Message from the Principal

Welcome to this week’s Newsletter!

Next week, we will be visited by a team of three accreditors from the Council of International Schools. As I am sure you are aware, we already have the full accreditation from CIS. This visit marks the mid-point in the ongoing cycle of quality assurance required to remain as an accredited institution. The team will spend four days in school, visiting a few lessons and working with groups of staff in relation to our conformity to the CIS Core Membership Standards. They will review progress since their last visit and work with the senior team to ensure we are ready to complete the next part of the accreditation process, the Self Study phase over the next two years.

The senior team have been busy preparing and submitting narratives, commentary and evidence with regards to a number of areas of school life over the last five months. We are really looking forward to showing them all that we do, meeting our wonderful community and working with them to agree on areas for future development.

Within six weeks of the visit, I receive some recommendations from CID based on their visit. I will share these outcomes with you once they are received.

Please note that the visit may impact on the senior team’s ability to respond to any non-urgent matters next week as we will be with the team throughout Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Thank you for your patience if this does affect you!

Wednesday morning saw the first Meet SLT of this academic year. Thank you to all the parents who were able to attend. My presentation focused on updates since our last meeting in May, including a summary of the maintenance and refurbishment work and a section dedicated to what improvements and changes have been made as a result of last year’s meetings. As usual, we finished with some lively debate about questions and suggestions from our parent group. When I sat down to put together the presentation, it struck me just how many of the ideas put forward last year have now been actioned, including the introduction of a psychologist in Primary and several new sports teams (more of which can be found in other sections of the Newsletter). As Principal, this was really pleasing but also, as a parent myself, it is always nice for your voice to be heard and recognised within the school. The presentation will be passed to class reps, so if you missed it and would like a copy, please do get in touch with them or any of my senior team. All our emails are on the school website.

One event, fast approaching, is our annual International Day. This is always a colourful and enjoyable day for the children at Britannica and an excellent way to end the first half-term. Arrangements within school are well underway with primary starting to prepare their class performances and secondary preparing presentation’s, activities and even food and drink linked to their form’s chosen country. One of the highlights of the event is always the International Food Hall which takes place in the gym at lunchtime, between 11.30 and 1.45. We are now looking for parent volunteers to represent their country or region at the event. More details and a sign up link can be found below this message on our webpage. Please do get involved if you can. A full schedule will follow in a second communication two weeks prior to the event.

Have a great weekend

Kind regards

Neil McGarry

Principal