Dear Parents

Greetings!

Can't believe that a month has gone by after the schools reopened!

September has been a very busy, exciting and eventful month.  All of us at school were delighted to have students back to school in increased numbers. This month has provided us with valuable experience in preparing to welcome 100% students on campus on 3rd of October’ 2021.

The coming 1 year promises to be one, filled with diverse activities, organized to celebrate the successes of our stakeholders viz. Students, parents, staff to mention a few. These year long celebrations are organized to mark 20 years  of the Global Schools Foundation. The celebrations have already begun as you will see through this newsletter but do read the circulars we share for the forthcoming  activity as it may be relevant for your child! 

In the October Month Students  were engaged in different activities like

1) “Nature Walk”,  Gardening and Cleaning of Al Boustan: Kindergarten Students went to Al-Boustan to explore nature. Students observed the texture of rocks, barks of trees and dried up leaves which provided them countless opportunities for discovery, creativity, and problem-solving. Students sowed seeds and grew their own Plants. They watered them and watched them grow each day. They cleaned the AL Bustan by scooping dirt and removing weeds. All these gardening activities help to improve concentration and learning capabilities in the early years.

2) KinderKitchen Activities : Pre KG Students got cut and parboiled vegetables, placed it on a diagram and concluded that all parts of a plant are edible.They also prepared a sale. KG II children made healthy tortillas using different kinds of vegetables.

3) Kindergarten Competitions : Show and tell competitions, Poem recitation and Drawing  Competition on Landmarks of UAE were some of the competitions conducted

4) Dubai Garden Center Virtual Educational Trip (Balad-i activity) : The virtual field trip has become a popular pedagogical strategy for connecting young people to enriching educational experiences. Children were taken for a virtual supermarket tour. They were shown different videos of the fruit and vegetable markets. Their excitement knew no bounds. They saw different videos on how vegetables and fruits once fully grown are sold in the market. 

5) International Peace Day : International Peace Day celebration was done in collaboration with Kindergarten parents and also to celebrate 20 years of global school foundation. Parents took part enthusiastically and presented a small assembly consisting of skit, solo singing, and fusion dance. The students from Grades 1-10 decorated peace doves in beautiful fingerprinted designs, wrote peace pledges,created peace flags and took part in various literary competitions.

6) Grade 1-4 students participated in the SPELL A THON competition to identify the words and spell them out in different conditions with varying difficulty levels. To compete, students memorised the spellings of words as written in dictionaries, and recited them accordingly. This activity enabled students to focus on their learning and personal growth.

7) Tuesday ,Thursday activities and Competitions : 

? World Literacy Day was celebrated on  16th of September where all students designed book covers

? To celebrate the 20 glorious years of GSF children created their own logo 

? Instrument playing competition was organised on 14th of September.

? Python Coding Challenge through Gamification was organised for Grades 9-10 

Inter house competitions and activities have a great positive impact on our students by  enhancing their  social, emotional and physical learning. These healthy competitions help our students' to develop their self-esteem, motivation, confidence and self-confidence. These are some of the activities and competitions that were held in our campus for the month of September. 

? Students participated in OOIS Dubai Inter School Debate Competition held virtually on 23.9.21.

? Students from Grades 5, 7, 9 had the opportunity to participate in the English Fest hosted virtually by Indian International School Abu Dhabi.

8) The school organized a professional workshop namely “Wellbeing Assistance Program” with Open Minds on the 16th Sep for all  teachers. The main objective was to present practical strategies to prevent problem behavior, handle it if it arises and provide an overall nourishing environment for students in a classroom. We will also go over a repertoire for good learning behavior and how to encourage learners to thrive.

9) Radio Show :  When we asked our student RJ's of GIIS Radio to tell us about their favourite classic books, the resulting list of must-reads by our students was very exciting ! Catch them all on our podcasts on Spotify and SoundCloud !! https://soundcloud.com/giissmartcast/giis-dubai-whats-your-favourite-english-classics 

10) Student Achievements : 

Ms.Haniya Burmawala of Grade 8 A won the Best presenter award for an InterGIIS Quality Circles presentation - GED 2021 

Ms.Nidhi Satvika pf Grade 4 A was the third runner up for the UCMAS online Challenge conducted by UCMAS UAE

Kaanav Jaiswal of 5A won 3rd Place in IIS Metanoia A Literature fest on UAE's year of the 50th conducted by Indian International School Abudhabi.

11) Campus Achievements : 

Certificate of Appreciation for Kaizen by Global Schools Foundation

APQO 3 star Awards for Digital Learning Journey for the Kindergarten Department

Best Regards,

Antony Koshy

Principal, GIIS Dubai