SZPAB January Newsletter - English

SZPAB NEWSLETTER

OUR MISSION

The Sheikh Zayed Private Academy aims to honor the past and educate for the future by developing confident, responsible and caring young people of integrity who are well educated and prepared to meet the challenges in an ever-changing world.

OUR VALUES

To achieve our mission, we will work to our core values which are:

Pursue excellence in all that we do Celebrate achievement and participation of all Appreciate and foster UAE National Identity

Cherish the community and the environment

Promote Emirati culture and ethical values

Promote respect, responsibility, belonging and caring

Develop leadership capacity and global citizenship

HONORING THE PAST. EDUCATING FOR THE FUTURE.

Principal’s Welcome

Dear Parents,

Welcome to our first SZPAB newsletter of 2023. It has been wonderful to see our students return to school following the Winter break ready to focus on their learning and engage in many different activities It has been a busy few weeks on the sporting front with teams competing in the ADEK Cup as well as Futsal and Volleyball matches Our Grade 2 students have made a visit to Emirates Park Zoo while a number of our High School students have been welcomed at NYU in Abu Dhabi and the Al Karamah Institute. Over the coming weeks, we look forward to the return of international visits to Italy for a group of students to experience skiing and to Jeddah, Makkah and Medinah for Umrah

Earlier this term, parents will have received Term 1 Report Cards for their children These reports provide parents with information regarding their child’s achievements across the curriculum. Following the report cards going home, it was wonderful to welcome parents into school to meet with our teachers for the second time this academic year. Feedback from our student progress meetings has been very positive and I would encourage all parents to take the opportunity to meet with our teachers when these arise. Parents who were unable to attend these meetings are very welcome to contact our Main Reception to arrange a time to meet with their child’s teachers.

Parents will also have received details of their child’s attendance rate for Term 1. ADEK set very clear expectations for the attendance of students as part of the School Inspection Framework An attendance rate of at least 94% is judged to be ‘good’ and a rate above 98% is seen to be ‘outstanding’. Students with an outstanding attendance rate for Term 1 will have received an ‘SZPAB Outstanding Attendance’ postcard. Whilst we fully appreciate that there are times when a child may be absent from school due to illness, it is important for parents to note that an absence whether it be excused or unexcused is still recorded as an absence I would like to thank our parents for supporting their children in ensuring high rates of attendance and punctuality at school as this will significantly contribute to their academic success.

Our monthly Parent Coffee & Tour events continue this term Thank you to those parents who joined us in early January for a presentation and tour from our Visual Performing Arts (VPA) team. Our next event is taking place on Tuesday 7th February at 8am – the focus will be Online Safety and will be led by our Digital team. We look forward to welcoming many parents to learn more about this very important topic.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support of our school.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Neil Matthews Principal

We would like to remind parents that the bags that students bring to school must not exceed a maximum weight depending on their grade as in the table below.

Parents are encouraged to:

use ergonomic school bags with individualized compartments to efficiently hold books and equipment

guide their children to wear both shoulder straps and not sling a school bag over one shoulder use wide, padded, adjustable school bag straps that fit their child’s body

Students are provided with shelves/lockers in school to store their bags during the day. A reminder that trolley bags ie bags with wheels are not permitted for safety reasons

Early Years

First, on behalf of my amazing team, we would like to wish you all a Happy New Year and we are looking forward to continuing working with you and your family for the next two terms.

Looking back to the end of November and December, and even though it was only a short time at school, we still managed to pack a lot into it!

On Tuesday 29th November, the whole school community came together to celebrate the 51st UAE National Day Celebrations. It was an amazing day filled with laughter, excitement, many new activities to try out and lots of delicious food. It was also wonderful to welcome back our parents to share this special event with us.

The following day was a much more respectful day, the UAE Commemoration Day. It was a special day with children proudly wearing the colors of our national flag and taking part in activities acknowledging this occasion and watching the raising of the flag at 11am.

We finished off the final school day of 2022, with our End of Unit Celebrations where the children shared with their parents what they have been learning in their Homerooms and Arabic lessons.

We are excited to see what the new year will bring in our Early Years Department.

Thank you for your continued support.

Ms Nicola Lavis

Early Years

Building Language at School and at Home

Students have been working hard on building language in all their lessons! Our wonderful teachers give extra attention to care for the children’s entire bank of languages while they are learning new and exciting information in math, science, reading, and all other subjects

Our language-building approach at SZPAB is to use best practices in language development by encouraging multilingualism. This is most evident in the connections between our two main languages in the school: Arabic and English

You can see this in lessons by children acting out vocabulary words from their reading and adding in hand movements for more and less in their math lessons to the shared vocabulary mats with the Arabic and English team working together to introduce vocabulary in both languages

Early Years

Building Language at School

We are always looking for ways to develop speaking, reading, writing, and listening skills at the same time. Students are now using all of these skills in the writing process!

