Term 3 Newsletter 2020-2021

THE RAPTOR

REPORTER

THE RAPTOR REPORTER | SUMMER 2021

IN THIS ISSUE Message from the Principal Term 3 Highlights

IMPORTANT DATES 1 July: Last Day of Term 3 August 29: New student orientation August 30: Term 1 Starts

SUMMER BREAK REMINDER Admissions and administration offices will remain open over the summer break.

Office hours will be: Sunday - Thursday 8:00am - 4:00pm Families should contact the school via email or by calling 02 556 1567 (Gardens Campus) or 02 550 5271 (Khalifa City Campus). The campus will be closed to Raha families until further notice.

Look at the great learning this term!

From the Office of the Principal

FROM MR IAIN Dear Parents, Well, what a year it has been…again!

I usually write my end of year newsletters easily remembering all the exciting things which have

happened during the year, but the last 12 months have seemed so long that it’s hard to recall the many great things that have taken

place. Hopefully this newsletter will provide us all

with a reflection of some of these events, together with the video time capsule.

There are many positives we can take from the year. One of the biggest being that for many months, we were one of the only schools in the emirate to open full time

for all students who were eligible, and we are very proud of this fact. We, like most

other schools, had our share of full or partial closures but on the whole the school

year ran smoothly. We assess our students’ performance at various points and this year was particularly important as there have been so many disruptions. I am proud

to say that almost all students either remained on track or in some cases performed better. This will be for a variety of reasons but ultimately it comes down to the great

work of our teachers and learning assistants, together with the support of parents and community. We are constantly impressed by the work ethic and dedication of our amazing students!

In November, we had our 5-year CIS/IB visits and it was wonderful to get external validation of how well we have been doing. These visits involved intense weeks of

self-evaluation followed by the review week, which encompassed the input of many stakeholders. We were delighted to receive glowing reports from both the IB and CIS,

and we have already taken on their comments for areas of improvement and incorporated them into our action planning for next year.

From the Office of the Principal

Some of the other major highlights this year have been our online performances of

Sleeping Beauty, the Build Up song that involved almost every single KCC student, our EY1 Instagram Takeover of @abcdoes and our virtual Grade 8 Science Fair! We have seen many amazing events and pieces of work, and we are so proud of what our students have achieved this year.

Our IB results promise to be very strong again and very much in line with our

expectations, even with all the COVID challenges. We are very proud of our graduating students and how well they coped this year. We were delighted to be

able to provide a graduation assembly in May for our Grade 12s, which was the first (relatively) large gathering we have had since restrictions were put in place.

Congratulations to the Class of 2021!

The major project for this year has of course been our brand-new campus in Khalifa

City. We opened Phase 1 on time last year and the much larger Phase 2 will also be

open on time for the upcoming September. The new campus promises to be an exceptional learning environment for our children and will beautifully complement

the current Gardens campus. We look forward to sharing more on this project at the

start of the next year and we are excited to welcome our pioneering new students on our new campus and I am sure they will play a huge part in Raha’s Exceptional Journey for many years to come.

From the Office of the Principal

As we move towards the new academic year, we have been told that some COVID protocols will be updated. One decision which has already been made is that all

schools can go to 1 metre distancing. This is a positive move and will be incredibly

helpful for us in moving towards a more normal timetable and teacher/class set up.

As a result of this Raha will not be offering any distance learning next year, which

has been approved by ADEK. Where serious medical conditions exist we will offer an online provision and will be seeking information from the relevant families about this

in August. We have been told that all other rules such as: bubbles, ECPs, swimming, sports, closures, masks etc. will all be updated around 15th August. This gives us time to adapt and inform families before the new school year starts.

As the summer holiday approaches, I’m sure we are all looking forward to time off to

recharge the batteries and relax with our families. I just want to take this opportunity

to thank the entire community for their support and positivity during the past year.

No matter what our individual circumstances have been, it has been far from easy, but I’m proud that our Raha community has remained strong and resilient. Best of

luck to all our families who are moving away from Abu Dhabi and to all our returning families, please have a relaxing, stress-free and safe summer holiday and we look forward to seeing you all after the break.

