SummaRISe - Issue 139

Thursday 21 May 2015 Issue 89 Thursday, 08th March 2018 Issue 139 GENERAL GENERAL

NURSERY

KG PRIMARY

PRIMARY SECONDARY PRIMARY

SECONDARY SECONDARY

Recent Happenings RIS International Day

Book Fair

Zayed Painting Contest

PARIS SCHOOL CLINIC

DATE

EVENTS

Sunday, 11 - Thursday, 15 March

MARCH 2018 IT Week - TechnoRISe

Sunday, 11 - Tuesday, 13 March Tuesday, 13 - Wednesday, 14 March

Reading with Dad Year 4 Concert rehearsals

Thursday, 15 March Monday, 12 - Wednesday, 14 March Monday, 12 March Monday, 12 March Wednesday, 14 March Thursday, 15 March Thursday, 15 March Thursday, 17 - Saturday, 24 March Sunday, 18 March Monday, 19 March Tuesday, 20 March

Year 4 Annual Concert FS-Year 2 Sports Week Innovents - Science Fair Lighthouse Arabia Parent Talk, 08:00 - 09:30 am Lecture Theatre Recycled Hat Day Nursery Field Trip Year 10 French breakfast Ski Trip Innovents - Primary Swim Gala Mother’s Day - Year 2 Mother’s Day - Year 3

Tuesday, 20 - Wednesday, 21 March

Parent Student Conference - Afternoon session (12:00 finish)

Wednesday, 21 March Thursday, 22 March Thursday, 22 March Thursday, 22 March

Mother’s Day, Years 4 - 6 Innovents - Literary Soiree

Thursday 22 March Sunday, 25 March - Saturday, 07 April

Thursday, 29 March Sunday, 1 – Thursday 5 April Sunday, 08 April Monday, 09 - Wednesday, 11 March Thursday, 12 April Tuesday, 10 April Sunday, 15 - Wednesday, 18 April Wednesday, 18 April Thursday, 19 April Sunday, 22 - Thursday, 26 April Sunday, 22 - Tuesday, 24 April Wednesday, 25 - Friday, 27 April Sunday, 22 - Thursday, 26 April Monday, 23 April Thursday, 26 April Thursday, 26 April Sunday, 29 April Sunday, 29 - Monday, 30 April Sunday, 29 - Monday, 30 April

Nursery Mother’s Day Performance Mother’s Day - FS2 & Year 1 Dismissal for Spring Break - no noon dismissal Spring Break (FS2 to Year 12) Nursery will have regular classes until Thursday, 29th March

Nursery end of term celebration Nursery Spring break APRIL 2018 Staff and students return Camping Years 3 - 4 Al Israa wa Al Miraj* (* Islamic holidays are subject to the lunar calendar) FS2 and Year 1 Bake Sale Year 1 Science Week Innovents - Recycling fashion show Staff Professional Development Day FS 2 Science Week Primary School Checkpoints Camping Years 5 - 6 Nursery Book week Innovents - TEDX Innovents - DIATech UKMT Junior Challenge Nursery Purple Day Year 1 Field Trip Years 5 - 6 concert rehearsal

Message from the Principal Dear RIS Community, Welcome to our March edition of SummaRISe. In the following pages, you will see evidence of some of the events and activities that have taken place over the last few, incredibly busy weeks. Hardly a day has gone by without some kind of curriculum enrichment, from sports days to art competitions, tech fairs to camps and overseas trips.

This time, I would particularly like to thank all of those parents who have given up their time to make a contribution to our school. I include those parents who lovingly prepared their International Day displays, the parents who kindly came to talk with our students about their careers, our reading dads, our ‘Circle of Culture’ parents who visited classes, our sports day supporters and many more… I would also like to thank our PaRIS parents for their unwavering commitment to the school week in, week out. I have never worked in a school where the parent association was so busy.

Looking forwards to the next few weeks, we have FS2, Year 1 and Year 2 Sports Day coming up, along with the Innovents Science Fair and the much anticipated Ski and French Trips overseas. Spring Break starting 23 March will being everyone a welcome break and a chance to recharge the batteries before we launch into the summer term and turn our attention towards our Year 12 AS Level examinations and Year 6 Checkpoints.

