Our Principal Christopher Short wishes all our families a wonderful Chinese New Year.
Our Principal Christopher Short wishes all our families a wonderful Chinese New Year.
Dear DCIS Parents,
As we have tied our Half Term break to Chinese New Year this year we have had a short but packed first half of Term 2. We have adjusted this for next year.
Having said that, it seems a long time since we welcomed 70 new children to the Dover Court family at the start of January. It is amazing to see how well they all seem to have settled into life at DCIS. It was wonderful to welcome our new parents to the DCIS Café in the first week of term where they had the opportunity to meet our senior staff as well as the DCA. I would also like to mention the Parent Support Network that continues to grow and I am grateful to the parents who have developed this over the last 18 months. The Parent Support Network is a network for parents of children with any additional needs, they meet once a month in the DCIS café and welcome both parents from DCIS and other schools, their next meeting is 11th February at 8.45am, should anyone be interested to join.
The term started full on for our students in Years 10 and 11 with the iGCSE mock exams. These exams serve as an important preparation for the real exams in May and June.
The most visible event so far this term has been the start of construction of the new Secondary building. Mr. Bull and his team are working hard to design the new learning spaces in the new building and we can’t wait to showing it to you in August. I haven’t mentioned the crossing for a while, I’m pleased to say that all the elements are now in place and we hope that construction will begin imminently. For those of you who have followed this for the last few years you will know we are really looking forward to having a safe crossing on Dover Road in place.
We welcomed our new caterer Victus to Dover Court for the start of Term 2. I have received a lot of positive feedback from both students, parents and staff. Should you have any questions, concerns or suggestions, please contact Victus at catering@dovercourt.edu.sg or our catering coordinator Sandra at sandra.carlsson@dovercourt.edu.sg, they are more than happy to assist you.
Years 1 and 2 have had their swimming galas this term, the PE department did a wonderful job and we are very grateful to all parents that came along to cheer on our little swimmers. Year 4 have had their residential trip to Malaysia. The Year 4 trip to Kota Rainforest in Malaysia is the first international trip in our trip and expedition programme, that starts with the Year 3 night at Singapore Zoo, and it is a fantastic opportunity for children to develop a wide variety of skills, including self-sufficiency. These skills are built on each year until our students are ready for the NAE expeditions to Tanzania or Switzerland in Secondary School, and/or they participate in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme. As part of our FOBISIA collaboration we sent a team of four Year 6 students to Brunei for the FOBISIA Primary Maths Challenge last week. The team did amazingly well and the students served as fantastic ambassadors for our school together with Ms Prince and Ms Cox.
During January Violinist and Juilliard curriculum specialist Jessica Meyer visited us over two days. Ms Meyer joined our music lessons, led an assembly performance for our Year 4 students and conducted a much appreciated master-class with our advanced violin students. Two very inspiring days!
The rehearsals for the Secondary production of Arabian Nights have commenced. Ms Hooper has a fantastic cast and the students are already working hard on learning their lines. The play will premiere in Term 3.
Our Mandarin department certainly got us in a festive mood with the Primary School Temple Fair this week complete with Lion Dancers. The DCA have also done a fantastic job decorating our campus, we will all miss being greeted by happy pigs every morning next half term. I hope all families have a wonderful Chinese New Year and I am looking forward to welcoming you all back to an exciting second half of Term 2.
Christopher Short
Principal
