreditation enable us to hold our selves to robust international standards that make sure we have clear purpose and direction while looking after learner's wellbeing and learning and set them up as global citizens. I know some of you will have the opportunity to speak with our evaluators and we thank you for your involvement along with all those who completed the survey last year. It is so important to us that we work in partnership with you as parents to ensure our learners have the best possible chances of success. Year 12 and Year 10 will start to receive feedback on their trial exams and I hope this can be used as intended which is to learn more about revision techniques, exam techniques and time management strategies.

Years of teaching have shown me that successful learners are those who are organised, who act on feedback and use the syllabus or specification to guide them. Exam boards are transparent about what they will assess and the syllabus is there to be used. Frequent sustained effort rather than huge cramming sessions at the end are always more productive. And of course we must not underplay the role vocabulary plays in all this. Having a wide range of vocabulary including technical subject specific terminology is essential for success so please encourage your child to read. Book week is coming up and this is an excellent opportunity to stimulate reading.

Best wishes

Dr Heather

Head of Secondary