Dear Parents, Teachers and Staff,

Welcome to the start of Book Week! There are a range of fabulous activities this week including a virtual book fair. We think every week should be Book Week. A love of reading opens doorways to new worlds. To enjoy a book is one of life’s great pleasures and whilst doing so we are also expanding our capacity with language and therefore our capacity to communicate and learn. Reading is a key to learning as it is a fundamental learning tool. The purpose of Book Week, in addition to just being good fun, is to help build a love of reading so that learning and communication becomes easier.  We all look forward to the many activities during the week and encourage everyone to enjoy a good book.

This Tuesday we also observe our Anti-Bullying Day. This is being facilitated through the SEAL programme across the continuum as well as an assembly in PYP. Bullying is a destructive element in any community. It diminishes the capacity for the organisation to be a nurturing place and impacts badly upon the bully, the bullied and the whole community.  Our message is clear. We do not tolerate bullying behaviour. We encourage all our students to build both resilience and intolerance towards bullying behaviour and the capacity to be an upstander, rather than a bystander. (An upstander who observes bullying behaviour takes positive steps to eliminate it whilst a bystander just watches). Please note that any and all incidents of bullying should be referred to senior management so that positive steps can be taken to eliminate it.

Congratulations to Mr. Stuart whose video won the teacher’s section of the Trust for Sustainable Development video competition. The video will now be shown to world leaders at the upcoming UN Convention on Biological Diversity in October. This is a wonderful achievement for him and the school. 

Finally, this is the last week before the Eid break.  Eid Mubarak! 

Enjoy this time and have a great week.

Martin Blackburn

Executive Principal