Welcome Back ‘08
Dear Parents,
It is a pleasure to see all our students back again, happy and smiling. We are delighted to welcome six new students to the school.. I hope very much that our new pupils will settle in as quickly as all our children have and know all the ropes by the end of the week! We do have some spaces in our Caspian class, (Reception class) Adriatic (Year 5) and Tyrennhian class (Year 8/9) which we would like to fill. If you have any friends who may be interested in finding out more about our extremely popular school, do please ask them to get in touch with us. We now operate a waiting list for three of our classes, which is excellent given that we are still very young!
I am also delighted to welcome three new staff members, Mrs Louise Mieszkian, (Head of Junior School and Arabian Form Teacher) Mrs Ruth Parsons, Upper School English Teacher and Mrs Paula Elliott. All three have spoken very warmly of the pupils so far and we are very happy to have such experienced teachers on board. All three teachers will be pleased to meet any parents if there are any specific queries they can help you with.
Cambridge International Parents Association
I would like to repeat my thanks to CIPA for their highly effective fundraising achieved by the organisation of many excellent social events. The first result of your generosity is to be seen in the new flat screen being mounted in the entrance hall next week. General information will be up on this screen as well as a rolling programme of past and recent photographs of CIS in action. We would be unable to have this without CIPA, and we are very grateful indeed. New members are actively being sought for our Parents Association: the more help and enthusiasm we have, the greater the benefits to all. CIPA provides a warm welcome to new parents and it is a very good way to meet and get to know other parents. The Christmas Fair was a wonderful event, touched with such good humour and friendliness. It was extremely well organised, extremely well attended, and full of lots of very tasty chocolate, be it given out by Father Christmas in his grotto, or at the most popular stall, the Chocolate Tombola! Thankyou to all parents for their support at this event.
Healthy Eating Schools Initiative
Moving swiftly on from chocolate, Mrs Spies will shortly be sending out some information to support our push to promote healthy eating. I am assured that staff are keen to participate in this, so feel free to question us if we walk round with doughnuts in our hands! We do intend to modify our restaurant programme this term, in part because it seems we are not achieving our original aim which is to introduce our pupils to a range of foods from different cultures. We have therefore arranged for some of our meals out, to be meals in, from suppliers of Indian, Chinese, Greek foods etc. If your child does not like the food on offer, there will always be an alternative. Restaurant meals will still take place, but not each week, to facilitate this new initiative. We are also looking closely at the nutritional merits of the meals delivered daily to school and amending where necessary so that children are sure to have a wide variety of healthy foods for lunch. Thankyou to the band of willing volunteers who come in and serve lunch and clear up so valiantly every day. This is hugely appreciated by the school. If any other parents have time to help one day a week, we would be delighted to hear from you.
Christmas Productions
I am sure you were as proud as I was watching the Christmas school productions. The children performed brilliantly and both shows were extremely enjoyable. The DVD of Alice the Musical is now available for you to buy. Please send in a cheque or cash for £8.00 and we will send the DVD home this week. We will let you know when the Snowman is ready. Photographs of both performances are available for you to view and print off from the following website. URL: http://cambridgeinternationalschool.myphotoalbum.com
Username: cambridgeinternationalschool Password: cis2007. We were unable to print off the ones ordered at the Christmas bazaar and hope this alternative will be better. Do let me know if you have any difficulties accessing the site.
Tracksuits
The new navy blue tracksuits have arrived in school. They look very smart and have the school crest on them. I hope children will be proud to wear them. Please note that if you have recently bought a suitable tracksuit we do not expect you to buy a new one until your child has grown out of their current one. If you do wish to buy a new one, please let us know. They cost £30 and are available at school. The new school tie and blazer badge for the Upper School will be in stock shortly. These will be optional, as we know many of our international pupils are not used to wearing uniform at all, and we remain happy as long as all Upper School students honour our dress code.
Reading and ICT
Well Done to all children who participated in our Sponsored Read. We raised the very impressive sum of £650 and because we reached our target, Usborne books top this up so that we have over £1000 spend on new reference and fiction books. We are keen to build up our International fiction section and would ask parents if they might kindly donate a fiction book from their home country, if they have any spare. We have moved our Junior Library into the main entrance hall to try to increase the prominence of books to this age group. We will have formal Library sessions where greater reading will be encouraged for all students. The Upper School Library remains where it was and is also home to six new PC computers, to complement our laptops which are in high demand. We are restricting the time pupils spend on computers during break and lunch and have two ICT lunchtime clubs, one for Juniors and one for Upper School, which will be supervised by me. We are keen to ensure all pupils get some fresh air at break and lunch and so we need to lure them away from the enticements of technology some of the time!
Ski and Snowboarding Trip (March)
As mentioned in a previous letter, we are considering running a ski and snowboarding trip this term. If we have enough interest, we propose to take a group of students at the end of this Easter Term. The cost is expected to be approximately £800 and this will include flights, ski passes and accommodation and all food. The trip is open to pupils aged 10 or over. Mr and Mrs Young, Mrs Spies and Mr Sturdy will accompany the school on the trip, so your children will be in very safe hands. Because the cost is quite high, we cannot run the trip with fewer than 20 students as the cost per student increases considerably. Please email me by January 18th if you are interested in your child coming. We will then make the decision whether to go ahead and let you know by Monday 21st. Payment will be made in three instalments commencing this month.
Please find enclosed a copy of this term’s school calendar. This provides the broad overview of all events booked this term. If any wonderful opportunities arise during the term that we feel our pupils would benefit from then parents will be notified.
I do hope your child has a happy and productive term. We feel very well settled now in our new school and delight in embracing new initiatives as well as continuing to work at consolidating all we have established so far. It remains for me to thank you most warmly for your continued and very vocal support of the school. This means such a lot to us all, and we thank you for taking your time to feedback to us on a wide range of issues. This feedback is essential to us and we are very receptive to any comments you may have, so do please keep in close touch with us. We look forward to seeing you during the term.
With kind regards
Harriet Sturdy (Dr)
Principal
Cambridge International School
