From the HEAD MISTRESS

This has been another extraordinary year at Sherborne Qatar School for Girls, and I would like to state how delighted I am with the school community we have started to develop. I am proud of the academic progress most girls have made this year; how senior management, the teachers and teaching assistants, have worked tirelessly to develop and grow the academic and pastoral provision for our pupils; how the administrative, support and facilities management teams have worked so hard ‘behind the scenes’, keeping the school resourced, functioning, clean and safe for everyone; and of course I am grateful for the amazing support we have received from our parents.

This academic year will always be remembered as the year where:

• The school accepted its first Year 7, 8, 9 and 10 pupils; all 134 of them, from over 20 different schools here in Qatar!

• The Primary classes grew from one form entry to nearly full capacity (three form entry) in many year groups.

• The school grew rapidly from 112 pupils in June 2021 to 409 pupils by March 2022; this bringing its own unique challenges but also feelings of excitement, teamwork and creativity as we started to see the school evolving.

• Face-to-face learning was still interrupted by the global pandemic, COVID-19 restrictions and in school COVID Testing, but this was also the year in which our skills at delivering online learning to our pupils improved beyond measure.

• The school grew from 29 staff in 2020-2021 to employing over 70 personnel by September 2021.

• We set up the Parents Representatives Group and started to build even better positive relationships with our families.

• The parents, pupils and staff raised over 26,000 QAR for our charities: Qatar Cancer Society and United World Schools.

• We hosted the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Celebration with a whole school British tea party, British style street parties in the corridors, special jubilee activities in class, and everyone dressed in red, white and blue or in traditional regal clothes.

• We started our first ever extra-curricular, enrichment programmes; went on our first ever Primary School trips, and had our first ever whole school, internal examinations.

• We saw pupils reading levels and literacy levels rise beyond what we could have imagined after introducing our Accelerated Reader and Kutubee Digital Packages.

• We really embraced being a ‘Bring Your Own Device, Microsoft School, with over 80 % of our pupils from Reception to Year 10 purchasing and using the same computer devices and being able to access our extensive learning materials.

I have said it before, but we really have started something special. A school which I am sure will grow from strength to strength, from year to year. I am exceptionally proud to be the Headmistress of this school and I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their dedication, commitment, motivation and resilience in helping me to set up the most promising school for girls in Qatar.

The following pages show a wonderful snapshot of this year’s events, memorable moments and pupil achievements. I hope you will enjoy reading this book as much as I have and I look forward to another exciting academic year ahead.

With kindest regards and best wishes,

JANE GOLDSACK Headmistress