Dear SIA Community
It’s fiesta time! This week the staff and our learners have been preparing for our SIA Fiesta this weekend and also getting some performances ready for our upcoming National Day celebrations. At SIA we really are enjoying being able to hold more celebrations and events as it is supporting bringing our community together and of course gives us opportunities to grow our learner leadership.
We have had many amazing things going on at SIA, such as the U10, 12, 14 & 16 learners are competing in an EISSA swimming gala in Ajman where we had multiple wins and successes. Also, we have formed a great link with an external company called lighthouse, who will support the mental wellbeing of staff and learners within our school environment. They will be coming into the school to deliver some seminars and activities surrounding these aspects. In particular our focus this year will be on mindfulness which is something I have been growing and supporting in schools both in the UK and UAE since 2010. Leaners, staff and parents have reported a range of benefits to regularly practicing mindfulness which can be very powerful e.g. Improved self regulation, improved concentration, mental clarity, being able to relate to others and ones self which are all very much endorsed within the HPL framework. Keep an eye out for the date to come and learn more about mindfulness and our approach.
Furthermore, our Year 9 & 10 learners played against capital school coming out 7-0 winners, this was a great result, our learners are getting access to so many amazing sports competitions and activities. Week 3 of our podcast is underway with our learner leaders (Arwa & Mahnoor). This week they are discussing some sustainability projects we are working on as a school and have invited the Head of Secondary Ms Kush to come and discuss some events going on across Secondary. One of our Primary learners, Swarna is working with two of our Year 13 learner leaders to complete a sustainability project for National Day, creating a Burj Khalifa tower made out of recycles plastic bottles.
Although I am not physically in school at the moment a highlight this week was hearing from Ms Daisy about book week. Our learners have been bringing books to life through role play, dressing up as their favourite characters and buddy reading with different year groups. We have also been very lucky to have parents come into school and listen to our learners read. I would like to thank Mr. Barry, Head of English for arranging so many different, exciting and engaging activities for our learners.
Take care
#bethebestyoucanbe #proudprincipal
James Batts
Principal