Themaid News | Monday, 4 November 2019

Dear Parents,

I hope you had a lovely half term break. 

The children returned to school well rested and enthusiastic, ready for this half term’s learning.

With the cooler weather, we are now able to have students outside for both break times. We are looking forward to seeing them use the lovely new play areas in Primary, the picnic benches and football pitch which is now enclosed. The cafeteria is being well used and we have plans to start Table Tennis and Fusebol leagues.

Compass International School Doha enjoyed an excellent presentation from Qatar Airways last week which talked about aviation and how to pursue such careers if students were interested. We had the opportunity to hear pilots speak about how they had been recruited to successfully follow their dreams and their passion for travelling worldwide with such a fantastic airline, which offers great benefits and opportunities. I think it was wonderful to hear that the trainee packages were available with no or limited experience for students once they finish their schooling and for Qatari nationals the package is completely paid for, which is an excellent incentive for them. I really hope this workshop gave the students greater insight into future possibilities and better career prospects than they had previously known. Thank you to Qatar Airways for this initiative.

The girls in Year 5 to 9 have been working on Dance in PE this last half term. We have used our lessons from our collaboration with The Julliard School to help us create some fabulous final performances. We looked at tools such as levels, formations and paired work to create interesting movements. Year 5 and 6 created a whole class dance that they were able to perform in assembly for the rest of Primary School. The assembly also saw Year 9 girls perform their final choreographed pieces. We hope this will inspire some more of our primary pupils to be ambitious and take up an interest in Dance in the future, with the hope of lots more performances to come.

A new sporting league is coming to Compass International School Doha Themaid. All Secondary students are invited to participate in the fun, competitive Themaid Table Tennis League. The league will run during Secondary break and lunch and will consist of a ladder tournament format. Students can sign up at any time to join the league. When joining the league, players will be added to the bottom of the ladder and will need to work their way up the table to achieve Table Tennis glory. Speaking to Mr. Sutton, an avid table tennis player, he stated:

“Table Tennis is a great sport. The skill involved in the game is astounding. I can’t wait to see the table tennis talent here at Themaid.”

For more information on the league, including rules and set up please see Mr. Sutton.

This week we have Drop in for Coffee for Themaid parents. We hope to see as many of you as possible for an informal meet up and chat. It’s a great way to get to know other parents and find out about life in Qatar. The meeting is on Wednesday, 6 November at 7.30am.

Our Student Voice group are raising awareness of animal welfare this week by organizing a ‘Mufti Day’/ Non-Uniform Day to collect food and cleaning items for the QAWS animal shelter. QAWS rescues abandoned and injured animals and tries to rehome them. It is a charity, so they rely on support from the community. Please donate to this worthy cause.

Last week, Student Voice led an assembly in Primary about Good Manners. It is important that all students have good manners and show respect to others. Teachers will be working with the children in the coming weeks to reinforce the message and make sure that Themaid campus has respectful and well-mannered students.

Fortunately, many of our students already have good manners and they were recognized during assembly where they were presented with a certificate.

Ms Sutton, our Early Years and Milepost 1 Leader, announced the STEAM Photographers of the Year competition. The theme is ‘The Beauty of Science, which links to our Massachusetts Institute of Technology STEAM programme in school. Students should consider different science themes: Condensation, Gravity, Absorption, Light and reflection, living things and materials and how they can capture this visually. We are excited to see the entries.

On Thursday we will welcome Raphael Peacock, from The Juilliard School to Themaid campus. He is an award-winning actor, director and fight choreographer. His work has included cultural exchanges for the United States State Department: England, Jamaica, Barbados and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. His current teaching includes: Lincoln Center Theater and The Atlantic Theater Company and selected credits include: Proud, Brother to Brother, All My Children, New York Theater Workshop, Huntington Theater Company and Utah Shakespeare Festival.

He has trained in London Shakespeare Studio and American Conservatory Theater where he was a Fellow and taught in the Young Conservatory. We look forward to welcoming Mr Peacock to our school.

You can learn more about our unique collaboration with The Julliard School here. 

Have a great week.

Kind regards,

Mrs Djedid

Head of Campus, Themaid