Newsletter No 3

2016 -17

HEAD OF SCHOOL NEWSLETTER 1 November 2016

HEAD OF SCHOOL’S NEWSLETTER NO. 2 Dear Parents, I do hope all of your children have now settled happily and productively into the school?

As I write this letter, we have 7 weeks of school remaining, finishing on Friday, 16th December and re-opening on Monday, 2nd January 2017!

The past 10 weeks have been busy, eventful and punctuated by some time off which we have tried to catch up on but the need for you to ensure your children are at school on time and every day is paramount. I need to remind you that all of our curriculums are based on a time frame in order to complete the cycle we have in place to ensure successful coverage of that curriculum.

Lateness to school; absenteeism and not taking advantage of only 1 special Saturday and the unavoidable public holidays upsets the flow of this need to cover the curriculum. A point in case was the very low attendance we experienced on the Monday before Muharram (Ashura) holidays.

School attendance and its benefits should not be taken lightly or for granted!

Having said that, the school has been a hive of activity in Sports, Clubs and Cultural events. We are very pleased and proud of the many students (and grateful to their teachers and coaches) and you the parents who encourage; believe in and pay up! We are witnessing increasing success in all that we do outside the classrooms and the results in sport across swimming in particular (1st in both boy’s and girl’s Beaconhouse galas of 16 schools swimming) cricket; dodge-the-ball, football; tug’o’war and basketball are proving very beneficial to so many of our students. I know that you have concerns about the present state of the grounds but I am pleased to inform you that our Company has agreed to lay a truly excellent and imported surface which we hope to have in place as soon as possible. Major improvements at Gulberg have now been completed which include a new Play Centre; Tree-House; re-equipped Hall and Music Room – all washrooms and the Library area and balcony leading off the Library for outdoor training and functions.

Be assured though that all your concerns about any aspect of your children’s schools are taken seriously and we want to improve our services and communications.

This past Saturday, 29th October TNS DHA hosted an International TedEx symposium on Woman’s Empowerment with International speakers at our DHA Hall. Our senior DP students as registering officers; ushers and disciplinarians! made me so proud of them all as they were smart, alert and polite!

2016 -17

HEAD OF SCHOOL NEWSLETTER 1 November 2016 This coming weekend Friday, Saturday and Sunday 4/5/6 November – (all 3 days at the Royal Palm), Beaconhouse is staging their ‘School of Tomorrow’, an International Festival of Ideas and on 5th & 6th November aspects of the SOT will also be staged in TNS DHA Hall. Many of our staff and students will be participating. We are also sending a copy of Festival with this newsletter.

Please do come and join us at the various venues and be inspired, challenged and entertained across a huge spectrum of ideas.

I am most grateful to those parents of the many students from TNS participating in so many roles at these 2 major events.

Then on the 17th , 18th & 19th of November we are staging our School Play for Years 6 – 12 in our DHA Hall from 6 pm on all 3 nights with a delightful rendition of that old classic “The Wizard of Oz” – drama, effects, singing and dancing will, I hope keep you spellbound! This is another huge undertaking by our school involving many dozen of students and staff and I hope you will support us. By the way you are all invited! No tickets! Just an invitation card.

Please keep the 22nd November for Gulberg parents and 23rd November for DHA parents open for Project Presentations. I know you love these displays of learning and doing by your children.

We are continuously staging our academic / project-based field trips again as well as moving students around to various educational / cultural / sporting and entertainment events with securitized buses. Your permission to do so is always sort and respected. Where you are dropping off and picking up at venues, we are most grateful for your time in doing so.

We have just completed our most detailed recognition of the internationally acclaimed Global Dignity Day and I would hope that our TNS students / your children will be impressing you with their understanding of human dignity. Please encourage them in their quest for modelling a dignified personality.

By-products of this GDD is a re-emphasis on politeness / self-discipline; self-respect; kindness and caring and eschewing intolerance and discrimination in all its forms. IB World Schools stand for such thoughts and practices. I hope we are meeting some of those lofty but reachable targets and with your support and belief!?

I hope to see many of you over these next 2 weekends. We have had 2 ‘scary’ days of Halloween.

The children do love this make-believe, as they should at their age, and we have a special day of tribute coming up in November to celebrate the life and works of Dr. Mohammad Allama Iqbal.

Then for Year 4 to Year 12 it is Assessments! Dates to follow.

2016 -17

HEAD OF SCHOOL NEWSLETTER 1 November 2016 We sent our Parent Volunteer Forms as a pilot programme (Early Years DHA and whole school Gulberg) hoping to start a strong parent volunteer system at TNS for parents and staff to work together in several activities happening throughout the term. This was an initiative to support our belief in parents as an integral part of the school system. It was rather disappointing to see the almost (but thank you to the few who agreed to volunteer) non-existent response from parents as we do look forward to have your support in many areas. We encourage you to give it another thought and complete and return the forms keeping your time schedule and availability a priority.

Thank you Ms. Sonia Saleem who has left us after 3 years of service and great menus.

In my next newsletter I will tell you about a world famous ‘benchmarking’ system we have purchased to track all students in Years 3 – 8!

On that note I wish you all health and happiness.

_________________ Clive R. Barnes Head of School Health tip for November 2016: Beat cold/flu season this November by including classic yakni and bone broth in your daily diet.

Dress with light layers to beat the morning chill and transition to afternoon heat comfortably.