From the Director

What I am excited about this week…
 
Fame, Jr.! Please come out to see this year’s Secondary School Production, Fame Jr. The students have been working very hard for many weeks to create a fun theatrical production based on that old favorite, Fame. Performances will be held on 15 & 16 November at 19:00 and 17 November at 14:00 in the Tiyende Pamodzi Theater. Tickets are K50 and are available in advance at the waiting huts at drop-off and pick-up or at the door.
 
Parent Information Session: Digital Citizenship, Social Media, & Internet Safety! Please join us next Tuesday, 20 November from 07:30-08:30 in the Protea Room for an informal discussion about digital citizenship, social media, and internet use. We will use this time to explore parent questions around these topics and will share how we educate our students in proactive, balanced, ethical use of these platforms. If you are planning to attend, please take no more than a minute to provide us with a bit of feedback about topics you'd like more information on by filling out this short survey. It will help guide our planning for this session.
 
Parking stickers! If you still have a yellow “P-Temp” temporary parking sticker, please report to the Primary or Secondary office (depending on which school your youngest child attends) to collect your permanent sticker. After 15 November, no yellow “P-Temp” stickers will be allowed through the gate. I appreciate your patience as we continue to tighten our access control procedures in the interest of student safety.
 
Thanksgiving! The upcoming American Thanksgiving holiday is my favorite holiday of the year. The focus of the day is to share a meal with family and friends and to pause and be grateful for all that we have. No commercialism, no materialism, just gratitude and the company of loved ones. Who could ask for more? Whether you are American or not, I hope you take a few moments over the long weekend (or every day, for that matter) to take stock of all that you have to be thankful for. Better still, take some time to make sure that the special people in your life know that you are grateful that they are there. As a special treat, the Tuck Shop will be serving a Thanksgiving-themed hot lunch option on Wednesday, 21 November. Happy Thanksgiving!
 
Academic Calendar for 2019-2020! The board has approved our 2019-20 academic calendar. It is attached to this newsletter so that you can begin planning for next year. As usual our calendar reflects the following priorities:

• 180 student days - starting in August and ending as early in June as possible. The reason for the early June finish is to have as few school days as possible AFTER the Grade 12 students have started their IB exams so that they can benefit from as many academic days as possible beforehand.
• Equal semesters – we try to end our semesters before the December/January school holiday. We want those semesters to be as similar in length as possible.
• Respect for Zambian national holidays
• Four-week holiday in December and January
• One-week holidays in October and March/April