Week Beginning 8 June 2020 - Christopher Short, DCIS Principal

Dear DCIS Parents,

By the end of the week all of our students will have had the chance to be back on the campus. Both last Tuesday and today we noticed a quietness from students as they got used to be back in school and wearing a face mask or face shield. The good news is that the chatter and confidence increased through last week and I’m sure this week will be the same.

We had a delightful Year 11 celebration assembly on Friday led by Mr Tuckley. It was a lovely way to celebrate a milestone in their education as they finish GCSEs and prepare for the next step on their educational journey. We look forward to welcoming the majority back to the IB Diploma Programme or BTEC at DCIS, come August. Because of the regulations this had to be done virtually but that didn’t dampen the celebratory nature of the event. Tomorrow is our Year 13 Graduation. With the smaller number of students in the cohort, we are able to hold this in school but without the families present so we will livestream the event for them. It was meant to be one of the first events to be held in the newly renovated Eden Hall, the British High Commissioner’s residence. Apart from the word Hall there is not much in common between Cooper Hall and Eden Hall but we will ensure our graduating class have a great event to remember the extremely odd end to their time at school.

We will have information out on our summer camp activities this week. These are dependent upon Singapore moving to phase 2 of the Circuit Breaker easing.

I am delighted to tell you about an initiative that Nord Anglia Education is undertaking globally, to make sure that we learn from what has happened during the COVID-19 pandemic; that we listen carefully to the views of parents as we develop our NAE education strategy going forward; and that we make sure that, as we aim to integrate new skills and methods into our teaching, these align with the attitudes and aspirations of parents and students. We have therefore collaborated with the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution to learn about parents' beliefs about their children's education globally.

The first stage of this is a global survey, which we would like to be completed by as many parents as possible. May I reassure you that your answers are anonymous and do not identify your individual school but will of course be collated to compare the results from Nord Anglia Education as a whole with the global study.

Please follow this link to complete this survey by June 19th, which takes approximately 15 minutes to complete and consists of 31 questions:

https://surveyhero.com/c/CUEBrookingsNAE

Your study participation will help us better understand what parents believe makes for a good quality education for their children.