Yours sincerely,

Iain Colledge Iain Colledge

Executive Principal Raha International School

Congratulations Class of 2021!

We are so proud of you!

HERE'S TO YOU

2021

We are so incredibly proud of all your DP achievements, including personal journeys and individual and collective accomplishments!

With 38 offers to Top 10 UK universities, 28 offers to the Top 5 Canadian universities, and 26 offers to the Top 50 US universities, we are so incredibly impressed by your results.

Whether you are completing military service, taking a gap year, or attending university in the fall, we are so proud of how far all 134 of you have come, and what you have achieved. You'll always be a part of the Raha family!

Goodbye Mr. Michael!

Michael has been a marvellous Head of Primary for the past three years and we are saddened to see him leave. After three successful and impressive years, Michael’s family will be moving back home to New Zealand.

He has brought a renewed drive for standards to the primary school and has played a large part behind the scenes in the set up and planning for the new campus.

Thank you for all your hard work and efforts here at Raha, and we wish you well!

Time Capsule Video

The Yearbook Committee is proud to present the 2020/21 Raha International School Time Capsule Video, “A Found Year”.

Watch it at https://youtu.be/7awC0x1VC_k.

The video was made with help from the staff and the students. A special thanks goes to Ivan Melo for his support with this project!

Make sure you give it a watch!

KCC Phase 2 We are delighted to share that Phase 2 of the new Khalifa City Campus

(KCC) is right on schedule with the planned expansion of facilities ready for students from Early Years through to Secondary in September 2021.

With Phase 2 well underway, we are excited for our new academic year,

and to welcome Raha students up to Grade 8. We look forward to the next year with enthusiasm and a shared passion to continue to provide excellence in education for Raha students.

What Phase 2 will look like shortly!

The Phase 2 build at the moment

the Taaleem Team came to visit KCC and were impressed!

what it looks like on the inside!

Principal Iain checking out the buildings! What a site to see!

Hero Day

We saw pilots, doctors, and chefs, oh my!

Students and staff alike had a great time dressing up as their frontline heroes!

Buddy Program Secondary students in Grades 12, 11 and 8 partnered with students in the online Grade 5 class for the Buddy Program. What started as a reading project evolved into a creative writing extravaganza! The 8 secondary mentors and 8 Grade 5 students worked together to create their own creative stories and put them on paper. Two Grade 12 students illustrated their stories!

See the full team here.

Adie Buddy Programme Director, Grade 12

Anoop Deputy Director, Grade 12

Click here to read their stories!

A big thank you to the Buddy Program's advisors: Miss Teejay, Mr. Shawn and Miss Christina!

Grade 6 SmokeJumper Competition Grade 6 students had the opportunity to put their forces knowledge & smokejumper design to the test. The goal was to land their 'smokejumper' the fastest and closest to the target!

Measure twice, cut once!

So close!

Grade 8 Virtual Science Fair Grade 8 students had a virtual science fair, with 145 students each creating a virtual room to display their individual project.

Congrats to Selorm, Samar and George on winning the Teachers' Choice award!

A snapshot of their incredible projects!

Caring Boxes

The KCC Student Leadership team created the Caring Boxes project! Families donated supplies, students decorated boxes and we all said a big thank you to our amazing support staff!

Students did a lovely job writing thank you messages and making decorations!

The Student Leadership Team assembled the boxes all by themselves!

Thank you to our incredible support staff!

Grade 6 Bucket Drumming Mr. Stephen’s grade six music classes had a great time learning some simple rhythm reading and writing by using bucket drumming! In this performance, students had to quickly read rhythms and direction from the conductor and respond immediately on the bucket drum.

Watch it here

Great work and thank you to Mr. Stephen! We will miss you!

Simbi Read-a-thon

Congratulations to our SiMBi Read-a-thon winners! During Ramadan, these incredible PYP students achieved Most Books Read and Most Hours Narrated.

In all, we published 703 narrations and over 240 hours of volunteer time, impacting literacy globally!

LA Appreciation Day

We couldn't do what we do without our incredible Learning Assistants! LA Appreciation Day was all about thanking these wonderful staff members.

THE RAPTOR REPORTER | SUMMER 2021