Aside from the specific revision required for our examination groups, my recommendation for holiday learning would be read, read and read. As I write this, our Reading with Dads initiative has just finished and our book fair is drawing to a close. National Book Day has just passed and the UAE Year of Reading is still fresh in our memories. Not only is reading key for success all subject areas, it is the gateway to a deeper understanding of the world. At a time when information is accessible in seconds wherever we are, the need for deep thinking, reflection, imagination, creativity, empathy and visualization has never been greater. Reading provides the opportunity for us to develop all of these essential attributes and a love of reading is a gift for life. So, wherever you are this holiday, ‘GET CAUGHT READING’. Parents, you set the example and students, you show your parents what awesome readers you are!

On that note, I’m off to the book fair to find something to keep my mind active over the weekend….

Tim Richardson School Principal

Year 6 Innovents HackOverflow Competition At RIS we provide our students with all opportunities to stimulate 21 st century learning. We promote learning through doing, observing and making inferences. We lead them to be creative, critical thinkers and find solutions to problems.

In our Innovents HackOverflow competition on Wednesday, 28th February, Year 6 students won first place in both Robotics and the Digital game category. The themes were Sustainability and Environment respectively. Their creations and presentation was highly praised by the lead judge Ms. Susan from Tufts University, USA. Susan was in Dubai as a visiting keynote speaker at GESS 2018.

So impressive was the robotics project that Mr. Rob Widger, Atlab lead trainer had just one word – “Stunning”. He added, “What I did hear really impressed me, not only the designs but the clear and concise explanations from the students. They clearly had researched their ideas thoroughly and evaluated them as well. I changed my keynote at GESS that day to show off the students' wonderful designs especially the lighting on the WeDo fairground ride.”

The “Tree planting” robot designed by our Secondary School team was appreciated by the judges.

Congratulations to our Primary and Secondary team:  Ian Di Lucia Year 6A  Lukas Millican Year 6 A  Amirparsa Mehdiyar Year 6D  Zakaria Elsamna Year 6D  Youssif Eldesoky Year 6A  Tajah Duncan Year 6B  Youssef Barakat Year 6C  Augustina Salgado Year 6B  Adilet Eshimkanov Year 11  Nathalie Digrintaki Year 10  Arya Patwardhan Year 10  Changju Song Year 10 Seema Vinod Head of ICT Department

Environment News The months from November to January saw our school begin to work on conserving electricity and water. We have registered our school with the DEWA conservation award and hope we can actually win. So let’s all work together to conserve our water and electricity.

Year 1 students had a fantastic Recycling Fashion show, and the RIS IT from Primary and Secondary came up with wonderful robotics presentations to save and use rain water and dew.

Years 2 – 5 will be having their TRASH to TREASURE competition this term.

Watch this space for more Eco news as it happens.

RIS Green Team

Book Fair A Book Fair is a celebration of reading that puts the very best of books into student’s hand. The themes of the Year of Zayed include human development for which books are an excellent source. This is done by educating oneself and imparting knowledge thus giving back to transform the society into a better place.

Our second RIS Book Fair was arranged in collaboration with DC Books.

Ms. Susane Joseph Librarian

News from the Mandarin Department Chinese New Year is the most important holiday in Chinese culture. In 2018, it begins on February 16 and marks the beginning of the Year of the Dog. Chinese New Year is celebrated with big family gatherings, “red envelopes”(hong bao 红包) giving, the eating of symbolic foods such as dumplings, rice cake, and display of festive decorations - all these focused on bringing good luck for the New Year and celebrating the coming of Spring.

For celebrating this special occasion, The Mandarin students from the Primary school and the Secondary school in RIS hosted separately Chinese New Year assemblies in our school’s Sports Hall. During the assemblies, students wore either red outfits or Chinese costumes. They played the lion dance and demonstrated New Year’s traditions and customs by singing or dancing. Primary students’ Fan Dance attracted all the audience to participate. In the assemblies, students sang a traditional Chinese folk song “Gong Xi” wishing everybody a Happy Chinese New Year. The Mandarin students participated with great interest and high enthusiasm.

