From the Director

What I am excited about this week…
 
A smooth start! The new school year got off to a great start yesterday. We welcomed nearly eighty new students and eight new teachers to the AISL community. It was fun to walk around the school and see the excitement that teachers, teaching assistants, admin staff, support staff, parents, AND students all brought to the day. The school was abuzz as everyone caught up with old friends and made new ones. It is a joy to be a part of such a warm and caring community.

Construction progress! The current phase (Phase 1B) of our campus improvement program is proceeding well. This phase includes a renovation of our Primary School spaces and a change to the way traffic flows through campus. It is scheduled to be completed in January. When it is finished, our school will have much more comfortable and inviting learning spaces, improved safety and security, and more parking. In the meantime, the leadership team has worked hard to ensure that the construction will not have a significant impact on our Primary School program.  The temporary classrooms for Grades 3-5 are proving to be great spaces for teaching and learning. Please also note the following temporary locations:

• Library and Discovery Center: Palm Pavilion
• Business Office: Protea Room
• Director’s Office: Palm Pavilion
• Admissions Office: Palm Pavilion
• Transport and Health & Safety Offices: adjacent to the nurse’s station

​
Open Day/Open House events! A great way to learn about our programs is to attend our upcoming Primary School Open Day and Secondary School Open House. The Primary School event will be held during the day on 4 September. The Secondary event will take place next week on 15 August starting at 17:00 in the Tiyende Pamodzi Theater. 

Tuesday Morning Information Sessions! AISL is a very large organization with a lot of moving parts. The scale of our programs can be confusing to new – and even returning – parents. To help everyone get a better understanding of what we do, we host a weekly information session on some aspect of our programs all throughout the year. These sessions take place every Tuesday morning at 07:30. Although these are often targeted toward parents of students in certain grades, anyone is welcome to attend. Please get into the habit of coming by to have a coffee or tea and to learn something new about your school. We post the topics every week in the Leopard’s Tale. Here are our first two presentations:

• 13 August: The University Application Process for parents of Grade 12 students (note: this starts at 07:45) in the Palm Pavilion
• 20 August: Introduction to the IB Primary Years Programme (PYP) for parents of Primary School students at 07:30 in the Palm Pavilion.

 
PTA Coffee Morning on 16 August! Please come enjoy some coffee, tea, and snacks and learn more about the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) on Friday, 16 August at 07:30 at the Palm Pavilion.