The class goes through a three-stage process to develop writing skills all the while improving other parts of language. We start with the Imitation phase in which the class uses a visual story map to ‘imitate’ the story as told by the teacher. Then is the Innovation stage where the class begins creating a new story by changing key elements of the story Finally, students apply everything they have learned while they create their own story in the Independent Application phase. These three phases offer ample opportunities for children to use all their language skills while developing their writing.

Imitation1. 2.Innovation

3. Independent Application

Early Years

Building Language at home

Maintaining a strong partnership between school and home is a key element in language development Here are two ways you can help your children develop their language.

Vocabulary Mats

You may have noticed our new vocabulary mats! These mats combine the power of images and languages to help children build deep connections with vocabulary at home In addition to captivating visuals, the vocabulary mats feature written Arabic and English words. In the corners of the mats are QR codes. These take children (and parents) to videos of teachers pronouncing the vocabulary in Arabic and in English. This language practice at home will help children be ready to use this academic vocabulary in their lessons at school

Early Years

Games

Games are another great way to reinforce vocabulary at home. Here are a few ideas you could try with your children.

Pictionary-One person draws while the other guesses what the vocabulary word is Letter sounds can also be used in place of words

Matching Memory- A set of vocabulary words and their pictures are needed. Turn all the cards face down. Children can turn over two cards at a time. If the word and the picture match, they get to keep that pair The goal is to get as many pairs as possible Charades-One person chooses a vocabulary word and acts it out for the other person to guess what the word is..

1 2. 3

Welcome to our fourth Newsletter for the 2022-23 school year I wish you a Happy New Year and hope the new term has started well for you. This newsletter has items from way back in November so there is lots to see. There has been so much going on including UAE National Day and Flag Day celebrations. We celebrated our first MAP Test achievement awards since before COVID and it was great to have parents back in to celebrate with us. Both the Visual and Performing Arts and the PE departments have been busy with lots to share here.

Please take your time and enjoy what we have been doing since our last newsletter.

Mr Rhys Flavell Principal of Elementary and Early Years

Grade 2

Grade 2 went on a field trip to Emirates Park Zoo

They have been learning about animals and their habitats They were able to get up close with lots of animals in the zoo and had a chance to feed elephants, goats and sheep. The students learned about how animals adapt to their environments

Grade2 Emirates Park Zoo Trip

Grade3

In our Talk 4 Writing program, 3C had a fantastic time learning all about instructional writing. They focused on the features of instructions and how to write them correctly They then learnt their model text all about ‘The Disgusting Sandwich’ and innovated it by changing nouns and adjectives.

After writing their first draft, they then edited and uplevelled it to produce their final published piece. They are very proud of their hard work and hope you enjoy reading their disgusting recipes!

Grade 4c presented the concepts of goal setting and self-confidence, as part of our Wellbeing and My Identity programs. The boys did a fantastic job researching and presenting the perfect role model for this concept

Grade 4C Assembly- What is success?

Grade 5

Grade 5 have been studying and researching longitude and latitude as part of their Social Studies curriculum.

Formula Ethara Project Grade 5

The Grade 5 boys have been busy preparing for their upcoming field trip to Yas Marina Circuit in February. On the day of the trip, they will be able to test their scientific knowledge of forces whilst receiving a guided tour of the track and facilities In preparation for the trip, the boys have been enhancing their knowledge of different forces through the Formula Ethara project – an exciting investigation where students create and brand their own “race team” before designing and building their own miniature formula 1 cars using specialized kits and printers.

Students have been working diligently and cooperatively in teams to realize their team visions, whilst there is also the added excitement of being able to race their cars against each other on a specialized track during the trip Students will test their car-build efficiency via 1-on-1 races that will be timed and recorded, ensuring we come out with an overall grade winner – an exciting prospect!

FIRST LEGO League Challenge

This term, Grade 4 and 5 boys are continuing their pre competition The boys will travel to Sharjah American School next month to participate in an interschool’s challenge

In the SUPERPOWERED℠ challenge, FIRST LEGO League teams will explore where energy comes from and how it is distributed, stored, and used – and then put their superpowered creativity to work to innovate for a better energy future. The students have been busy working during ECA time and free – time to create coding programs and extensions for their robot. The robot is then programmed to move around the game mat, completing different missions and earning points for the team The boys have worked very hard on their LEGO project, and we are very excited to compete and challenge in the First LEGO League!