Here are two most frequently used greetings associated with the Chinese New Year:

新年快乐Xin Nian Kuai Le Congratulations and Prosperity: 恭喜发财Gong Xi Happy New Year:

Fa Cai

We wish all Raffles students, teachers and parents Happy Chinese New Year. Hope everyone has a prosperous New Year in 2018!

Ms. Emilie Wong / Ms. Mei Ling Pan Mandarin teachers

GENERAL

NURSERY

PRIMARY

SECONDARY

Dear Parents, Grandparents and Extended Family, In our Nursery Montessori environment, the holistic learning environment and teaching strategies encourage the children to meet and exceed age appropriate personal, social, emotional benchmarks as well create a cultural awareness and international mindedness. 

Tolerance and Curiosity about the world and different cultures - The teachers spend a considerable amount of time establishing the ‘ground rules of safety, fairness and kindness’ in the classrooms. Many desirable and positive attitudes and behaviours are acquired through appropriate role modeling and reinforcement. There is a clear and established agreed classroom behaviour code which has an important role in ensuring the safety and well-being of all. Although the children are free to walk around the classroom, choose their work, sit anywhere and work collaboratively, they are made to understand that they must respect the work of others, not distract peers that are working and treat materials within the class and outdoor environment with care.

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Social Responsibility - Care of self (personal hygiene, ability to dress and eat independently) and care of environment (cleaning up after yourself, caring for plants and animals, keeping your environment tidy and clean etc.) are inbuilt into the preliminary Practical Life activities of the classroom. At every point of the day, the children are encouraged to help themselves and do things by themselves, enabling self-confidence and self-esteem to flourish.

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There is an atmosphere of openness and cultural sensitivity with the class. Our theme related topics beginning from All About me encourage children to understand similarities with other children and celebrate differences. Cultural awareness has been taken further as we are now having discussions in class about the world and continents. We have been using the continent boxes in the Nursery

to give children an international understanding. Parents have been invited into the classrooms to talk about their culture, share stories, sing songs, read traditional books and folk tales, share food and do culture related crafts. In the coming weeks, we will be discussing similarities in stories from around the world to stimulate discussion about good and bad, right and wrong, fairness and injustice and what it takes to try and put things right. We encourage a culture of repair, re-use and recycle rather than throw away and discard. 

At the age appropriate level, children are exposed to the concept of giving and sharing within the community. Through the year, we support a number of fund raising activities related to Breast cancer, Red Box appeal, Nepal earthquake etc. Specific topics in the curriculum which relate to International Mindedness include All about me, Seasons, Community Helpers, My City my Dubai, Earth, Recycling, The Continents, Friendship and International Day.

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Understanding and appreciating the culture we live in- The children in the Nursery are exposed to the National Anthem of the UAE on a daily basis as part of the morning routine. At various times of the year, Circle time discussions focus on an understanding of the special culture of the UAE, whereby topics relating to Ramadan, Haj and Eid are highlighted and the children do supporting activities like craft etc.

Thank you to all the parents who have taken time off from their busy schedules to come and talk to us about their culture and what makes their traditions, language, festivities and food unique. It has been a truly enriching experience for our children and one that have thoroughly enjoyed. This ‘Share your Culture’ initiative carries on till the end of this term, so please continue to volunteer your time.

Garima Kapoor Assistant Head Early Years

GENERAL

NURSERY

PRIMARY

SECONDARY

PRIMARY SCHOOL Dear RIS Community, What a fantastic event our International Fair was on March 1st. As this was my first ‘IF’ at Raffles, I wasn’t sure what to expect but was very impressed at the level of organisation and quality at the start of the day as the stands were beginning to ‘come to life’. We are so fortunate to have such an amazing group of parents who spent hours and hours preparing, setting up and running the stands. As someone with 15 years’ worth of international education experience, it was not my first ever International Fair, but certainly ranks as one of the most enjoyable. Thank to you everyone involved.

