COMMUNITY UPDATE DIRECTOR’S UPDATE Dear Community Members, We are very happy to have our students and faculty back on campus after the winter break. We hope you had a restful week and that you are ready for school to kick off with some exciting news. Before the winter break, we invited all students to choose a new mascot for the Raiders. After many years of being represented by the Knight, the time has come to bring in a new symbol of strength, teamwork, and prowess to represent our Raiders! For the last two weeks, the Fox, the Wolf, and the Badger raced to become the Raiders’ new mascot. Emerging as an early favourite and a clear winner across all school sections, the Wolf received 66% of the total votes and was elected to represent the Raiders going forward, starting from the next school year. As a highly intelligent creature who is always loyal to the pack, I believe the Wolf is the perfect symbol to represent the highly competitive and team-devoted spirit of the Raiders. Staying with the topic of competitive spirit at ISB, before the winter break, some of our Middle School and Elementary School students participated in Destination Imagination, a global tournament where students solve and present creative and innovative solutions to open-ended STEM-focused challenges. I would like to congratulate both ISB teams, who won first place in their respective categories – our ES team completed an Engineering Challenge, while the MS team chose a Service Learning Challenge. Both teams completed additional instant challenges entailing quick and effective teamwork to find solutions to on-the-spot challenges. Our students had the opportunity to present their projects in front of a live Zoom panel of appraisers hosted in London. I am proud that ISB is currently the only school offering Destination Imagination in the BENELUX area. Encouraging early involvement in STEM subjects is just one of the varied ways ISB is fostering the development of tomorrows’ innovative leaders.
James MacDonald ISB Director