Back to School Update 2019-2020

2019-2020

WELCOME BACK FROM MR. IAIN Dear Parents, Welcome back to the new school year!

We have a few updates and exciting things to share so I thought we would send a mini newsletter early in term to keep everyone updated.

The first week of term has been incredibly smooth. Myself and Miss Kath (Vice Principal) stood in the piazza at 8.20am on Monday morning and there was a real sense of calm and quiet, with all children in classes and lots of happy parents heading off to work or home. I am very grateful to all my colleagues and our incredible Parent Team for making the first morning so smooth.

I also want to thank parents for arriving a little early over the first few days. Even though the school is the largest it has ever been, this week has been rather calm in and around the parking areas. It is very busy, of course, but the traffic flowed well, and the police reported that they were happy with how the school managed the traffic and parking.

I have spent a lot of time visiting classes this week and it is so wonderful to see students back in class, engaging in their learning and looking excited for the year ahead.

WELCOM TO R CAMPUS IMPROVEMENTS Over the summer three areas of school have had a large makeover. We have brought all the primary Arabic B classrooms together into one block, next to the primary building. This hub will now serve as the heart of Arabic for our Arabic B students. We have renovated an entire floor of the Arts Centre and created a highly innovative and modern Digital Design learning space, which is almost complete.

We have also completely refurbished the whole of Early Years 1 with a very modern, minimalist, earthy design, which is far more conducive to how younger children learn.

Early Years 1

Early Years 1

Arabic Hub Classroom

Digital Design Hub Concept

ME BACK RAHA DIPLOMA RESULTS - CLASS OF 2019 In our graduating class of 2019, we had a 94% pass rate, the global pass rate being 77.4%. The average total points achieved were 31.8 points, the global average being 29.6 points. Of the points achieved, 1 student achieved 44 points (top 1% worldwide) and a total of 5 students achieved more than 40 points. In addition, we had 21% of our students achieve 36 or more points.

We are very proud of our Graduates’ achievements !

WELCOM TO R NEW CAMPUS UPDATE As I am sure all parents know, Raha will be expanding to a second campus in 2020, with a new Early Years block being opened next September and the remaining primary and secondary teaching areas opening in 2021. This is the largest project Raha and Taaleem have ever undertaken and it will make us the largest school in Abu Dhabi. We are proud to be in a position where our school is under such high demand and we look forward to being able to have more families access our school and its outstanding education than ever before. If you have friends or family who have previously not applied to Raha because they thought it would be impossible to get into the school then they should look to apply now for EY1-Grade 1 for 2020 as we will have many new classes open.

It is our top priority to ensure that the new campus does not detract in any way from the current campus and we want to ensure a smooth and seamless opening, whilst also maintaining the high quality leaning and wonderful atmosphere we have in the school .’Big School-Small Family’ is a key phrase that runs through our school and it is our aim to ensure we maintain that feel as we expand.

A significant amount of work and planning has already taken place in advance of the new campus build starting but we still have hurdles to overcome and decisions to make. To this end we are looking to put together a small group of staff and parents to act as an advisory body for this project. If you would like to form part of this small team which will be discussing education and provision for the new campus then please contact my assistant, Rebecca, at rrouen@ris.ae and provide a brief overview why you would like to join this group. We hope to have a team put together by the end of September and hope this collaboration will support our forward-thinking approach to the expansion.

ME BACK RAHA

WELCOME BACK TO RAHA

RAHA IS GETTING A REFRESH We are excited to announce that Raha and the Raha brand will be undergoing a ‘refresh’ (rebrand) and as part of this we will be implementing an updated logo and colour scheme.

We would like to give parents notice of the fact that the uniform will be updated as part of this. We will be putting out the tender for new uniforms later this term with the view of launching them in September 2020. The academic year of 2020-21 will be a transition year as we phase in the new uniform and phase out the current one. Many students may be relieved to know the green will possibly be disappearing!

As the year goes on we will be updating parents on the whole rebranding process which will incorporate both campuses.

Below is a sneak preview of our new logo!