March 2017

From Mrs Hawtree: Principal
Dear Parents, Students and Friends of GIS,
Some months it is very easy for me to pick out one or two highlights, but March has been a whole month
of highlights! We started with International Week, ably co-ordinated by Ms Clifton, which saw students
undertaking activities each day to further develop their understanding of the global environment in which
we all live. This culminated in International Day on the Saturday, when family and friends joined us for an
extravaganza of anthems, costumes, music, dancing and all sorts of delicious food. A great way to crown
a wonderful week, and huge thanks to the Friends of Garden for co-ordinating the international food feast!
The following week saw evening events for both Primary and Secondary. On the Tuesday evening the
Secondary students in Years 9 and 11, and their parents, came along to the IGCSE and IB information
evening led by Mr Stokes, Mr Share and Mr Beales. This was a very informative and exceptionally well
attended event, and students and their parents were provided with lots of information with which to start
making some important decisions. We have revamped our IGCSE options process this year, with a view
to a) ensuring that we provide clear pathways for students through from IGCSE to IB, and b) to try and
accommodate as many preferred combinations as possible. Of course, we cannot accommodate every
single combination of subjects (as anyone who understands factorial numbers in Mathematics will know!),
but we feel we have created option blocks which achieve, as far as possible, both the aims stated above.
On the Wednesday evening, Primary parents met with teachers to review their children’s progress and to
discuss strategies for supporting students to reach the next level of their learning. As we so often say,
education is a 3-way partnership – student, home and school – and when all three are working together
effectively, the synergy that this produces can inspire amazing results.
Also on the Wednesday we had a special guest, Paralympian Andy Barrow, in school. He enthralled
students in Years 4 – 9 during an assembly where he discussed his accident and its aftermath with great
candour, and inspired our students by showing just what can be achieved through determination and hard
work, even when faced with great adversity. Andy was also the guest speaker that evening at our
welcome dinner for the U13 FOBISIA participants, with students flying in from 6 schools around Asia:
Kathmandu, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City as well as from Bangkok - to compete in this tournament.
The tournament lasted 3 days, the first day being the athletics and swimming, with the remaining two days
taken up with football and basketball. Our GIS teams acquitted themselves very well, with some students
taking home a haul of as many as 9 medals! We also won some team awards, claiming 3 rd place in both
the swimming and the athletics. With such a small and relatively inexperienced squad, these results are
testament to the hard work of the coaches and the grit that these students showed over the 3 days. A
huge thank you goes to Ms Longstaffe who oversaw the logistics of this whole event, and to Mr Carr, who
assisted her throughout. Thank you again to the Friends of Garden for providing refreshments and for
looking after the parents who accompanied students from visiting schools. Feedback from all the visiting
schools was extremely positive, and we should be very proud of the quality of the event that we hosted.
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