Newsletter - 17/03/08
Dear Parents,
We have had a short, but very productive and happy term. New staff to the school have made a fantastic impression and we have enjoyed receiving numerous emails from happy parents commenting on the positive changes. We appreciate all the feedback we get from you, and where you have concerns, we try very hard to address these quickly and helpfully.
The last few weeks of term have been particularly busy, finishing off with an exciting series of trips arranged around Science Week. I know the science staff have been very excited at the thought of sharing their love of the subject with as many people as they can! I am sure your children have been coming home talking a lot about some of their discoveries. Trips to the Tutankhamun Exhibition and Science Museum also rate as very memorable experiences for the children.
This term has also seen some great academic achievements. Particularly notable are more excellent IGCSE results for two of our students, with yet another A* in one of our languages! We were also very impressed by the quality of entries for the Short Story Competition judged on World Book Day. Many of the stories were absolutely fascinating and it was a pleasure to see the effort put in. The standard achieved by the prize winners was really wonderful, and I am pleased to announce that their entries will be available for you to read on our website shortly. Ben Cameron was awarded 1st Prize, Jorinde van de Scheur, 2nd and Erin Ko, 3rd. Well Done to these particularly impressive winners and to all entrants.
Equally pleasing were the results of the National Intermediate Maths Challenge. Bronze certificates were awarded to the following children, Marcos Ryhanen, Peter Deininger, Ivan Causey, Ruairidh Grass and Zainab Al Dawood and a truly impressive Silver and Best in School to Hanna Ishikawa. As I write, Jorinde van de Scheur, Eunji Kim, Emil Sorensen and James Dye are representing the School in the Group Regional Maths Challenge. On a slightly less cerebral note, but marking the excellent creativity of many of our pupils, congratulations to all those who entered our Easter Egg Competition. We were dazzled by the imagination and skill shown by our entrants. Winners to be announced on the last day of term! I am glad I am not a judge for this as it is going to be extremely difficult to choose the prize winners. Come and see for yourself!
The steady progress made in creating a new school has been helped by the enthusiasm and practical help of many parents. Thankyou to the hardy volunteers who spent a Sunday morning painting beautiful designs on the playground. We have not finished this task but it already looks a great deal better. The playground continues to be a target for improvement for us next term. We have purchased a significant number of new playground toys, most of which will be put into use at the start of the new term.
A particular achievement this term has been the improvement in our Libraries for the children. The Upper School Library under the care of our new English Teacher Mrs Parsons is undergoing transformation and receiving considerable care and attention to good effect. Children have set Library times and are encouraged to read widely from the newly organised and attractive stock. The complete creation and organisation of the Junior School Library is entirely down to the dedication and expertise of Mrs Colette Austin who has devoted hours of time to creating a library for the Juniors from absolutely nothing. We are absolutely delighted by this and it has been lovely to watch children gravitate towards the Library and to start borrowing and avidly reading from our new collection.
Thankyou to all parents who help on trips, offer practical help and support us so enthusiastically in developing our School.
All parents will be receiving a report on their child’s progress this term. This takes the place of the Parents Evening held in Michaelmas Term. Infant reports are fairly short and succinct, the detailed report is to be issued at the end of the School Year. All pupils will receive a further report at the end of the year. We do encourage you to use the page at the back to fill in your comments as we find this a useful form of feedback.
One very interesting form of official feedback came in the shape of OFSTED two weeks ago. In line with their short notice, we received a phone call on Monday March 3rd informing us that we would be inspected on Wednesday and Thursday March 5th and 6th. We supplied the inspection team with over 100 regulatory documents and policies and crossed our fingers!
We received informal feedback at the end of the inspection and have also had a draft copy of the Report. When this has been through its verification procedure, we are obliged to distribute a paper copy to all parents. Until that time, we are not allowed to quote from the Report. However, we are allowed to give you an idea of their findings. I am sure you have heard from the children how pleased we were, and in particular how delighted we were with the comments from the Inspectors about their behaviour and attitude.
There are six main categories reported on and findings can range from Inadequate, Satisfactory, Good and Outstanding. You can imagine our delight when our School was awarded one Satisfactory (for our emerging but pleasing curriculum, still in an early phase of development), two categories relating to teaching and learning received Good with the comment that several lessons observed were Outstanding and three categories including Health and Safety, Behaviour and Social, Moral and Cultural Development all received the highest possible (and rarely awarded) Outstanding.
We are so proud of our School, our staff and our pupils and I am sure you are too. For a school which is so new, and which has grown so quickly and also moved location, this is an unimaginably good report and we are really overjoyed by these findings. We were also touched by the many parents who, we are told, reported to OFSTED so positively in the questionnaires. Thanks too to all those who reassured us that we had absolutely nothing to worry about and that any Inspector would recognise how lovely the School is.
So, thankyou, parents, staff and children for making this school. We are still young (well, the School is anyway!) at only 18 months old. It is a great place to be and although there is a lot of hard work to be done, this is accompanied by great joy that we are surrounded by happy and achieving children.
While I very much hope that no pupils are leaving us in the summer, other than those returning to their home country, can I request that if anyone has plans to move on, please let us know as soon as possible as we now have a considerable waiting list in several age groups and want to be clear in our offers to prospective parents.
Have a wonderful Easter break and get ready for a fun filled summer of exams, trips, swimming and lots and lots of studying.
Yours sincerely,
Harriet Sturdy
Principal
Cambridge International School
(also known as the three outstandings from OFSTED school!)