As the day got underway, the atmosphere in the school was a mixture of excitement and curiosity as students and visitors made their way around the three main sections of the Fair. The opportunities to learn about and celebrate the different heritages that all come together to form one school community were obvious.

Currently 106 countries are represented within our school, and as I said during my short welcome speech before the colourful flag parade, this accounts for about 55% of the countries on our planet! To me that’s a pretty amazing fact, and provides us with such a rich source of ongoing exchange and learning. It is not on just days like these of course that customs and beliefs are shared across a community. It is one of the real strengths of schools like RIS that students have the opportunity to grow in a deeply multi-cultural environment.

As my time at RIS grows, I am seeing just how busy and energetic the school is. The ‘IF’ is a showcase event, but there is such a lot happening in the school one cannot sit still. As ever, huge thanks are also due to the staff and students for helping organize such a busy schedule.

Edward Copper Head of Primary School

Key Stage 1 News Dear Parents Thursday, 01st March saw the celebration of International Day, the children had the opportunity to visit the other classrooms. Each classroom represented a different country giving the children the opportunity to identify the landmarks and cultures of different countries. Thank you to all the parents that took part in creating this global learning environment.

Our next event in Key Stage 1 will be celebrating Mother Day. Our children have been practicing the song that will surely bring tears to your eyes.

Reading with Dad was another huge success this year. The children always get excited when seeing ‘dad’ in the school. We had over 100 dads that took part this year. Thank you for supporting the development of our interest in reading in our children and celebrating World Book Day. Susie Mcshane Deputy Head, Primary KS1

Key Stage 2 News This week is a very busy week but then every week at RIS is exciting and forever changing.

This week we have had our Book Fair in school which always places an added emphasis on the importance of reading. As part of their daily diet, children should be reading for pleasure and enjoyment. As parents however, our children love to read with us. I would request that when reading as a parent we ask inquisitive questions from our children to ensure they have fully understood the text, ask further questions about how they feel as the character and what they think may happen next. This skill of inference and deduction is vital for our children’s learning.

Other Useful reading tips When your child is reading and encounters words that are difficult for them, use the Three Ps technique ‘Pause, Prompt, Praise' to support them.

Pause: when your child comes to a word they don't know, try not to jump in straight away. Wait and give your child time to work out the word.

Prompt: if your child successfully works out the problem word, suggest they go back to the beginning of the sentence and re-read it (to recap meaning) before reading on.

If your child has not worked out the problem word, prompt them with some quick, low-key suggestions.

Say things like: 

"Try reading on for a sentence or two, miss out the difficult word and see if that helps you to work it out."  "Look at the sound the word begins with, use that clue, and think about what may make sense here? Look at the pictures."

If prompts like these are not working, simply tell your child the correct word.

Try not to spend too much time prompting, as your child will find it difficult to maintain the overall meaning of what they are reading.

Praise: praise your child's reading efforts and successes.

Things to remember about reading  The goal of reading is always to make sense of what is read.  Try to be interested, supportive and enjoy the time together.  Read with your child anywhere and at any time; don't forget that many everyday experiences provide opportunities to put reading and writing into action.  Visit and use a library near you. Borrow books for yourself as well as for your child.  Talk to your child's classroom teacher or the principal for further help and advice.

(Taken from School A to Z practical help for parents) Following on from with the reading theme, this Thursday was “Reading with Dad.” We have over 100 dads attending this very popular event and bringing with them many smiles and wonderful memories.

Events coming up in the next few weeks…….  Year 4 Musical ensemble  TechnoRISe  Mother’s Day assembly

Jasmit Kang Deputy Head, Primary KS2

GENERAL

NURSERY

PRIMARY

PRIMARY SECONDARY

SECONDARY

SECONDARY SCHOOL The Secondary School students have been extremely busy over the past two weeks developing their knowledge of other nationalities and cultures. It has been wonderful to watch the students share and appreciate each other’s diversity and knowledge of different cultures.

In French Ms Maya and Ms Ilham shared a traditional French breakfast with our Year 7 students. Croissants and pain au chocolat all round! This is to be followed up with a visit to the French bakery in the near future.

