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l Message from The Principal

Message from The Principal

Term 2 has flown by, and it has certainly been a term of two halves. The first half of term was dominated by restrictions and pandemic related guidelines. Thank you to all the parents who supported us through the first half of term in what were challenging situations for all. A change of weekly routine was navigated smoothly with drop o and collection settling down quickly.

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The second half of term has been fabulous in that we have seen a return to many of the school activities we are used to enjoying. Sports days for all students, trips to Expo, fieldtrips in Geography, Duke of Edinburgh overnight camping and expeditions have all taken place this second half of term. There have been numerous visits to the school from the petting zoo, where junior school students had the opportunity to interact with a wonderful array of animals, to Je Bezos Blue Origin Space Team who spoke to the KG2 students about their space programme and gave them all a chance to write postcards which will travel into space. Junior School students also enjoyed trips to Umm Al Quwain Marine Park, Sustainable Planet and the Dubai Safari.

Sports fixtures have restarted, and it has been great to see students playing, football, netball, and volleyball against other schools in Dubai. The swim squad also saw success in their two galas a er half term. It is good to see students back in the pool early in the morning training hard.

House competitions have returned in full swing with House Chess, Badminton, Spelling Bee and Rounders all taking place.

It has also been great to have parents back into the school for a variety of events and talks, including meet the Principal and grade co ee mornings. We are planning many more opportunities as we move into Term 3 and hope we can see all of you for events here in the school as the year progresses.

A big thank you to the Parents’ Guild who have been busy setting up our second-hand uniform shop and also planning some fundraising and events during Term 2 and 3. The investment by the Parents’ Guild into the school climbing wall has been a great way to invest back into the community. The wall is nearing completion and I will be looking forward to seeing the students and perhaps some members of the Parents’ Guild climbing once it is ready.

We welcome NLCS UK next term for their monitoring visit. This will begin on the 25th April and we are very excited to be welcoming them back face-to-face a er two years without a visit. They will be sending a team over as part of the annual monitoring of our international schools and we look forward to showing them how much has moved forward since their last visit and the progress that the students are making.

Students in Grade 12 have been receiving o ers from their chosen Universities. We have already had o ers from Cambridge, St. Andrew’s, UCL, Kings London, Durham and Warwick, amongst many other UK establishments. Students have also been successful in their applications to universities in the US including early o ers for University Massachusetts Amherst, Georgia Tech, UC Davis and University Michigan. Students have also secured o ers for University of Toronto, McGill, The Royal College of Surgeons Ireland, Luiss University, Rome and Maastricht University. A number of UK universities are still waiting to make o ers as we approach their deadline in May. Congratulations to all students and we wish them well with their IB Diploma examinations which begin at the end of April. Keep safe and have an enjoyable break.

University of Cambridge

University of Toronto

All the best,

James Monaghan Principal

University Massachusetts Amherst

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