Message from the Principal

The International award is a rewarding experience where the focus is on individual challenge as opposed to winning, it is a space where our students must demonstrate commitment, dedication and resilience to achieve success. I so wished to be in the students shoes as I watched them depart and found myself reflecting on my own childhood and on some of the opportunities I was given because individuals gave up their time to support my ambitions, hobbies and dreams.  
 
I mention the commitment of staff and colleagues as a key component to support young people’s life experiences, as I have been blown away by the dedication I have seen from the community at BIS Abu Dhabi for ensuring our students have a balanced school experience. The academics are truly important, and all schools must ensure they offer a curriculum and pathways that maximise students’ success, however, it is the elements around the academic piece that prepare our young people for the challenges beyond our gates. 

November has been a busy month with a range of events both in and outside of school.  We have had great success on the sports pitches and in the pool for both our Primary and Secondary teams, a fantastic triathlon, House Day, Kindness Day, Flag Day, Remembrance Day and next week we look forward to Tanzania week.  All of this in addition to our students sitting exams and experiencing enriching learning experiences.  We sometimes take for granted the work our staff do, but a truly child-centred practitioner always finds a way to make it happen and I am surrounded by many of those colleagues here at BIS Abu Dhabi.
 
As a school, we have made a commitment to offer a full programme out of school hours that supports our students’ interests, talents, and hobbies. Our CCA programme is one vehicle for that, Mr. Baker and the team are working tirelessly to develop and grow our CCA offering, and it is a measure of their success that 70% of our children took part in CCA activities this year.  On top of this, families who came to our first coffee morning will have heard me commit to opening our site for weekends, holidays and after school hours. This promise is now coming to fruition as I announce our partnership with ‘Infinite’ who will lead this community programme. Infinite will offer a range of programmes dedicated to the needs of our students and they are happy to explore developing any bespoke initiatives that families or the community would like to discover. They officially start with us in January, below is the statement we received from ‘Infinite’ when we confirmed the success of their tender:
 
"Infinite Sports is happy to be selected as the official Sporting and Enrichment Partner for The British International School Abu Dhabi. We believe that Sports and Enrichment activities hold infinite opportunities for young minds to improve, empower and enhance their lives. These are our core beliefs and we are not just proud of what we do, we are passionate about it!
 
We are working closely with the school to make sure that Sports and Enrichment activities are readily available to all young people within the community. This platform will help bring the community together to enjoy these amazing activities and programmes."
 
Please look out for more announcements from Infinite and if you are interested in offering programmes through them, please let Mr. Baker know. This partnership will also support and enhance our CCA and curriculum offer with opportunities for real breadth and depth.
 
This is the first of many new partnerships I hope we can explore that will add to the BIS Abu Dhabi experience.  Our exciting calendar continues as we prepare for our National Day events on November 29th that will once again allow us to come together as a community.  As we come toward the end of term and indeed the end of 2022 let us embrace all these opportunities and touch points that allow us to celebrate the connections we all share.
 
For those of you who will be at F1 this weekend, I am sure you will have an amazing time and I look forward to hearing the stories from our students. 

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