End of Year News and Highlights
from the Principal
My reflections on the events and achievements this busy academic year
Dear DCIS Parents and Guardians ,
I am so thrilled to be writing an end of year letter to you after what has been such a busy and successful year . As I have said before , I was made to feel very welcome from the very beginning and it has been a pleasure to get to know students , parents and staff over the last 12 months . We have a remarkable school and I hope you enjoyed your copy of our DCIS Yearbook to remind you of all the marvellous activities through the year . There are still copies of the UN Day Recipe Book available in School Reception , if you would like to stop by and collect one .
I would particularly like to thank the DCA for their invaluable work for the DCIS community . The academic staff were delighted to be surprised on Monday afternoon by the DCA Appreciation Tea . The rapturous welcome by the children , the wonderful messages - and , of course , the lovely tea and cakes - put a smile on everyone ’ s face . The events through the year and general support from the Committee and volunteers have been tremendous . I am especially grateful to our outgoing DCA Chair , Zoe Hancock for her sterling work over the last 2 years in building the DCA into the organisation we have today .
As I mentioned in my introduction to the DCIS Yearbook , I am very proud that we finish our 45th year with three external validations of the great work our students and teachers do every day . FOBISIA , CIS and the IB also give an opportunity for expanded opportunities across the region and further afield . Our students will be involved next year in competitions against schools across the region and our staff have already benefitted from training opportunities here in Singapore and elsewhere . We look forward to launching our first IB Diploma Programme cohort in August . Another organisation with which we cemented our relationship this year is the Singapore National Youth Achievement Award . This is the Singapore equivalent of the Duke of Edinburgh ’ s Award scheme run in the UK and the DoE International Award run in many other countries . We ran our first Bronze Awards , including a very successful visit to Pulau Ubin for the “ adventurous journey ”. This involved a long hike of 2 days and camping . We also launched and ran expeditions from Year 3 – 11 to locations as diverse as Dover Court International School ( Year 3 sleepover !) and various countries around the region , including Cambodia and Myanmar . These expeditions increase in their challenge and complexity ; culminating in the NYAA Gold Award .
Our involvement in Nord Anglia Global Campus activities has also gone from strength to strength . We have had a number of visitors from Julliard through the year to help augment our music programme with masterclasses to supplement to work children do in their regular lessons around iconic works . We have run three performing arts festivals this year and this will be expanded with the use of external professional venues .
One of our students , Harry in Year 3 , won the global prize for our Art competition and his work will be featured on the front cover of our annual anthology of art and writing distributed across all 45 schools . We have also run successful expeditions to Switzerland and Tanzania , students came back with amazing stories and memories .
Two special trips this year include 4 pioneering students going to MIT in Boston to complete a week of STEAM ( Science , Technology , Engineering , Art and Mathematics ) challenges at one of the top ranked universities in the world . Two of our teachers followed up with a trip back to MIT two weeks ago where they trained for the STEAM challenges we will run in school as part of our ongoing collaboration
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