'End of Year' Virtual Celebration

'End of Year' Virtual Celebration The morning of Friday the 26th of June 2020 will also live long in the memory of all members of our school community as it was our first ever Virtual End of Year Celebration.

Traditionally, the last Friday of term before our summer holidays is the time of our Speech Day. In June 2019, our Speech Day was held at the stunning International House of Music and was an occasion that will live long in our memories of anyone who was lucky enough to be there. The morning of Friday the 26th of June 2020 will also live long in the memory of all members of our school community as it was our first ever Virtual End of Year Celebration.

Many of our community’s favourite Speech Day features were incorporated into the Virtual End of Year Celebrations that were broadcasted from our campuses from 11am. All students heard from their respective Head of Campus (Mr Storey, Mr Noack or Mr Charlton) and watched transfixed from the comforts of their own homes during the traditional highlights of the academic year videos. All students were given the opportunity to sing along with the classic Monkees song: ‘Daydream Believer’; an uplifting choice to end what has been a unique academic year.

[[\media\Daydream Believer 4 Final.mp4]]

As is the tradition at The International School of Moscow Speech Days, our Principal, Mr Keach, ended our Virtual End of Year  Celebration, reflecting on the extraordinary year that was 2019-20.

Mr Keach thanked all the students, staff and parents for their magnificent work both in ‘Bricks and Mortar’ school from August to March and in our ‘Virtual School’ from March to June.

During the rest of his speech, Mr Keach looked back on some of the highlights of the 2019-20 academic year, including our first student being accepted at ‘Oxbridge’ (Oxford and Cambridge Universities) and our Independent Schools Inspectorate inspection in October 2019 when we were judged to be ‘Outstanding’ in every single category of the inspection for the third successive time, following our successful inspections in 2013 and 2016.

Mr Keach went on to celebrate the strong links that we have formed with Nord Anglia Education, particularly singling out Global Campus as a big success in our school. Mr Keach said that, even during our lockdown, Global Campus had enabled our students to link up with students from Nord Anglia Education schools all over the world.

Mr Keach then went on to announce the special awards given to ISM students every year for work which has gone above and beyond even the exceptionally high standards that we set in our school.

This academic year, COBIS (the Council of British International Schools) honoured two of our students for their exceptional work. 6I student, Mark, was honoured by COBIS for being an outstanding student who excels in all areas of the curriculum. 13A student, Polina, was awarded a COBIS certificate for her excellent work and the considerable amount of time that she has given up to engage in fundraising campaigns that have impacted positively on communities both in Russia and abroad.

As Mr Keach’s announced the winner of The Victoria Reznik Award, the trophy was hand-delivered by Head of Rosinka Campuses, Mr Charlton, to this year’s winner, 6I’s Charlotte's house. Charlotte’s work in our school is absolutely exemplary. Amongst her many achievements, Charlotte has initiated a Virtual School Buddy Reader scheme, designed a mural for the school canteen to promote healthy eating, planned and led a Science lesson for Year Six on how to eat healthily and helps her mum with the charity garage scheme in Rosinka.

The Ivan Gromov Award was also hand-delivered by our Head of Secondary School and Head of Krylatskoe Upper Campus, Mr Storey, to this year’s very worthy winner, 10C’s Egor, just as it was being announced during Mr Keach’s speech.  Egor puts his heart and soul into every subject that he studies by working with his teachers and peers to achieve academic excellence. Egor is an extremely accomplished saxophonist, playing regularly in front of packed school audiences. As a member of our school’s Committee for Environmental Change, he worked alongside members of the School's Management Team to lead initiatives that aim to reduce carbon emissions in schools.

The penultimate and arguably most highly-anticipated part of Mr Keach’s speech was the announcement of the hotly-contested Whole School House Points Competition. This year, the competition was won by The Romans with an incredible 24,408 House points.

After that, all that there remained for Mr Keach to say to round off this most extraordinary of years was his traditional six final words:

Written by Paul Keach, ISM Principal