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| 14 May 08 (21:21 EAT) |
| 18 December 2007 Dear Parents: We have now almost reached the end of the first term of the school year. Everyone is exhausted and has earned a well deserved break. Of course, our D2 and IGCSE students know that with the mock exams coming up quickly and they will need to balance their holiday with some study. We encourage these students to keep working through the holiday so they are in a good position when they return in January. The recent sports weekend was a great success with teams from Dar and Kampala joining in the festival. I appreciate all the parents who were able to come out and support the students and their coaches. I want to thank Ben Wiggins for organizing the festival and all the teachers who supervised, coached or encouraged. I know most of our students slept very well on Sunday night. Our cross campus Curriculum Committee has been busy this term looking at the horizontal and vertical alignment of the curriculum among many other things including language policy, academic induction programme for new teachers, cross-campus planning, reporting systems and handbooks, and an ISM research guide. We mailed away our Year-one PYP progress reports to the IBO and our MYP team is on track to do likewise for the MYP progress report in Term 3. As usual, it has been a very busy term for our excellent teaching staff. This time of year is also when contracts are re-issued and when teachers let us know if they plan to continue with or leave ISM. I wanted to let you know before you left on vacation what the staffing outlook is at this point and to thank our leaving ISM teachers for a job well done. The staff turnover is the lowest it has been on both campuses in several years and I am pleased so many excellent teachers have chosen to stay with ISM. For the teachers who are moving on to other adventures internationally, I want to thank them for their dedication to the children at our school and wish them well in their future endeavours. Here is a list of the leaving teachers and the subjects they teach by campus: Arusha Campus
We held our sixth strategic planning meeting last Wednesday with representatives from all of ISM’s stakeholders to discuss progress on the targets from the last quarter and planning for future targets. We have had an initial positive response to our recent marketing efforts and we are cautiously optimistic about future enrolment. While this is promising, more needs to be done with marketing ISM and our Development Office is busy pursuing a variety of initiatives to this end. I also want to thank our new Parents’ Association Committee, who have now formally met twice and have elected their officers as you will read in the PA minutes to be sent out this week. I think it may take a while for parents to get used to the new system, but it should work better in the long run for all concerned. Also, at the last Board meeting in November the Board passed a Board restructuring proposal that was endorsed by our accrediting agencies. The Board believes that these changes will allow the school to operate more efficiently and better serve all our communities. I understand that the Suzuki music program will be moving into their own premises in Arusha town from next term. I can remember when Liza Barley and some Arusha parents approached Angie Hollington and I about arranging a work visa and housing for Liza Barley to get the Suzuki program started at ISM a few years back. We were happy to provide that support along with spaces in the Music Building and the use of our accounts office at no cost. I am really pleased to see how popular the Suzuki program became in such a short time. I want to thank Liza for bringing Suzuki to ISM’s students and parents and I wish her all the best with her growing business. I was lucky enough to participate in the M3 culminating event that brought the entire M3 class together for two days and one night of camping along with several activities related to survival. Our students cooked all the meals, including those for their teachers, and impressed us all with their engineering creativity in accomplishing their group tasks. I want to thank Annette Wood, Charles Schofield and Steve Brown for organizing this adventure and Todd Richert for supervising. I also want to thank the Peterson family for allowing the students to camp in their beautiful backyard. Congratulations to all those involved with the Men at Arms dinner theatre performances last weekend at El Rancho, the driving forces behind which were Trevor Newman and Carol Dawson. Many thanks to Steve Jones and all the performers in the primary production of Christmas Chaos in Lapland. I appreciate all the parents who were able to attend these performances. I also want to thank Annette and Catriona for putting together another terrific issue of The Summit for you to share with your family and friends during the break. I wish everyone a safe and relaxing holiday. Best Regards, Barry Sutherland Chief Executive Officer | |
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