DCIS Newsletter September and October 2019

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Secondary School September and October Highlights from Mr Bull Mr Bull talks about a successful first half term. The first half term of any academic year is usually one of the busiest for parents, students and staff at the best of times and this year was no exception particularly when you throw in moving into a new building. I am exceptionally proud of our students and staff and the way they have settled into their new home at Dover Court. Over the half term we have listened and observed to make some subtle changes as the term has developed and we will make further changes in terms of infrastructure ready for the start of Term 1.2. We are very proud of our new facilities, and we recently held an official opening ceremony which was attended by the British High Commissioner, Kara Owen, Dr Bicky Bhangu, President of South East Asia Rolls-Royce, parents students and staff. Ayush in Year 7 who won the naming competition and designed the logo for the Red Dot Restaurant was invited to cut one of the five ribbons; he managed to do so with one clean cut, something which I did not. As you will have seen and heard about from my various other communications, we were extremely pleased with both our iGCSE and IB results this summer. It confirms that students at Dover Court achieve extremely well, and most importantly, that we take students further than they are expected to achieve. We have had a good number of trips and visits run already this term including two Duke of Edinburgh Trips, a Red Dot Museum trip, a Geography IB trip and the World Scholar’s Cup trip to Manila, where nine students made it through to the final round at Yale next month. A fantastic achievement. The STEAM challenge week was a huge success. This term’s challenge was called A Different Lens, featuring Felice Frankel and it asked students to explore communicating Art through Science. Felice Frankel is the 4 Artist in Residence at MIT. Her job is to help Scientists, Engineers and Mathematicians communicate their discoveries through the use of beautiful, compelling images. Many of these images have been used on the front cover of science publications such as Nature Magazine. I was amazed by the photographs produced. We then held a STEAM exhibition in the Cooper Hall, where a selection of the most captivating images were displayed. Despite the Singapore weather, our Secondary Sports Day was a success. We had some very close fought races, with Mr Lindsay even winning the teachers’ race. With everything accounted for, including football and indoor athletics, Newton came out overall winners with Jurong and Ubin close behind in 2nd and 3rd place respectively. A huge thanks should go to the PE team who have managed and delivered Sports Days across the whole school recently, which is no mean feat. I have had the pleasure of inviting ten students from Year 7 and ten students from Year 8 to join me for a Hot Chocolate and a brownie as part of my monthly Headteacher Reward. I was particularly taken back to hear the stories of altruism that led to most of the students being nominated by their tutors. We are hosting the other year groups, one year group each month as the year progresses. We also held our first PSHE Drop Down Day this term. Students attended a day of workshops and lessons to focus on key issues appropriate to each age group, from Looking after ourselves and each other in Year 7 to Relationships in Year 9 and Getting Ready for Exams further up the school. During the opening ceremony of the Secondary building, I gave a speech where I drew upon the similarities between what this building means to our students and what a home means to us - the sense of Belonging, Comfort, Pride and Self Fulfilment. I had certainly felt this to be true when on learning walks or talking to students this term. This became however even clearer this week, when I witnessed students from Years 10 and 12 collaborate and perform on ‘The Spot’ to staff and students across the school. The atmosphere was electric. Students were cheering, dancing, clapping and most importantly, coming together as one community to celebrate in the achievements of others. I wish you all a pleasant and restful half term and look forward to welcoming you all back on Monday 21st October. Craig Bull Head of Secondary
Dover Court International School GCSE Results 2019 Dover Court International School students received their GCSE results and we would like to take this opportunity to congratulate them on their successes. We are very proud of their achievements and we are so glad to be welcoming 24 returning and new students into our Sixth Form and onto the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. This year, over 78% of our students achieved 5 GCSEs between 4-9 (C - A**) including English and Mathematics with 21% achieving 5 or more GCSEs between grades 7-9 (A - A**). 31% of our entries for the new GCSE exams achieved a grade 7 – 9 (A - A**), this compares favourably with the average across all GCSE papers of 20.8% (source: BBC). Furthermore, two of our students achieved a full suite of 7-9 grades. In addition, some of our younger students took Maths and Language GCSEs this year. Seven students in Years 9 and 10 took Mathematics GCSE, all of whom achieved grade 9 and five students from years 9 and 10 took French and German, all achieved grade 9. Reflection on Results Understandably schools celebrate the achievement of their students on each of these days and each school will compare themselves to the UK or global average – usually very favourably, sometimes incredibly impressively. Our school is no exception – we gleefully shared photos of our students celebrating their success in iGCSE and IBDP results and promoted our UK/World-beating averages. DCIS is a more inclusive school than most and as such, the average only tells part of the story. We live in a world where increased accountability and the need for shorter snappier headlines are a juxtaposition of Mr Bull, Head of Secondary says “I am incredibly proud of the achievements of all our students and the progress they have made at DCIS. I am excited by the opportunities in life that these excellent results will offer our students giving them a very positive start in shaping their future. I would like to thank our staff and parents for their continued support of our young people, it is an important partnership that makes a huge difference to the value our school adds to our students’ education which, this year was almost half a grade better progress than where students were expected to get to. I am also delighted to be welcoming so many of our Year 11 students back into Year 12 this year as our IBDP Sixth Form continues to grow” Attainment is only one measure of how our students have performed and we are proud that our school has supported students on average to achieve almost half of a grade better progress than they were expected to achieve. This year’s results are testament to the resilience and determination of our talented students and staff and the support of our parent body. We will, as always, look to build on this success and strive to provide the first class education our students deserve. Dover Court is not a selective school, we welcome students of all academic abilities and it’s because we offer support for many different academic, social and emotional needs that our student population is incredibly diverse. Our school community reflects the wider global community and everyone benefits from this. We are a truly comprehensive school for all talents which is founded on the belief that all students are good at something, and in which all gifts, abilities, aptitudes, attainments and achievements should be recognised. Accepting students of all abilities does not mean we are any less ambitious for every single learner. This year we have seen students graduate with more than 40 points in the IBDP programme and gain entry to the world’s top universities but we will also support students for whom success will be marked by acquiring the skills and qualifications to allow them to secure productive and fulfilling jobs and subsequently leading independent lives. Over the past few weeks we have seen schools and school membership organisations celebrate some astounding results in (i)GCSE, at A Level and in the IB Diploma programme. priorities that don’t lend themselves to getting to the underlying story. Attainment is only one measure of how our students have performed and we are equally proud that our students on average achieved almost half of a grade better than expected. As an example, on results day last year we celebrated record averages for the school and on the very same day our student Annie came up to me to tell me, in equally excited fashion, that she had been accepted at catering college. Annie had been a student at the school for 7 years, in our SEN pathway and this was a tremendous achievement. There are no simple statistics to share the successes in this pathway, each child is following a very unique path. We can and do tell the individual stories, but my fear is that they don’t get the headlines the iGCSE A*/A or 4+ or IBDP average point scores get, as they are more difficult to understand and simply take longer to read and comprehend. This, for me, is a real dilemma – education isn’t all about numbers, it is about stories. I don’t know the solution yet, but it is something that we have on our agenda at DCIS. How we celebrate every students’ success and make them understandable, so we remain accountable not only for some but accountable for every one of our cohort. Christopher Short Principal 5
Page 1 and 2: DCIS Newsletter September / October
Page 3: Primary School September and Octobe
Page 7 and 8: DCIS Year 8 Headteacher Reward Mr B

DCIS Newsletter September and October 2019

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