Message From the Principal

This year’s House Day theme was about celebrating our humanity and diversity. When we create opportunities for connections through activities like House Day, we recognise and celebrate that working together and utilising each other’s skills and talents allows for success, change and positive outcomes.  

Moments like yesterday remind me of how important it is for schools to facilitate opportunities for collaboration, whilst also preparing children for a future world where the market place, university space and the learning environments will be greatly different from the ones we know or remember ourselves.  Our job in education is to design schooling platforms that are personalised, adaptive, creative and dynamic; platforms that enhance our children’s skill sets to prepare for an ever-changing world. 

With this in mind, we as a school have decided to re-explore our school Mission and Vision; what we want BIS Abu Dhabi to be for young people and how we can prepare them for the future, whilst challenging ourselves as educators to evolve.  To do this successfully we have to be committed to listening, to collaborating and embracing change.   

In this week’s newsletter I have included a link here to a questionnaire that poses two short questions that encourage you to reflect on our school, the place we all share and care about deeply, a space in which we are shaping young hearts and minds.  I encourage us all to reflect on how we adapt, to ensure our school is truly educating our children for a new tomorrow one that will look very different to the settings we knew. 

Our staff and students will also be contributing their thoughts and ideas, allowing us to create a shared mission that will place BIS Abu Dhabi as a leading education setting in which we create our advocates and leaders of change. 

You will see below I have included a video developed by UNESCO that challenges us all to reflect on education as well as the qualities, attributes and values we wish to instil within young people now and in the future.  I hope this can act as a stimulus for you to consider in your responses when you reflect on the current mission and vision of BIS Abu Dhabi.   

The survey will close on Friday, 4th November and we look forward to receiving your reflections.  

Have a great weekend!  

 
Liam Cullinan 
Principal