FIRST LEGO League Challenge

Elementary

Grade 3 Music

In Grade 3 Music, we are learning how to play Boomwhackers. Boomwhackers are musical instruments that are tuned. We are playing our boomwhackers on a free website, which is fantastic.

https://www musick8.com/boomwhackers/playboomwh ackers.php?bwswitch=true if you want to play as well.

We are learning how to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, one of the theme songs from Star Wars and we will get to choose a song, out of two song choices, which song we would like to master. We are reading music, playing music, working on our tempo (speed), working with others, and becoming even better musicians. We will be continuing this unit of learning, after Winter Break.

We are now choosing our song to master as musiciansour choices are: “How Far I’ll go” from Moana and “In the Jungle” from the Lion King.

Elementary

Grade 5 Music

We have extremely busy working in Grade 5, with two units of learning, running simultaneously.

We have been exploring singing – how our voice works and how to sing in parts

We have been singing the FIFA World Cup songs – Hayya Hayya and Arhbo, in small groups and as a whole ensemble, as a class.

We have chosen the parts that we want to sing and solo, sing by ourselves and sing with others. We have amazing voices in Grade 5!

We have also started a singing club on Thursday at lunchtime. 15 boys are coming to explore singing, even further, as an area of interest, or to further and grow their own talent

In class, we have also been learning how to sign the UAE National Anthem, in sign language. As the UAE is an inclusive country, and our school is an inclusive school, we wanted to learn the UAE National Anthem in sign language, so that people with hearing impairments are able to participate too.

Elementary

Grade 5 Music

We are working with others, to make sure that the signs and tempo (speed) are correct, and that we can follow a conductor as well.

We video ourselves to watch ourselves perform, and then, we make changes based on our observations from our videos. We are actively reflecting on our performances, all the time. We performed at our National Day assembly.

Grade 5 Music

For Term 2, we will be exploring Body percussion and then moving onto playing Arabic drum beats, using jungle drums and Duf drums. Also, we will be exploring learning in Drama, through a process drama called “Peter Piper” We will be devising (creating) our own drama works, using a tongue twister as our starting point.

Early this term we shared our Visual and Performing Arts program with parents during our monthly ‘Coffee and Tour’ event. For those who couldn’t make it here is a small part of the presentation with some of our Grade 5 boys talking about VPA experiences,

PE and Sport Teams

BISAK 7’s Football u12 Tournament – January 2023

In January, Elementary students competed in the BISAK 7’s football u12 competition

This tournament was a big challenge for our grade 4 & 5 boys as we are an u11 team playing in an u12 competition The competition was made up of schools from both Abu Dhabi and Dubai, so the standard was very competitive. Despite the age and size gap, our young men performed exceptionally well.

Sheikh Zayed finished 3rd place in their group, the highlight was a victory over our local rivals West Yas Unfortunately we were knocked out of the competition at the quarter-final stage.

Well done to all the students who took part in the tournament, you showed great determination, skill and resilience to compete in this competition.

Mr

Marc Thomas - Grade 4 & 5 PE Teacher

Early Years and Elementary Sports Day 2023

Come join in the fun!

We are very excited at SZPAB to host our Early Years and Elementary Sports Day’s this year. After being unable to host an in-person sports day celebration for the past two years, teachers and students are very excited about this year's event

All parents are very welcome to come out to the Cricket Stadium or attend the sports days at school.

Students have already been practicing their athletics in PE lessons. They have been learning good techniques for sprinting, throwing, and jumping ready to show their best skills on Sports Day.

Detailed information about each day will be shared in the coming week

Dates for your diary:

Wednesday 8th February Grade 1 and Grade 2 at SZPAB

Thursday 9th February Pre-k, KG1 and KG2 at SZPAB

Wednesday 22nd February Grade 3, 4 and 5 at Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi.

Celebrating Outstanding Academic AchievementMAP Awards Assembly

The Elementary Team took a moment to celebrate the incredible attainment of students in their Measure of Progress (MAP) exams in Term 1 Our outstanding students are meeting attainment levels that are higher than the average native English speaker around the World Students were celebrated for their high scores in English Reading, English Language, Math and Science.

Map image 1 shows Mr Neil congratulating students and parents on their achievement and support.

Map image 2 shows students who received the highest overall score for each grade (from left to right) Mayed Jassim Al Hammadi 2A, Ahmed Mohammed Al Nasri 3C, Hamad Khaled Al Naqbi 4C The student with the highest scores across all exams was Hazza Khaled AlMheiri in 5B, with an overall combined RIT score of 869.

