Dear Parents

Many thanks to the 30 families who returned the slips asking you to indicate the 5 most important characteristics that you feel best prepare your children for life in the 21st Century. The top 5 results are below:

Confident	16
Responsible	11
Socially competent	9
Communicator	8
Independent	8

I think you will agree that these characteristics are vital for the world we live in today and also tomorrow’s world.  The 8 personal goals of the IPC, our Golden Rules, the curriculum itself and the learning opportunities we provide for your children help to promote all these characteristics within our school. One parent wrote:
“To be honest, it is very difficult to single out 5 things from this great list! All characteristics seem important and valuable!”  I think I agree.

There are two date reminders to give you and a new date also. Next Monday is confirmed as Prophet Muhammad’s birthday and so school will be closed. I also want to draw your attention to our last school day for this academic term, which will be Friday 17th July and not Thursday 16th July. As the National Day for Malaysia is August 31st, school will now reopen on Tuesday 1st September 2009.

Unfortunately there has been no swimming this week as we are not happy with the condition of the swimming pool. We expect swimming to go ahead next week but will inform you if we deem it to be unsuitable for school use.

Mr. Frank, who had been relocated here until the end of February from the Johor Bahru project, has now left our school and returned to The Hague, The Netherlands. We were all sad to see him finally leave but wish him every success for the future.

Our school has been involved with the International Primary Curriculum (IPC) since the early days of its development. The IPC started its life as a curriculum that had been researched, written and developed for the Shell schools around the world. Now more than 350 schools worldwide have adopted this curriculum.

Recently Fieldwork Education has developed “IPC Accreditation” and the standards used are based on good IPC practice to promote “great learning, great
teaching and great fun”. We have asked for the accreditation team to visit us in May. As you might expect there are clear links between IPC accreditation and learning-focused reviews, which happen in all Shell Schools on a three-year cycle. As we have asked for the team to come for IPC accreditation purposes they will also be undertaking a review as much of the areas overlap. You will be asked to meet with the team on Monday 4th May at 7.00pm in the School Hall, to share your views on the education your child receives here.  I do hope you can spare the time to attend.

This weekend some of the staff and I shall be supporting the 4 teams entered into the Panaga Football Tournament taking place in Brunei. We have 2 under 7 teams and one in the Under 9s and one in the Under 11s. Having witnessed the skills of some of our children in the playground and also in the recent teachers versus the children football game, I think the standard of football played will be very high. Good luck to all the children taking part and thank you to Jim Beer and Andreas Kirchner for coordinating the teams. The first matches start at 9.00am and this year the tournament will take place on the Panaga Padang, opposite Panaga School itself, should you wish to come along and support our teams.

Preparations for the end of term concert on 1st April at 6.30pm are now in full flow. The theme this year is “The Museum of Time” and we shall be transported from the Stone Age right through to 2040! As usual each family will be issued with 2 tickets and a programme before the evening. School will start later on the following day at 9.15am. 

Shortly the children will be given a form about their choice for “After School Activities” next term. Please fill this in as soon as possible, as some of the clubs fill up really quickly and children are allocated on a “first come first serve” basis. Children are asked to indicate their first, second and third choices so that should a club become full, we can then allocate a place in their other preferences. Please return all slips to Mr.Nic, not Linda or your child’s class teacher, as slips may eventually arrive to Mr. Nic when the club is full! 

As always, don’t hesitate to pop in if you have any queries.

Yvette