This week students from Years 9-12 took part in our first RIS Careers Fair. Parents of students were invited to attend and share their experiences of a range of careers. Discussions centred on career pathways, likes and dislikes of jobs, earning potential and university choices. Feedback from students and parents was that it was a valuable and very worthwhile experience and one that they would like to have again next year. We always welcome contributions from parents – future volunteers are very welcome!

Mr Moaaz took a small group of our Islamic students to visit Saudi Arabia.

The journey of Umrah reminds me the saying of The Prophet (Sallallaahu ‘Alayhi Wa Sallam) said: An Umrah to an Umrah is an expiation for what is between the two. And a blessed Hajj does not have a reward for it except paradise.

This journey helped us and students to witness different places which remind us the soul of the religion of Islam which is peace, which is obedience to Allah and being kind respectful and tolerate with people.

It made us very close to the places where our Prophet Muhammad S.A.W used to live, where He used to walk and spread the message of Islam and where he passed away. A great example of faithful leader and the servant at the same time. Leader of people and servant of Allah.

Visiting these places and performing the Umrah which is one of great worships in Islam made us realize that Islam is not the religion which can only be taught but it is a religion which can be and which is practiced by so many people, it motivated us to apply of those terms of Islam in our daily life which we have been learning in our Islamic lesson for many years, it is completely applicable.

May Allah make it easy for us to provide more chances to our students to experience this great journey of Umrah.

It has been a very busy week for opportunities in Secondary. Last weekend students in Years 10-12 went on a residential trip to Oman. They took part in a wide variety of activities including hiking and mountain bike riding.

On Tuesday the Year 7 - 9 students left for Dibba for their annual adventure camp. There was great excitement as the students left. We shall be sharing their experiences with you in the next issue.

This year’s International Day was colourful, vibrant and full of different experiences. Thank you to all the parents who helped make the day such a success. Many of the secondary students took part in the flag parade, representing their countries. In addition the music department, led by Ms. Marinou, entertained us with a wide range of musical performances, the highlight of which was a special guest appearance by Mr. Clements, Head of PE.

The students participated in the UAE Sports Day on Wednesday, 07th March.

On March 21st the Secondary students will be celebrating World Book Day. The students are being invited to dress up as their favourite character from a book which they have read. Prizes will be given out to the best costumes.

There will be lots of additional events taking place that day too to promote a love of reading with everyone.

The term will continue to be full with upcoming events. Alongside all these extra curricular experiences the Year 11 and Year 12 students are busy working to prepare for their IGCSE. The momentum never stops.

Bryony Lynch Deputy Head Secondary School

Peter Rowlands Head of Secondary School

Secondary Counselling Department Year 7 and 8 Anti-Bullying Talks led by the Anti-Bullying Ambassadors and Counsellor: A big thank you to our Anti-Bullying Ambassadors Hissa, Aya, Sueda, Malak, Jaidev and Anastasiya for leading our one hour talks on Anti-Bullying. Thank you also to Miss Christa and Mr. James for being such good sports and helping out with a role-play activity. We discussed the various types of bullying, strategies for being an upstander rather than a bystander, as well as the impact of Cyberbullying.

Wellbeing Census 2017: The first ever Dubai Student Wellbeing Census measured how students in Dubai’s 168 participating private schools feel and think about their own wellbeing. Overall 64’686 students answered numerous questions looking at: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Social and Emotional Wellbeing Physical Health and Lifestyle Relationships and Learning After-school Activities

Overall, 84% of kids in Dubai schools are happy, 82% feel they are perseverant, 87% feel they are optimistic, 92% feel confident about their school work.

The Census Report provides rich data for school self-evaluation and improvement planning.

Upcoming events for ALL parents: Lighthouse Arabia: Resilience: Monday, 12th March 08:00 am – 09:30 am.

Lecture Theatre.

IDP: University Enrolment Procedures (US, UK, Australia, India, and many more): Monday, 19 th March 08:00 am –9:00 am, Lecture Theatre, this is for Year 11 and 12 students and all interested parents.

Prisca Toland Secondary School Counsellor