Newsletter June 2019: Letter from the Principal: June Highlights

Dear DCIS Parents, I was in a meeting for international school Heads in Singapore recently when I was made aware that, amongst this group, I will in August be the second longest serving Principal. That brought home two things to me, firstly that I’m no longer newly arrived and I need to stop saying ‘just’ in front of my replies to how long I have been here and secondly, the transient nature of certain quarters of expatriate life in Singapore. I am pleased that the core of the DCIS community is very stable and this core has been growing in recent years. This increased stability, both in families and staff, reaps dividends into terms of our continuous improvement. Our sports teams compete well above where you might think we would be, given our relatively small size and developing facilities. The school production last week was one of the best I have ever seen in 26 years of teaching, involving nearly 90 students from all the academic Pathways in the school. I am indebted to our staff body for their continued hard work running these and other activities that support our formal classroom curriculum. They are so important to developing young people. I am also grateful to parents who support our events whether that is helping with costumes for the production or flying to Phuket to support our FOBISIA games team. At the end of next week our students will receive their IB Diploma results, this is an especially exciting time for us as we see our first cohort complete their studies. All of the students have worked incredibly hard and fully deserve to do well. This month we also learned that two current students and one former student achieved two Highest in Singapore and one Highest in Asia awards in the EDEXCEL iGCSE examinations last year. This is a phenomenal achievement and is the second year in a row that we have won awards in Global Citizenship and Geography. Three longstanding students in our Individual Needs class left this year for local vocational colleges. We are equally proud of their achievements, their success is more difficult to define in statistical terms but not in terms of the outcome of their hard work and dedication to their studies. As they also embark upon the next stage of their academic careers we wish them the very best for their futures. This short half term has continued the theme of busyness that we have had all year. Our last residential trips of the programme ran with Year 3 going to the zoo, Year 12 Biology and ESS IB students heading to Tioman and a selection of Secondary students flying off to the NAE expedition centre in Switzerland. We ran our first Secondary Art and Design exhibition which was incredible well attended. The assembled patrons enjoyed the high level of work proceeded this year in the Art and DT departments. As mentioned above we finished 7 weeks of public examinations so our Year 11 and 13 students now have an anxious wait until the results are released in July (IB) and August (iGCSE). The campus developments continue. The Secondary building is moving into the finishing off stage – Mr Bull and I have been inside several times and progress inside looks far more progressed than the outside! After a long wait our pedestrian crossing will open over the summer – there were times where I doubted my own updates! I am grateful to parents for their patience on this and on the building work on campus. We have worked with our contractor to minimise disruption to the school operating as normal on the other side of the fence but I know at times it has been impossible not to do work that has impacted on the classrooms surrounding the site. I hope all members of the school community will be pleased with the new buildings when they open next term – the sports hall is for use by the whole school so the Reception children don’t need to wait 6 years before they can use the buildings that occasionally disturbed their lessons or playtime this past year. A final thank you to the DCA committee and volunteers