Dear Parents,

It has been an excellent start to Unit 2 with students returning from the Winter break demonstrating an excellent attitude to their studies. It has also been fantastic to see so many parents attend our Student Progress Meetings and coffee mornings

Our grade 12 students are now starting to receive university offers, so I would like to congratulate Mohamed Hasan Al Zaabi in Grade 12 who has received an offer to study at Michigan State University in the USA. I would also like to congratulate Khalifa Ahmed Al Rumaithi in Grade 12 who has received an offer to study at UMASS Boston also in the USA. The school expects to receive more international offers in the coming months We will announce gradually as offers are received

Our students have started applying to the UAE Federal universities and scholarships, in addition to completing the Military service form which is mandatory for graduation. We encourage each student in Grade 12 to start completing the form as soon as possible.

At the start of unit 2, I was delighted to have the opportunity to speak to our Grade 12 students about their graduation requirements and it has been excellent to see the positive steps our grade 12 students have taken since this lecture

Our secondary students have been involved in many sporting activities during unit 2 already, with our volleyball and football teams playing against other schools On Saturday 14th January we entered our U12, U14 and U16 football teams into the BSAK 7s tournament at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium. Our boys were fantastic and represented the school brilliantly.

Within our teaching and learning, the focus for this unit is to develop student higher-order thinking skills through questioning and extension activities in lessons. We have also had several Prefect applications from our G11 and G12 students and interviews for these positions will take place shortly The role of Prefect is an important one and, if chosen, students will be accepting a position of considerable responsibility. It is also a very exciting one and will give the opportunity to develop leadership skills and have significant influence on the daily life of the school.

Mr Vincent Maiella Head of Secondary

Upcoming, some of the activities still to take place in January include our ECAs starting on Tuesday 24th January and our Wellbeing afternoon on the 27th January that will be focused on developing student selfconfidence

Our G9 students also had the opportunity to visit the Emirates Park Zoo and the National Aquarium to apply their learning to the real world. Please see below an overview of the trip as written by Mohamed Ahmed Al Mansoori 9R1.

“The trip we had on the Grade 9 Ecology and Conservation course was an amazing experience.

Last term, we were studying the African Savannah and its prey and predatory relationships, and the trip helped with this analysis. The zoo that we visited was the biodiverse Emirates Park Zoo that is full of many diverse animal species from monkeys to hyenas. This trip helped us with studying ecology, for it has shown us the animals that we will do an analysis of and learn about during class

Now in this new term, we are learning about coral reef ecosystems. We have visited the National Aquarium Abu Dhabi, where we have seen real bioluminescent coral shining behind glass This is the fifth biggest coral reef tank in the world and is the biggest in the UAE. The aquarium tour has also included a behind the scenes visit where we have seen how the staff help and grow sea animals to return to the beach

In conclusion, these trips have helped ecology students learn about animals, how they act in the wild and how important they are in today’s life. I have to thank Ms. Eleanor for allowing us to go on these trips so we can have a more hands-on study style.”

Written by - Mohamed Ahmed Al Mansoori 9R1

Inclusion

Inclusion in the Community

Congratulations to the Grade 10 SZPAB Sports Leaders who visited Al Karama School and Training Institute recently. It was a fantastic example of unified sports taking place in the community. Our boys were exemplary in their approach to their training session and learned quite a lot from the experience We are all very excited to welcome the Al Karama students back to try out our facilities soon.

Special Olympics UAE

Special Olympics UAE are always looking for new athletes. Click on the link below to see how your daughter or son can join. Remember, SO UAE have many unified events, where people of all abilities come together to enjoy this wonderful, shared experience

Athlete Interest Form

Inclusion

Unified Basketball in New York University Abu Dhabi

SNAP Program - Beginning February 1st 2023

NYUAD invite Children of Determination between the ages of 7-15 years and who fit the below criteria to apply for their basketball program.

For the first three weeks, the program will run once a week on Wednesdays For the rest of the four weeks, the program will run twice a week, on both Mondays and Wednesdays.

Their hope is to help participants achieve progress in improving social skills through sport and mentorship with NYUAD student buddies under the guidance of professional athletic instructors

Register for Spring 2023 workshops

Eligibility Criteria

Must be a child with an intellectual disability between the ages of 7-15 years

Must be physically comfortable moving up and down a basketball court

Must have participated in group activities before and be comfortable with receiving instruction from multiple people

Must be available to join all nine session dates. The first three weeks, sessions will only run Wednesdays (February 1-15), and for the remaining weeks, sessions will run both Mondays and Wednesdays (February 20-March 8)

Children need to be transported to NYUAD’s Saadiyat Campus each session and parents or guardians are required to stay for the duration of each session

We are pleased to announce that the 2023-2024 registration for new applicants is now open!

We are accepting applications in all grade levels starting from Pre-KG through Gr12.

Seats are limited! If you or someone you know are planning to apply for a new child, please hurry up and complete the registration form by clicking on This Link You can contact the SZPAB _Registrar at Registrar@zayedacademyboys.ae