Student Wellbeing and Achievement

The year 2019-2020 was, again, a very busy and immensely productive year for the whole-school Wellbeing Team. This year turned from a year of planning and implementation to rapidly evolving situation with COVID 19, and this posed ABS with new challenges for the wellbeing of our students.

Progress made for 2019-2020:

Strategic Goal One: School Culture

• Student voice was further operationalized. ABS moved away from having an external consultant for food catering at ABS and re-engaged the Student Councils in developing, tasting and approving new food items. We had particular success in the Primary School, with “Taco” Tuesday which generated record interest. ABS is delighted to engage students in menu development to improve engagement and a sense of responsibility for what they are eating.

Strategic Goal Two: Health and Safety

• ABS again met our attendance Key Performance Indicator (KPI) of 95% attendance in School after deducting authorised absences, obtaining 96.2 % attendance. • Further to attendance, ABS started the process of investigating a facial-recognition attendance system to bring our process fully into the highest IT capacity on offer in Jordan. This would improve the start to the day and allow more time for the wellbeing curriculum delivery. • We also started a research process to investigate the possibility of a “Cashless” payment system at ABS. This would further improve the process of payments for students whilst also making the process more hygienic in food service areas.

Strategic Goal Three: Wellbeing Curriculum

• Improvements made from 2018-2019 continued. ABS entered an agreement with Protect Ed. This is a fully developed wellbeing curriculum from KG1 to Grade 10. ABS took one year to research and agree to work with Protect Ed to ensure we are moving forward with a welleing curriculum fit for purpose in a rapidly changing environment for young students.

• COVID 19 presented ABS with the greatest threat to student wellbeing in memory. No curriculum could prepare the School or the students for the situation since March. The ABS Leadership Team developed five core principals in our “Road to Re-Opening”. The wellbeing of ABS students was and continues to be a central pillar for decision making. Great care was made to reduce the “risk” of transmission by developing ABS “Bubbles”. Looking forward to 2020/21, ABS will continue to strike the balance between the need to offer face-to-face learning with the wellbeing of students.

Strategic Goal Four: Student Achievement

• Firstly, we would like to take this opportunity to remind the community that we support and celebrate all types of student achievement. This may be athletic, artistic, co-curricular and of course academic. We take great pride in ensuring we celebrate international mindedness, role-model conduct and contribution to school life; these are all evidenced in our Grade 12 Graduation Awards.

• KG1 took the BASE test, while in Grades 1-5 students sat the InCAS test. In Grade 6, students took the MidYIS Test, Grade 9 took the Yellis Test and in the IB College, Grade 11 took the CEMIBE baseline test. As is normal procedure now, all results are available upon parental request so that you can better support your children with studying. • On an annual basis, curriculum changes can take place as a result of the baseline scores. Furthermore, the AEN department reviewed baseline scores to better facilitate student support if and when needed. ABS will produce a separate report analysing our projected scores against actual scores for both the e-Assessment and IB Diploma results in September 2020.

Russell Peagram BSc Geography (PGCE) Director of Operations