Principal's Message - 9th September 2018

Dear Parents and Students   

Positive Discipline in the Classroom  

I hope you have had a smooth start to the academic year.  As you will read from the Primary and Secondary School articles below, Positive Discipline in the Classroom will be a focus for NAISAK  this academic year and beyond.  Adopting a progressive approach to behaviour management in our school will require a paradigm shift from us all.   We were encouraged to hear from  Joy Marchese, the expert who led our workshops,  that  our guiding statements are very much aligned with a positive approach to discipline across the school.  As Joy explained, “When people say, it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it, they are incorrect.”  Our High Five statements are based on actions  that we  want all of our community to ‘do’.  For instance, last year when adopting our new statements, we amended a ‘don’t’ command of ‘give no excuse’ to a ‘do’ expectation of ‘accept responsibility’.    

There is much more to positive discipline than semantics.  We will spend a lot of time rethinking our assumptions about discipline to create more responsible, resilient and successful students.  As a school, we have acknowledged that discipline is about teaching and learning, not punishment.  In the coming weeks, we will have an Oversight Team to maintain momentum and examine a number of our approaches, including but not limited to,  our Behaviour and Effort for learning policies and the role of Student Councils.    

We also will look to offer parent workshops in both English and Arabic.   More information will be provided in the coming weeks.    

Classroom Groupings  

When  allocating students into various classes,  several  factors are considered,  including the male/female mix,  nationality of students,  ability levels,  friendship groups along with behaviour and effort of students  across the year group.   When  classes  are decided,  it is important to note that we do not  move  students from classes, as it may have a negative impact on the learning of others.  If we were to make an exception for one student, it would only be fair to do this for all requests.    

Please note that  apart from  when there are siblings in the same year group, we will not  transfer students between classes.   Having students step out of their comfort zone and make new friends is a valuable lesson in life and we thank you in advance for supporting both your children and the school in having them meet new friends from amongst their fellow students.    

Health and Safety  

As part of our regular  health and safety reviews, we have identified the need to make sure students stay within the campus perimeter.  Consequently, we will be looking to not only keep the  main gate where cars enter the campus closed throughout the day,  except at the beginning and end of the day.  We will also close the black door  where I usually greet children at the start of each morning.  The door will also be open at the start of the day.  However, when children are in lessons, this gate will be closed as a safety measure.  We will also have an increased presence from our security team to make sure our students do not have the option of  making it to the car park area.   Please accept our apologies  in advance for any unintended inconvenience that this creates.  We will monitor  how effective these new  procedures work in the coming days.  Please do not hesitate to contact  our Designated Health and Safety Lead,
  Ms Lydie  Gonzales  at  Lydie.gonzales@nais.qa  should you have any  questions or comments.  

David Pontich
Principal