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Blog | Posts From Our People
Message from the Assistant Head of Secondary
As we approach our first half-term break, I’m excited to spend quality time with family and friends from around the globe. My sister, a teacher in Finland, often shares insights about their education system, which is deeply influenced by Pasi Sahlberg’s philosophy, emphasising ‘equity, well-being, and joy in learning.’ This approach enhances student engagement and holistic development, encouraging students to take greater ownership of their learning, creating a more engaging and personalised educational experience.
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Message from the Assistant Head of Primary
As we approach half term, I want to reflect on our journey together in embracing diversity, inclusion, and belonging here at BIS Abu Dhabi. These principles are at the heart of our community and it is truly inspiring to see how our Equality, Diversity, inclusion and Beloning (EDIB) lens shapes our experiences every day. As the regional EDIB Lead for Nord Anglia in the Middle East, I feel fortunate to connect with exceptional practices across our nine schools. In this role, I actively promote EDIB initiatives, sharing best practices and supporting school champions in creating inclusive environments that empower all students and staff.
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Blog | Posts From Our People
Message from the Assistant Head of Secondary
This week, our senior school students had the opportunity to think about life after BIS Abu Dhabi. On Wednesday, we welcomed the IDP University Fair, featuring over 50 leading universities from the UK, US, Canada, Australia, and Ireland in the Falcon Academy Sports Hall. It was a wonderful opportunity for our Year 11, 12, and 13 students to talk, discuss, and get excited about what lies ahead.
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A Warm Welcome and Reflections on the Start of Term at BIS Abu Dhabi
Thank you all so much for welcoming me into the BIS Abu Dhabi family. I have been utterly amazed and humbled by the number of you who have shown kindness and support towards me as someone who has so recently arrived at the school and in the UAE. Thank you!
BIS Abu Dhabi is a wonderful school – when I visited in February, I was so impressed with the students, staff, facilities, and Mr. Cocker’s vision that I could not resist applying for the position of Head of Primary. Now that I am here, I can only say that the school is even better than I had realised, and I can see where the students get their lovely characteristics from.
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Reflections on a Remarkable Year at BIS Abu Dhabi
The end of the year is a time for reflection and celebration, as well as an opportunity to look ahead.
During the last weeks, we have celebrated students at the Sports Awards Assemblies, welcomed fathers sharing time with students in the Early Years team, enjoyed end-of-term showcases across many year groups, attended IB presentations, participated in a Science Fair hosted by the Science CCA, and watched the Dance Production, BISAD’s Got Talent Show, and the Music Open Mic event, to name but a few.
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Message from the Head of Primary
Dear Parents,
As we approach the end of this term and the academic year, we take great pride in celebrating the multitude of successes our children have achieved. This period has been filled with events showcasing the diverse talents and interests of our students here at BIS Abu Dhabi. From the creativity of our dance performances, our success at sports competitions to the incredible ongoing school trips, from the talent displayed at the BISAD’s Got Talent audition and our Open Mic sessions to the World Scholars Cup and the Quran reading, our calendar has been brimming with opportunities for our students to shine.
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Blog | Posts From Our People
The Truth
At the recent Year 13 Graduation event, I mused on the theme of truth, inspired as I was by the very hard academic work that any Year 13 student must go through to graduate successfully and achieve a place at the university of their choice. It seems to me that academic work is entirely about truth and our perpetual search for it, although I know many would disagree. Students in particular generally want a different answer when they ask the question ‘why am I learning this?’. Students want to know all about the lesson content’s practical application, whether they’ll need this ‘fact’ for an exam, or whether what they are learning will help them get a job. When I reply ‘we are learning this, because we want to discover the truth about the world we live in….’ I suppose I’m sometimes met with understandable bemusement. Truth is a strange concept, a tricky one. ‘Learn this, because it will be on your end of term exam…!’ is a much simpler answer. But it’s the wrong one. Teachers shouldn’t be teaching so that students can pass exams, we should be teaching to encourage discovery. And what do we want young people to discover? Truth.
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The Power of the Arts
Last weekend witnessed a clash of arts events. In Abu Dhabi, Cranleigh hosted the annual BSME Dance Festival, while in Dubai, our sister school NAS Dubai hosted the first Regional Nord Anglia Performing Arts Festival. Students from BIS Abu Dhabi attended both events and gave their all.
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Nurturing Multilingual Excellence at BIS Abu Dhabi
At BIS Abu Dhabi, we believe early exposure to languages fosters essential skills, not only in foreign language acquisition but also in overall cognitive development. Aside from our provision for English and Arabic, our Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) programme offers primary students specialised MFL classrooms, promoting engagement with highly qualified teachers and encouraging pride through displays of their work. This article explores the advantages of learning languages, details our school’s language programme, and highlights its unique features.
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A School of Opportunities
In April, I was fortunate enough to watch 3 of our students present at the World Energy Summit hosted at the Exhibition Centre in Abu Dhabi. Their presentation was titled ‘Embedding Sustainability into the Ethos of The British International School Abu Dhabi’ and they shared the stage with a VP for Sustainability at FAB Bank, and a scientist who worked for the Abu Dhabi Environment Agency. As I looked around the exhibition centre that day, and watched our students talk so articulately and confidently on that stage, I had one thought running through my mind ‘what an opportunity for these young people’.
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Nurturing Ambition: A Commitment to World Class Learning
Although I am relatively new to BIS Abu Dhabi, I know the unwavering determination that lies within the community to be the best that we can be for the children, the families and the staff in our school. Just the key phrases: ‘Be Ambitious’ and ‘World Class Learning’ that echo through the halls tell you that nothing short of the best is good enough for those who are part of the BIS Abu Dhabi community. Taking on a Senior Leadership role within such a large community, was both exciting and terrifying in equal measure. The responsibility of providing the best opportunities to the community is not something to take lightly.
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Embracing Errors: How Mistakes Enhance Learning
Sometimes we get things wrong. Whether it is a spelling error or the wrong answer to a maths sum, misunderstanding the meaning of a word, or thinking that photosynthesis has something to do with cameras… sometimes we get things wrong. In life, that can be a real problem. A friend of mine once put diesel into a petrol engine. He got that wrong, and it caused him an awful lot of problems. In school, we want the consequences of being wrong to cause fewer difficulties for our students, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want them to get things wrong occasionally.
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Message from the Principal
The meteorological events of this week have certainly tried to test us all. As I walked my dog at 5am on Wednesday morning and waded through water that covered my ankles in parts, a sense of awe confronted me. There were many people up and about, much more than usual and not just the early morning joggers and dog walkers. People had come out to help clear up, to lend a hand to help sort out the area they lived in. They weren’t just taking care of their own area and belongings, but helping to sort communal areas and each other’s spaces. Neighbours and maintenance people all working hand in hand to get things back in order.
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