We don’t just climb mountains you know…
If you have spent any time on the school social media recently, you might be forgiven for imagining that all we do in this school is take students up mountains.
Whether it is the Duke of Edinburgh Award students climbing mountains in Fujairah, skiers whizzing down the snowy mountains of Switzerland or intrepid international travelers climbing Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the combined altitude of BIS Abu Dhabi students this term must surely be higher than Everest!
And it’s not just climbing mountains on our socials. Recent posts have included photos of sports teams wining trophies, of students putting on puppet shows, of students building Formula 1 cars and climbing Jack’s Beanstalk to find treasure at the top. If you only spent time on our social media pages, you might wonder if any ‘normal’ teaching and learning ever happens in our school!
Well, of course it does. Climbing mountains and beanstalks is the sort of enrichment that you would expect from an outstanding school and an enriched curriculum is incredibly important to a student’s development. But every school hour, of every school day, students in this school are engaged in the slightly less ‘insta-friendly’ business of learning. And boy oh boy, are they good at it.
We were privileged this week to present a group of Year 12 students – and one Year 11 student – with certificates from the GCSE Exam Boards Edexcel and Cambridge International. These students had been recognised by external examiners as having performed to a world class standard in their GCSE exams last summer. Several were awarded with certificates which recognised their excellence across a range of subjects and others received awards for their outstanding achievements in individual subjects. Year 12 student Junha received his certificate for achieving the highest mark in the world in mathematics GCSE last year.
Outstanding academic success isn’t only happening in the Secondary School though. Currently in the Primary School over 80% of our students are exceeding their age-related expectations in English and Maths compared to UK averages of about 65%. These high standards are what we have come to expect from our students who deserve a great deal of praise for their efforts – as do the teachers, whose high expectations and care in the classroom are helping the youngsters to excel.
What happens outside the classroom really matters. Decades of research have shown that students who climb mountains, play sport, sing and dance on stage, do better in school. But what happens in the classroom matters too, it really matters. And that’s where our students climb a mountain every day.
Now then, where are my crampons……
In 2014 Mrs. Lowe arrived to teach at the British International School Abu Dhabi, excited to work with the Physical Education Department to implement and embed Dance within both the curriculum and the CCA programme. Schemes of work were created for FS1 to Year 9 and all PE teachers received professional development training to understand the fundamentals of Dance, to discover the importance of Dance and how movement can be creative and powerful.
Last week, Mrs. Stanier, our Head of Humanities, had the pleasure of accompanying three of our amazing students: Tia and Renad from Year 12, and Turkan from Year 10, to Houston, Texas, to take part in the NAE UNICEF summit. We were thrilled to be hosted by one of our Nord Anglia schools, The Village School in Houston, the first Child-Friendly City in the US recognised by UNICEF. The Village School is a boarding school, so the students got to experience what life was like as a boarding student there for the week.
The British International School Abu Dhabi
